I dont think you want to fall fertilize, usually you dont want a flush of growth before winter. Someone advise when the best time to fertilize and why please? 75% petal fall. I dont agree with spraying pesticides while bees are still interested. Usually a storm knocks the flowers off here before it even gets to 75% petal fall. If you dont want to use imidan, spectracide trizide once and done labled for fruit, has worked well for us in pc alley. Its cheap also, and is almost odorless unlike imidan. I stopped spraying on 1 tree june 20th , the others july 12th. Just to see what I can get away with. Seems like im in the clear. I think my schedule here next year looks like this: Green tip to pink oil and immunox ,100 % petal fall (imidan immunox + captan) and 3 cover sprays(also imidan immunox + captan). I am channeling harvestman.. "OK, I don't know where you live and your spray issues are going to be greatly affected by your location but here's my spray schedule for the scores of orchards I manage around SE NY. No dormant oil- do an oil spray somewhere between the point where emerging shoots are 1/2" and the flower clusters begin to show pink. Mix Nova (myclobutinol =immunox) at highest legal rate with 1 to 2% oil. If it's closer to pink use 1%.( Remember oil and captan are not compatible.) Don't spray again until petal fall when petals have mostly gone from latest flowering varieties and bees have lost interest. Than spray Imidan + Nova + Captan mixed together at highest legal rates. Repeat in 10 to 14 days. Where I manage orchards, the space between earliest flowering Japanese plums and latest flowering apples is only 2 weeks or so which usually allows me to wait until the latest flowering trees are ready to begin spraying anything. Plum curculio seems to time its appearence conveniently to the rythm of the last flowering varieties. This may not be true where you are. Sometimes it leaves me with plums too far along to spray oil by the time I do the apples and Euro plums sometimes get mites because of this- so you may need to spray oil on different trees at different times. If you can't find or bear using Imidan- an organiphosphate that is restricted in a few states, you best use Sevin instead but add an extra spray and apply at about 7 day intervals. (OR spectracide trizide once and done labled for fruit 10-14 days) All this is based on plum curculio being your primary insect problem which is the case most areas east of the Mis. River. These sprays will also absolutely control scab, CAR and Mildew as well as most of the crop fatal insects. Apple fly maggot is an exception, but I haven't had much of a problem with this pest in the orchards I manage. This pest can be controlled with a lot of fake apples smeared with tangle trap. If you don't want to use synthetic chemicals, you will probably have quite a battle on your hands. You'll probably have to do at least 4 applications of Surround about a week apart. Stone fruit will require the addition of another fungicide application or 2 (Indar) starting 2 or 3 weeks after final insecticide spray. Because I manage so many orchards so far apart I have to resort to a spray schedule that is based on expectations rather than actual monitoring. You may be able to reduce insecticide sprays with monitoring but PC are quick and sly. Other problems may occur later in the season and you will in time learn to monitor and react to the pitfalls. Good luck, Alan Haigh- The Home Orchard Co.

It seems to me that turning down the fire and cooking the meat longer would be the simplest suggestion. That should resolve your issue, unless you are already cooking with the heat lower. Then, maybe you are getting flareups? Possibly with the lid down and aren't noticing them (flareups) and they are charring your meat before the inside cooks. Is this a newer grill? Maybe one of the newer Charbroils that don't have many (if any) briquettes? Maybe it is an older grill that has a cracked burner? I have an older Sunbeam that, once it heated up, a large flame would come out of one part of the burner that was damaged and would cook very quickly in that one place. You might examine the grill and it's components and make sure you don't have a situation like this occuring. It seems to me that with the results you are getting, it has to be because of too much fire too quickly. So, either you are haveing flareups that are going unattended, the burner has a crack in it (causing a very hot spot), or you are just cooking on too high of heat. Once you get the heat problem figured out, you might consider investing in one of those meat thermometer forks. I bought one a couple of years ago from K-Mart on clearance for $5.00. It has been a great investment and works very good to get your meat at just the right doneness. I hope this helps. Good luck.

I purge and donate to the Vietnam Veterans of America who pick up anything and everything you put out on a routine basis. They aren't picky like Goodwill. I also recycle newspapers and magazines weekly and only subscribe to my very favorite magazines. I do have a lot of book clutter because DH doesn't think bookcases are attractive. He doesn't think they are a valid furniture item for a living room. I'm a big reader. Always have been. I have several hundred books that I intend to keep. Mostly gardening books and horse books, expensive reference books not stories. I keep any paperbacks in the office/spare bedroom. Gardening and riding are my hobbies other than reading. A new wall of bookcases in the living room where I took out a big fish tank would go a long way to solve my book clutter (stacks on coffee table, not on floor, overflowing bookcases on either side of fireplace) I could spread out the books and make them look more attractive rather than crammed into the bookcases as they are now as full as they will go. I'm about ready to go to Ikea and just buy them. I have read Fly Lady but she is too perky for me. It has been years, maybe I'll look again. I confess that I don't get fully dressed every day, especially not with lace up shoes. I do clean up hairballs when I see them. Kitties do the rest of their business outside so no cat box to worry about and they don't have accidents other than hairballs and bringing in the occasional rat. There is simply no way we can afford a housekeeper, I've been working from home because I was hurt in a car accident in 2002 and make less than half what I did before as a florist which wasn't much in the first place. I simply cannot work as a florist again, physically not able. Crash triggered Fibromyalgia to be significantly worse than it was before and it has never gotten better after several courses of physical therapy, chiro, acupuncture, massage and several different doctors. It is not as severe as having cancer though. Just when you thought you had it bad someone else comes along and makes you grateful.

I just thought I would update. I'm at about 90% improvement so that's great. But this has been the longest recovery to date and that worries me. I'm still very stiff and sore and walking is difficult, but at least most of the pain has subsided. It's mostly side/hip muscles so I assume they were strained a bit to compensate for my inflamed spinal muscles last week. I have physical therapy scheduled for Wednesday and an MRI for Friday. I'm excited to finally get a real diagnosis and start strengthening my back so hopefully this won't happen again. Regarding the chair, it's been wonderful. I expect it's made my recovery a bit longer as I haven't been walking as much but it's been more comfortable. I don't need the lift assist anymore but I still sleep in it at night. I tried to sleep in my bed on Friday night but the pain came back. I think I need to accept that my preferred plush mattresses are bad for my back. I'm looking into buying a firmer one. Thanks for everyone's suggestions and input!