Here's a short list of my reasons. Anticipation is always the majority of pleasure and fruit growing really stretches it out. A kid starts thinking about Christmas in Nov but I'm anticipating how my late apples will taste for 6 months. Also, every year is unpredictable with bummer and bumper crop separated by a single weather event or a pair of squirrels. Kind of makes you treasure success when there's some struggle preceding it. The depth of relationship with fruit trees is deeper than annuals as it can last a life time with a single tree and every inch of that tree has your handwork on it.

It's true. Gardens are not static. Like they say, if it's not one thing it's another. In the past my biggest problem (if I remember right) was lack of water for the roses. Then I discovered accidently that my roses do much better with daily water. So I installed a micro sprinkler system through all the beds. Wow! Did it work and work wonders!! I've been all happy and self-satisfied for over a year, but lately the worm has turned. My nemesis is squirrels. SQUIRRELS! I remember one of my rose-sisters in CA warned that squirrels were a big problem for her drip system (maybe Rosefolly?). Little did I know... These buggers have chewed through several plastic/pvc connectors, 1/4" tubing for the pots, shrubblers, drippers, brass knobs, resin chairs, stacked nursery pots, the corner of the shed... causing geysers and mini-firehoses that shoot water everywhere making my water bill spike off the chart and reducing pressure in the line so nothing gets water. Since it operates while I'm asleep, I don't know about it for a while - until plants start looking bad - or I get a utility bill in the mail. The only thing that stops them is hardware cloth so I'm looking at wrapping all the 1/4" tubing in hardware cloth. That should be fun. After they had breakfast on a new hydrangea plant (not in the ground yet) I declared war and decided I would put out D-Con, taped to the top of the shed (their super-highway through the trees) where kitties can't get to it. Early the next morning I awoke in a panic - what if the birds eat it? I got up and peeled it off. A friend told me it wouldn't work anyway because squirrels are smarter than rats. I was looking forward to picking up the bodies. Thrips ruined the end of the first flush, and Anna Olivier's second flush is a disaster. I may have to reconsider her future along with E Veyrat Hermanos who, despite a beautiful beginning, balled completely after a poorly timed rainstorm. The upside of that is looking for replacements. :)) Encroaching shade may be the end of Mrs B R Cant in which case I'll buy another hydrangea. They're deciduous (I hate bare bushes all winter), but they don't mind neutral soil. The armadillos dig up the beds every night, but so far haven't damaged any plants - just make the bed ugly and make the sidewalk & driveway messy. Apparently, for some of us gardening is the proverbial "two steps forward, one step back", and for others it's "one step forward and two steps back". And next year we'll all switch places. Sherry Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

Mia, I hope your tender plants survived the cold. Maybe the cold air hadn't managed to infiltrate the garage via the open door quite long enough to hurt them. Often, plants like citrus trees can take a certain degree of sub-freezing temperatures for up to 4 hours before damage occurs. I left two citrus trees out all night last spring when we went off to a wildfire and it was dark when we came home and I simply didn't see the trees (they were sitting right by the garage too) and forgot to bring them inside. The next morning I found them frozen (I believe we had dropped down to 23 degrees when we were forecast to stay above freezing anyhow) and figured they were goners. I watered them and moved them to a protected area, and a couple of weeks later they started leafing out. They are alive still, though they lost a year's worth of growth to that cold overnight experience. Okievegan, Alright! Make the list. Organize it and then we even could assign different people different months to moan and groan about whatever is on the list for that month. : ) Seriously, though, it has got to be incredibly hard to make a living in agriculture here because Ma Nature has 1,001 ways to destroy your crop.....and often throws multiple issues at the plants all in the same day! When I lived and gardened in Texas a mere 80 miles south of where we live and garden in OK, gardening seemed so much more simple. I planted stuff. It rained. The stuff grew. We picked it. We ate it. The End. Here? You have to fight flooding rains, searing drought, high winds, tornadoes, wildfires, hail, etc.,before you even can hope to get a harvest......and then the next day you have to get up and fight all of them all over again. To get a great crop here I use tall garden fences, lightweight row cover, heavy weight row cover, bird netting and chicken wire over hoops for hail protection, mulch to keep the soil cool, drip irrigation to keep the garden watered, raised beds to keep the plants from drowning during heavy rainfall, etc. In Texas I just put the stuff in the ground and it grew. Why is it so much harder here????Gardening doesn't have to be as hard as our weather makes it, but here we are, and the weather we have is the weather we have. What are we going to do? Pack up and leave? I don't think so. (And, to be fair, the same part of Texas where I gardened so blissfully in the 1980s and 1990s has had its share of wicked weather challenges in recent years, so maybe it is harder there now than it was when we lived there.) My dad was a gardener, as were virtually all his brothers and sisters, and their parents before them were farmers, and my mom's dad was a rancher. So, I know from experience that there are many challenges in agriculture, whether you're a home gardener or a professional grower. Primary among those challenges is our erratic weather. The weather always has caused trouble for folks growing plants, but it seems like the weather-related challenges are so much more fierce now than I remember from past decades. I feel like Mother Nature has just gone berserk ever since about 2005. I want our old mother back! Dawn

Seems like I saw a post where if Neutral (white wire) and hot (black wire) were switched, this could cause the problem. To check use a voltmeter to check between the Large slot in the "FR" (female receptacle) (Neutral) and ground (the small hole NOT Slot) in "FR". It should measure 0 volts AC. The Hot (small slot) should measure about 120 Volts AC to the ground. Also make sure the Male plug on the stove is correctly wired, White wire to the wider pin on the plug, black to the narrower pin, and the ground wire on the "rounded pin" on the stove's plug. But as mentioned, there is still a "good possibility" that the spark module is defective, as it "Senses" when the burner/burners are lit. Be very careful!!!!! when measuring these voltages or get someone to do it that is "Knowledgible"!!!! Good luck with it!!! Gary