Hi, Karen. Thanks! Well, they've been potted up for a couple weeks and I haven't messed with them to see if there are roots - afraid I'd ruin them for sure. Should I dig around? The ends were calloused when I potted them. No flowers but the tops have lots of green leaves & new growth looks good. I've been keeping them in less sun than I think they'd otherwise like since the rather fierce sun we have here can do a job on cuttings. Lorri

Homemade! That's the real treasure, not TJ's or Penzeys! Lucky you Michele! I'm going to have to look for the high heat spatulas with metal handles. DH and DS refuse to use the spoon rest and melt the handles on the side of the pan. You just cannot replace real vanilla. Such a treat to get such a big bottle, and I can only imagine how beautiful your pies will look in that Le Creuset! Hang in there in the remodel--it's oh so worth it in the end! Great package Karen!

Hello Bungalow, I just began using my new Samsung gas range about a week ago. I LOVE it - except for the same issue you're having. I can't set anything near the back of the cooktop because it will melt, cook, or become too hot to touch. I can hardly believe this is normal! But maybe it is? You'd think if it was, something would be said about it in the manual. Nothing. If I thought that returning it for a different oven (same model and serial numbers) would be better, I would...but I wonder if I'd have the same thing happening. Can anyone say definitely that this is, or it not, "normal"? Thank you.

The pot is not at all overly heavy when I lift it. I really don't think overwatering is the problem based on that. As far as lifting it out, I'll have to see if looks like that can be done without doing major damage. If not I'd rather wait until it starts drying back for the winter before I risk tearing it apart, but I'll experiment with that today and let you know. We did have a very wet spring but it has not gotten any more water since then than in the three previous summers. Babka.....some of my pots can easily go every other day with no watering or some without total leaf cover over the pot and smaller pots can get most of the water they need from the sprayers, but some get dry daily, I assume from the heavy root growth. This time of the year in Texas even some drought tolerant plants in the ground can show heat stress in two days with no water. I've not used any bark in my pots since over the last 3 plus years I have not seen any problem with drainage. Part of that may be that drying out from the heat IMO pretty much overrides the drainage issue. However, this year I changed media on some of my new plants to an organic potting soil with expanded shale mixed in to see how that works. Some of those pots are really drying out fast in the summer, so we'll see how that goes. They are all new plants with smaller root systems so I have seen no problem at all so far. Kristen.....I have seen the posts about not doing overhead watering, but one of the last studies I read said that the problem with that was that you could splash the nematodes from plant to plant and not that overhead watering actually caused the nematodes. However I suppose they could splash leaf to leaf. I am not at all as knowledgable as most people here so maybe someone else will chime in on that.