I'm just piggybacking on this one if you don't mind. I have a sick aloe vera, too. I wonder if it got too wet or too cool (or both). It's losing its color and getting limp. It was a baby off of my mom's humongous one that's now gone. My sister's is doing great. I saw some advice about checking the roots to see if they were OK (like nueva gardener did above) and haven't done that yet. I wanted to have the soil on hand first (cactus or African Violet soil was recommended -- it's been in sand for decades and that's what it's still in). Anyway -- my real question was with rooting in the perlite. Do you wet IT when you first start out? Thanks! Flo :-)

Jay, Before you began posting on this forum, we had horrific exceptional drought in Love County and in some other parts of Oklahoma in 2005-2006. Then we had a very rainy year in 2007 and everyone who wasn't a rancher/farmer/gardener assumed the 2007 rains 'fixed' the lingering problems from the 2005-2006 drought. They didn't. Drought returned and hit part of southern OK hard in the summer of 2008. As well as I thought I understood the slow drought recovery process, I still was shocked when I learned that some creeks and ponds that went dry in 2005-2006 still were dry in 2008 BEFORE the drought conditions returned and those former creeks and ponds had been dry since 2005, although they may have had a little runoff in 2007 but it quickly dried up. I'm not sure that all those ponds have recovered yet. Our big pond 'used to be' spring-fed but that spring quit running during the 1999-2000 drought so now it is just a pond that catches rain runoff. We also have a small swamp, but it used to be a big swamp until one of the two springs that fed it dried up in 2005. Sometimes, I wonder if an area ever really and truly recovers from drought. I'm not so sure we're seeing good, long-term drought recovery in the 2000s because the droughts are lasting longer and the wet spells are shortening in duration. Don't you ever stand there and look around you and try to remember how good it looked before your current 4-year drought began? I know that I would and it would be frustrating to remember how good it can look and to wonder if it ever will look that way again. What if the 2000s are going to be a period of very long ongoing droughts like we saw in the 1950s where some areas had 6 to 8 years of drought? (Hey, your part of Kansas is already more than halfway "there".) Split stems are frustrating. I think that most of the time it is a "mechanical" split caused by wind and sometimes by large hail, and then once you have that opening in the tissue, disease gets in quite easily, but that's only a guess based on what I observe here. It truly is a sort of "which came first, the chicken or the egg" type question, isn't it? Split followed by disease or disease-induced split? I do know that if my particular location, stem diseases are very rare and even when I have early blight on leaves, I never see the lesions on stems. (Now, because I said that I'll have it on the stems this year...probably this week!) I'll credit our usual dryness, staking, mulching and a somewhat wind-sheltered location with being the reasons I seldom see stem diseases, but again that's only a guess. How do you ever really know? My plants are like yours, stressed from the moment they leave their sheltered indoor location. I also think that temporary protection can just delay the adaptation process. I suppose I could test it next year by planting two plants of each variety side by side, and by wrapping the cages of 1 plant of each variety with plastic or frost blanket-type row cover. Then, I could see if the protected plants performed better or worse over the course of the season. My plants don't get a lot of wind in the summer, but in February-April, they get the tar beaten out of them. And even thought I hate it, I know it strengthens and thickens their stems and makes them stronger. If I was a happy little tomato plant sitting there in a nursery, greenhouse or store enjoying some wind protection and likely some shadecloth overhead that moderated the intensity of the sunlight and the air temperatures, I'd be weeping after you bought me and put me in your garden. Now, don't you take that personally because I don't mean it that way! I know I'd love your soil, but I'd hate the drought, the incessant wind, and the thrips and other beasties the wind would blow in. Who wouldn't? You know how strongly opposed I am to the overfeeding of nitrogen and you cite another example of how it hurts plants. It sure is hard to get people to stop doing it though! With split stems, I tried different things and I don't think you can fix them. Either the plants overcome it and survive, or disease gets in and the plant declimes. In my experience, the plants tend to decline. Sometimes I can 'hill up' compost over the split and protect it if the split is low enough to allow hilling up, but sometimes a split or broken stem is just the first step in a quick decline. I hope your pepper plants make a quick adjustment, get happy and start producing peppers. My pepper plants are deliriously happy right now because I watered them yesterday and they sure perked up a lot. I have some jalapenos about ready to pick, and I do think it will be a great pepper year. On the other hand, I don't think I ever have a bad pepper year since they practically grow themselves. E, Wilt is a funny tbing because it can be caused by opposing conditions. One form of wilt that is common here is heat-induced wilt where the plants are losing more water to transpiration than they are taking up with their roots, and it is common when we have the sudden onset of high heat. Another form is actually caused by too much moisture. Too much moisture, particularly in slow-draining soils and in containers with poor drainage, clogs the roots with water and that cuts off their oxygen supply and they wilt. So, when you see wilting, first check the soil to see if it is moist. If it is moist, you plants likely don't need more water. They need for the temperatures to cool off and give them a break. If the soil is dry, they do need water of course. One thing to watch for is to see if the plants recover from wilting as the sun sinks low in the sky. They should. If they aren't something else is going on. Also, I don't know what varieties you're growing, but some tomatoes have naturally wilty-looking foliage that comes from a gene dubbed the wilty gene....as if life is not already complicated enough! Opalka is one of the wilty gene tomatoes that comes to mind. Tomato plants need 6 to 8 hours of sunlight to produce to their maximum potential if all the other factors are favorable. If you have plants that get sunlight from sunrise to sunset, they certainly would benefit from partial shading. I like to put shadecloth over the tops of the cages. You can buy shadecloth that lets in sunlight in different percentages. You also can use sheets or something. I just use clothespins to attach the shadecloth to the top of the cages, and since my plants are in double rows in raised beds, one long run of 4' or 6' wide shadecloth provides adequate shading for a double row of plants. I try to position it so they still get enough sunlight to keep them happy. Usually I put up shadecloth in latest June or earliest July, but since we're having late July temperatures in early June, I expect to put it up in the next day or two. Don't give upon getting fruit from your plants. Tomatoes will bloom sporadically even in very hot weather. When you have a little rainy spell or cool spell roll in, any new blossoms on the plants at that time can set fruit. Often, all you need is for the temperatures to drop a couple of degrees to make a difference. I think shading helps in that regard too because it keeps your plants slightly cooler. Dawn

I would pull it out of that pot and put it in a deeper one with new soil. I would want a pot with holes in the bottom for drainage, and well drsining soil. I would water it well twice a week. Chances are, you are not watering enough.

i'm sorry your kitten is so sick but no one here can give you a diagnosis. if he is not drinking, he will become dehydrated very, very fast and there will be nothing you can do without taking him to the vet. if your vet is closed, find an emergency vet clinic. waiting until tomorrow or the next day and you will end up with a dead cat.