Please don't a be guilty of 'entrapment' however. If there are lures for butterflies in your vegetable garden, you will have to be very careful not to poison them with any contact insecticides you might use on your vegetable plants. Some people think of 'butterfly gardens' as only where the butterflies come to visit the flowers, but it's also going to be where they lay their eggs. I had a customer who wanted me to assemble all the plants needed for a butterfly garden and I got a call from her later in the season saying her plants were full of 'worms' and she wanted to know how she could kill them. After she described them to me, I informed her they were caterpillars from the butterflies and she should leave them alone. It never dawned on her that would be the natural course of events.

I think it's a perfect solution. You can even stain the drive way to look like bricks by using dividers or blocks with the stain on them or some such; can't remember where I saw instructions, but I'm pretty sure it was on a Gardenweb Forum around here somewhere.

"And isn't the point of growing tomatoes to actually get tomatoes and not necessarily just a stronger healther plant?" Yes, but you can't have good fruit production without a strong, healthy plant. It's not a matter of choosing one over the other. I start my seedlings under lights in the basement. The first leaves of those plants are pretty nice, but nowhere near as big and healthy as the leaves which develop later when the plants are growing in the ground under sunlight. Yes, I do harden off my seedlings. But a leaf which has completed it's growth under lights on a small plant will not resume growth and become as large and lush as those which will grow outdoors later on a large plant. Once the plants are outdoors they immediately begin to new leaves which are suited to the new conditions. So, when the time comes to set out the seedlings, the oldest (lower) leaves have served their purpose. New, larger, healthier leaves grow quickly at the top of the plant and take over the role of making food for the plant. Because tomatoes readily form adventitious roots, I remove the lower, less productive leaves and plant deeply. I have never understood the concept of one part of the plant robbing other parts of energy. I believe roots, leaves and stems support each other mutually and must grow proportionally. One part of the plant does not succeed at the expense of the others. If it were so, the ideal tomato plant would be a bunch of leafless, stemless, rootless fruit sitting on the ground. Jim This post was edited by jimster on Mon, Jun 3, 13 at 22:13

Hello - Was just thinking of using the same approach you outline except I was thinking of leaving the old 3/4" oak floor in place and routing channels in that. I was planning on removing the old floor and then laying the 3/4" plywood sleepers over the existing subfloor but.... I already have the needed 3/4" base. Why rip up the oak to replace it with plywood? Can anyone think of a reason this might not work? Clearly the idea of routing a 650 Sq Ft area is not appealing but the time and expense saved in not removing the old floor and then buying new plywood, cutting it and fastening it would offset the routing time and expense. Is there any commercial routing tool on wheels that could be used if it was available to rent? The other advantage is I can start now before the rest of the demo starts and take my time. Then apply the heat transfer plates and insert the pex when construction is done and before the new floor (3/4" engineered ) is installed. Appreciate anyone's thoughts on this. Thank you.