Avocados are not "same hole" trees like stone fruits. Think of them as the "SUV's of the garden", lol! Even more "compact" avocados are only relatively compact (as opposed to ginormous non-compact avocado varieties). They need their own space. A slope is ideal, as they don't like to sit in standing water, but DO need lots of water, even more than citrus. Backfilling a hole just creates a "bathtub" effect in clay soil. The current line of thinking with trees is NOT to amend the hole, but to top dress with compost and other soil amendments. With clay you would want to plant on a mound to help facilitate drainage. You're going to want to monitor your soil moisture about 18" down to make sure you're not creating a water logged environment. I would try to move the the Reed, but warning - avocados do not at all like their roots disturbed, so this very well may spell the demise of the Reed, as may also upset the Gem. Always leave their fallen leaves underneath as this is something the feeder roots like and actually require. Drip emitters are fine, just make sure they do give a good soaking, and the well should be dug out to at least the drip line (edge of the canopy) where the feeder roots reside, just make sure that you're not creating too wet an environment for them. Drip emitters come in varying gph outputs, so you can get a very large volume of water to a tree with drip emitters. I have two per avocado, and have actually had to dial them down a bit. And your trees are still pretty young to bear fruit, not to worry. It can take up to 5 years for an avocado to become established enough to bear fruit. I have a Lamb Haas that is full of fruit in it's second year with me, which was shocking. All my other avos are still barren. Who suggested to you to plant these two trees in the same hole, anyway? Patty S.

Last year I was reading a private "divorce support" blog. This was a group of ladies discussing their STRESS problems and some ways they developed to raise money to pay for extras after their bum of a hubby left them etc. I sent one of them some Cardboard and Christmas palm seeds and a few other things from my garden and they let me in to read the blog. They had some good ideas that I used in my own ebay selling account. The story was of a gal selling her handmade craft items on ebay and from a small website. She also sold seeds, plants and bulbs she grew from her garden in Florida. She was doing great and everyone in the blog was cheering her on. One day she was very upset. A seller on ebay stole her pictures and some of the wording from her website... and her sales were falling. The seller took her wording from her ebay listings and turned it around. They were careful not to steal her ebay pictures but they took the pictures from her website and copied her designs etc. They made some changes that sound similar to these ebay sellers in your story. Ebay never replied to this gal. And the nasty seller was very nasty to her. Anyway evidently the blog members are located all over the USA... and around 15 members living outside the state of this victim... all bought one item from this seller... the cheapest items offered. After the purchase, they baited the seller with silly questions and comments... and the seller got upset in an email with each of them... threatening wording and snotty remarks from the seller to these buyers. So each buyer had a good reason to give this seller Negative feedback and ratings of 1 and 2 DSR stars. What do you think happens if a seller gets 15 negatives and 1-2 DRS stars? Ha! Ha! Ebay will protect their MEGA sellers by changing ratings but not any seller under that catagory. If a seller gets that many 1-2 star DSR ratings, then ebay suspends the seller... so simple. I was laughing my head off reading the blog story. It happened over a 45 day period. They all used credit cards in Paypal and all got refunds on a DOA or crushed auction. Several buyers claimed they never received the auction when they saw there was no DC on the package. The blog members spaced out the negative feedback so it would not look obvious and each had a different comment depending on what the seller said to them in the email. The nasty seller probably suspected something was up but there was no way he could complain to ebay. In eBay's eyes, he was now a bad seller. They spotted this same seller under a new ID and 10 more blog members stepped up to the plate with 10 different ebay ID's. This seller was still using their blogmate's pictures and wording. They put this guy down within 30 days this time. It was great mental therapy for all these women too... banding together to protect the economy of one of their own members. The women all thought it was a good deed because the seller was also using the pictures from other websites and other ebay sellers too. I would hate to be the ebay seller that stiffs any of these divorced ladies in the future.

David, no gallery here, but we post photos sometimes, at least a couple of us do. Not the whip and cuffs picture of you and I, but some of the canned goods. (grin) Here is the recipe for Habanero Gold that makes more, thanks again to Readinglady. It has a bit more dried apricots and still only uses one pouch of pectin. Other than the batch that didn't set during canning class, of course, it's always set up. Rhubarb strawberry topping on ice cream or pound cake or even in tiny tart shells? Yum. Hot 'N Sweet Confetti Jelly (Habanero Gold based recipe) 1 cup minced dried apricots (1/8" dice) Note: Could use dried peaches or pears instead. 1 1/4 total cups minced red sweet pepper and minced red onion (1/8" dice),> approximately half-and-half. 1/4 cup Habanero peppers Note: For extra-hot, increase Habaneros to 1/2 cup and reduce red sweet pepper/red onion combination to 1 cup total. 1 1/2 cups white vinegar 6 cups sugar 1 3-oz. pouch liquid pectin (I used Ball, which I've decided I like better than Certo.) > Prep apricots, peppers and onion. Place in a large, stainless or other > non-reactive pot. Add sugar and vinegar. Bring to the boil and cook 5 minutes. Pull off the burner; allow to cool, cover and let sit overnight. Stir occasionally if convenient. Note: 4-6 hours would be plenty, so the time doesn't need to be any greater than the soaking time for apricots in the original recipe. (I've used as little as an hour without noticeable problems. Annie) Next day, bring the mixture back to the boil. Stir in liquid pectin. Boil hard 1 minute. Pull off the heat. If necessary, skim foam. (I did need to skim a bit.) Let cool 2 minutes, stirring to distribute solids (at Camp we let it set about 10 minutes and I didn't have to mess around getting the peppers suspended in the jelly, it got thick enough to keep the suspension) Pour into jars. Stir to distribute and remove air bubbles. Do the usual with the jars and lids, BWB 10 minutes. When jars are sealed, "agitate" to distribute solids throughout the jelly. Yield: 6 8-oz. jars. OK, so David has a whip, cuffs, duct tape and some strawberry rhubarb jam that's not quite set. Hmmm.... Have you ever thought of applying for the cabana boy position? You're very helpful with seatbelts too. (grin) Annie

Lisa I forgot to respond to your question. I used to pay closer attention to the humidity in my plant room but these days I don't use the humidifier much. I have noticed that the humidity is very low now that winter is approaching, 20% is the low that I notice on my min/max thermometer/hygrometer. In the winter when I run the humidifier I try to keep the humidity up near 40% but too much can cause water to condense in the corners of some rooms and on the windows which causes issues with mold and mildew. I have fans running constantly to keep the air flow high but those fans are not blowing directly on the plants. I have not noticed any humidity related issues with my Hoyas but some of my mounted orchids would probably like higher humidity. Pug and GG thanks for your comments! Mike