Good going. Isn't it exciting to see a new seedling flower for the first time. I love raising a crop of streps for this.

Thanks Josh, the pruning, root pruning, and downsizing of the pots is what I have read everywhere, and everyone seems to agree on it. That is why I canâÂÂt figure out why the ones I left in the large pots and didnâÂÂt prune as much did the best. In fact, the Carolina reaper plant, that I didnâÂÂt prune at all, is doing the best of all. IâÂÂm glad I did my little experiment and didnâÂÂt prune them all back and put them in smaller pots, because if I did I wouldnâÂÂt have any left. Unfortunately, my experiment left more questions than answers. My conclusion is, all the small pots died, all the large pots on the left side of the same window died, and all the pruned plants on the left side of the widow died. The ones I messed with least are thriving. I just canâÂÂt hash out what is a coincidence and what caused my problems. I should have mentioned before that the ones on the left side of the window and right side both have a heating duct.

I recently had a few cuttings root in the bottom of styro cups filled with a light potting mix similar to yours. The ones that were two to a cup I VERY carefully separated and put in separate cups, with about an inch more dirt under the roots. Using advice from Roseseek, I'm going to tip them out of the cups about once a week and add more dirt under the roots, so they gradually have more stem above ground and more room to grow roots. I may be going a bit slow on this, but these are my first babies and I am being extra careful. I don't know if you can tip your new roses out of the plastic cartons as easily as I can from the styro cups. I tried tipping out the (dead) cuttings in my plastic milk cartons and didn't have much success. I don't know if milk cartons are "less slidey" or if it was because they had no roots to hold the soil. Milk cartons are a pretty good size, bigger than the bands that are shipped to me with well branched roses. I expect you could leave them in there for "a while," at least until you see a good number of roots in the bottom of the milk carton. I can't remember from your post, but do you have drainage holes in your milk cartons? They are pretty necessary for your cuttings to continue growing.

WOO HOO! What a great way to start. ;-) Dehydrated apples are a BIG part of our diet. They are used to make all kinds of things - apple pie/crisp, applesauce, added to quick breads and homemade granola, as well as a favorite out-of-hand snack food. Once new-crop apples are available, I'll dehydrate 50- to 75-pounds of apples and store them in canning jars in the basement. I'd REALLY suggest a hand-powered peeler/corer/slicer if you do a lot of apples. Otherwise, I suggest one of those corer/slicers you push through an apple. Then with a paring knife you can quickly slice each large apple slice into several 1/4-inch slices. You can also use a cutting mandoline and slice the apple, starting at the bottom to the stem in complete apple "rounds", core and all, for very little waste. You will get a decorative star-shape center where the seeds were. Don't bother removing the seeds, they generally fall out during drying. If not, a poke with a toothpick will take care of them. Bananas, not so much..... In order to dehydrate bananas until they are crispy dry, you need to choose bananas that are UNDER-ripe (less sugar developed in them) and firm, and over-dry them. And when they do get crispy, they quickly rehydrate and soften. The crispy dried bananas you have probably eaten, and are more familiar with, are actually deep-fried, not dehydrated. I will incorporate bananas in fruit roll-up mixtures, which work best if they are ripe and sweet. I do have a handy-dandy banana slicer that cuts a banana into even slices which helps them dry evenly, and if you are going to dehydrate a lot of bananas, I'd suggest getting one. Back to apples.... You can sprinkle apples with cinnamon or cinnamon/sugar. You can also sprinkle apple slices with Jell-O powder (a little goes a long way, so use a VERY light hand - place the powder in a salt shaker and cover all but 2 or 3 holes). Keep this in mind if you have some less-than-tasty apples. My favorite apples to dehydrate are Jonathans, but I pick a LOT of free apples and if they aren't as sweet and flavorful as I'd like, I'll "doctor" them with cinnamon, or occasionally, some kind of sweetener (Trehalose) and cinnamon if we're going to use them for snacking (although we normally just eat them plain). Otherwise, less-flavorful apple slices work well for applesauce since it can be easily flavored with cinnamon and sweetened (if necessary) after it's rehydrated. PRETREATING: I'd suggest an acidic bath (1 quart water + 1 T. ascorbic acid powder, citric acid powder, or Fruit Fresh - which is a mixture of ascorbic and citric acid) rather than full-strength lemon juice. If you'd rather use bottled lemon juice, the ratio is 1 c. lemon juice to 1 quart of water. Lemon juice is only 1/6th as effective as ascorbic acid. This pretreatment does several things. It helps prevent the fruit from oxidizing/browning - Vitamin C is an anti-oxidant - it adds a little Vitamin C to the finished product, and most important, it helps prohibit microbial growth (such as Salmonella and E. Coli 0157:H7). There are new recommendations for drying that nearly always includes some form of acidic bath pretreatment to prohibit microbial growth. You will find a lot of up-to-date information about dehydrating at the link below. The recipe for Mango Leather is one of my granddaughter's favorites. I also mix fresh (or frozen) peaches and mangos using this recipe. -Grainlady Here is a link that might be useful: National Center for Home Food Preservation