Carol, If you and your family like eggplant, I think it is worth the trouble to grow your own. There are several things you can do to protect your young plants, but none of them are guaranteed to give total protection. For starters, flea beetles overwinter in garden and field debris and even under dirt clods, and it is sort of hard to disrupt that part of their cycle, but cleaning up all plant debris helps, as does having a very heavy layer of mulch. However, since flea beetles can fly in from elsewhere, you stay may have a transient population move in. Secondly, they tend to stay away from any plant foliage that has been treated with DE, permethrin, spinosad (all organic) or Sevin and many other chemical pesticides. Because they are early season pests, though, you have to reapply often. Third, you can try to exclude them by deyning them access to your plants. You can cover the plants with floating row covers, and not uncover them until the weather is pretty warm. Flea beetles tend to be a problem early in the season on young transplants and newly germinated young seedlings. Fourth, if you are physically seeing them, you can take a hand-held vac like a dustbuster outside and vacuum them up. There are multiple generations, though, so you have to be vigilant. Finally, mulch helps but it is not a guarantee, and I can't help but wonder if they overwinter in the mulch too. I have a lot of flea beetles in the mid-March to mid-May time frame, and most of my plants outgrow the damage. However, if they are chewing holes in the foliage, it only takes damage to 10% to 20% of the young,tender foliage to kill the plants. Still, if the plants are growing well (which they do if it is warm and sunny, and this year hasn't been esp. warm or sunny) they tend to put out enough new foliage to compensate for the older damaged foliage. Of course, if they chew through your stems, the plants are goners, as you know. One way to survive the annual flea beetle onslaught is to raise your eggplant inside under lights until about the last week in May. That week, begin to harden them off by exposing them to gradually increasing amounts of daylight, starting with 1 hour per day and adding an hour every day. Plant them around June 1st. By that time they should be big and healthy, and the flea beetle population should be decreasing. (I don't have flea beetles at all in warm weather. Do y'all?) Eggplant seems able to flower and set fruit quite well in hot weather (better than most tomatoes and peppers) and the plants should produce fruit until the first fall frost gets them. And, I am sorry to hear about your tomato plants. This is a really tough year--it seems almost as bad as last year, and who thought we'd have two bad springs in a row? There are lots of reasons to grow in containers, and it could be that the never-ending spring moisture might be one of them. If you go to the Growing in Containers forum and search for home-made Earth Boxes (those self-watering planters that cost a fortune to buy), you can find directions on how to make your own for substantially less. And, I have seen the homemade ones with wheels added to the bottom so they are easy to move around, and I have seen some photos where someone made tomato cages from PVC pipe for their homemade EBs and it was a really nice, lightweight set-up. Good luck, Dawn

I hardly ever buy extended warranties. For some reason, I bought it for our Miele DW. And guess what, we had the lemon - but in reality it was most likely the local repair place was incompetent with Miele and might have caused its pre-mature death(they lost the service contract with Miele - wonder why...) Anyway, I received a check for the original purchase price of the Miele. I was determined to replace it with something else and researched and looked and bought another Miele - we only have a 5 year warranty We had one issue within year 1 or 2. I don't know if they repaired or replaced the part - I mentioned something about the top rack thing that kept coming apart - they sent me a whole new top rack... I am jinxing myself but that is our only appliance with a service contract and it is with Miele directly - Miele factory service comes out and they know what they are doing.... So, roll your dice and see what comes up... If you are feeling lucky, save the $$, if not, remember what it costs to replace... I am glad they are offering 10 year contracts - I saw that in some European appliances and mentioned it to Miele.... Maybe I made a difference... LOL

The reason dishwashers don't clean well anymore is because of the soap. 16 states in the U.S. have banned phosphates in soap. I know people who have taken apart their DWs and put them back together. The Weekly Standard recently published an article describing the whole political process that resulted in this ban. Without the phosphates, soap is less "slippery" and doesn't clean as well. I would recommend looking into changing your soap before you do anything else, that is if you can find a soap that contains phosphates. One panel ready dishwasher that we cannot recommend is the Kitchen Aid double drawer. We have had it for less than two years, and the lower drawer no longer stays shut. We do not feel the interior holds as much as our previous and very old DW. And it too does not clean well. Is it too much to ask that today's DWs do what they are supposed to do and that is get your dishes clean? It seems manufacturers have moved away from that single purpose.

Hi @Anna K. & others! Your DW looks great! I'm about to order the new Bosch Dishwasher & also want to use RINGHULT with the Blankett handle as you did! [I currently have old Ikea Abstrakt doors but I'm told Ringhult is the same]. I see that you that you used a cover panel, not a door like many others here have. The panel is ⅝" thick. Bosch says not to use a panel less than ¾" . Also there is no Ringhult panel. It looks like the Forbattra Cover panel is what matches the white gloss doors & since they are ⅓ the price of Ringhult, I would love to use that. Did you use the Forbattra panel? For those who have used an Ikea 24 X 30" door, some have mentioned that there are pre-drilled holes in the doors where the Bosch screws go. Has anyone had a problem with that & how did you work around it? Thx!