Thanks a lot for the advise! It helps greatly to know what I'm dealing with. The planting bed these are in are primarily for fruit trees. I am adding flowers to make it prettier. This particular planting bed gets a lot of volume of runoff water during storms. The soil is very fast draining - I have sugar sand soil, and I actually have to amend it with compost so the edibles get enough nutrients. So adding additional sand wouldn't change anything - it is nearly all sand already. It is very interesting, I am finding that here in FL that there are some plants that can take quite a lot of moisture if they have a cool root run (here that means shade), but absolutely cannot tolerate hot+damp roots. Hippeastrums seem to be one of them. Another is agapanthus. I have hippis in other spots of my yard that get just as much storm water runnoff, but they are in shade, which seems to make a large difference. This particular one I think was a belated casualty of hurricane Sandy, which dumped quite a lot of rain as it passed. On the plus side, rain lilies seem to flourish in this location, in fact my candidas are still blooming even this late in the year! They like the periodic drenchings. I've moved what is left of those seedlings to a spot agapanthus does well in, so hopefully they will do better now. I was worried that if it was an insect that moving them might spread the problem. If it is a drainage problem, then moving them should be safe. Thanks for the help!

no plant holds its leaves forever. ... the pic above.. presuming its a current pic .... the outer .. newer leaves look just fine.. including vigorous new lime green shoots ... all the damaged ones.. SEEM to tend to be interior ... if so ... well what problem can there be.. but age.. if the outer all look fine ... if it were disease .. wouldnt the outer leaves show such??? .. and they look a healthy green.. so what deficiency can there be??? and therefore.. if it were me... i would jsut water it ... i personally NEVER fertilize a stressed plant ... but if its growing with vigor.. what does it need???? .. of course.. a LITTLE of this or that.. fert.-wise.. shouldn't hurt ... ken This post was edited by ken_adrian on Tue, Jan 29, 13 at 7:36

Carolyn: Thanks for responding. I'd love it if you could figure out what's going on. I plan to see if my county extension can help, too, but I can't get to a phone during their hours for a few more days yet. I don't have a measurement for the humidity, unfortunately. I can say that in my house, a drink with ice develops condensation, my hair does not get staticy easily, and when the outside temp is around 20 or lower, my double-hung windows have condensation in a one-inch strip just above the joint between upper and lower windows. Until this week, I had the grow light sitting on a milk crate, so the light was hitting the plants from straight-on, sunset style. I finally got my ceiling beams located and some hardware installed and the light has been pointing down for about 4 days. It was when I moved things around in order to hang the light that I saw the white patches and how bad the aphids were in some spots. I've been spraying with soapy water so much now, the humidity may have increased! (Only one tomato had a lot of aphids, but I'm spraying that guy and all the non-tomato plants twice a day now) Thanks a lot for any help you can give, zeke

I'm sure everyone who bought a Bluestar expects more than a pile of fire to cook on or they could have used a BBQ pit. If they all they wanted was a big burner, they could get a wok burner. They bought ranges and have the right to expect all components to work in a reasonable way. For Bluestar service to be so dismissive of customers concerns is unconscionable. With a gas oven you have every right to expect certain things. It may not have as narrow a range of temperature as an electric oven, but even the least expensive non convection oven should keep within 25 degrees of the setting. The heating and cooling cycles are controlled by the thermostat. The actual swing is determined by the tolerances of the thermostat. This is a known number by the manufacturer. It is not a mystery. Some may tolerate a 10 degree swing and others 25 degrees. If you have too much of a swing, anything with high sugar content will burn. The narrower the tolerance, the more often the burner/element will cycle. It should be calibratable. Yes you can easily figure out that your oven runs a little hot and off set the thermometer but why should you, especially with what you paid? If it has a calibration screw, it is there for a reason. Calibrating an oven is not rocket science and should be able to be done with someone with fairly basic skills. If what you normally bake/roast is not coming out right, you can buy an inexpensive thermometer and get an idea of what is going on in your oven. I bought two at a restaurant supply for $3.50 and they work well unless dropped or mistreated. In my job,I work daily with thermometers, and even if you have a more expensive digital thermometer, it is only good if calibrated correctly. I would avoid a mercury thermometer because if it breaks then you have mercury spill in your oven. I would also expect a griddle to keep a fairly even temp. It is not a large griddle with multiple burners and thermostats. It is not a french top. It has a long narrow burner designed to provide even heat over the entire griddle area. This makes two columns of heat across 11-12 inches. This should also be enhanced by using a material for the surface that is heat conductive. Once it has been on awhile,it should be pretty even. Concerns about it should at least be addressed by the service person and it should be looked at. There may be something plugged making the flame uneven. Bluestar's regular burner is star shaped with the idea of providing even heat. Even with cheap pans, will cook evenly, surely they have designed the griddle to cook evenly too. I do think GW people have higher expectations. They read and have tried to make educated choices. If something doesn't seem right with your appliances-get to the bottom of it. It may be it's just a little different from your last appliance but it may have something wrong that is easily fixed/adjusted, if you can get the right service. I have probably cooked on 9-10 ranges(each one for years) over my lifetime and each did as they were supposed to do. I never gave them a second thought. When we remodeled our kitchen a few years ago, we bought a very expensive range and wall oven. Neither oven worked. In my case after coming to the set temp, the oven temp drifted down by 200 degrees from the set temp. Nothing would cook. They first tried to tell me that was the way it was supposed to be "so your food won't burn". Burn? It won't even cook! The manufacturer could not fix either oven, after many "fixes" and they bought them back. If you are happy with the way your appliance cooks/bakes-great, buy if you're not happy, don't just put up with it.