First... Welcome to the forum! The more, the merrier! Second... I've had some minor trouble with these microscopic mites, myself. I use Schultz's 3 in 1 spray, which is an insecticide/miticide/fungicide all in one. I spray the leaves and bulbs, and about 2 weeks later, I follow it up with another round of spritzing with the 3 in 1 spray. I've found that if the bulbs aren't too infested, the spray will work. However, these mites usually show themselves with red or rusty looking streaking on the leaves and scapes... not blotches or circle shapes. You may not have mites... you may have a fungal issue, instead. Captan does wonders for fungal issues... in fact, I use it as a preventative when potting up any bulb. I use a small paintbrush and lightly dust some Captan powder on any part of the bulb that looks bruised or raw, and I dust a bit around the bottom of the bulb, where it connects to the basal plate. Then, I pot them up. Dusting your bulbs with Captan before storing them for their dormancy is a good idea, whether you have fungal issues or not. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure! If you've been doing some reading here in the forum, then I'm sure you've run into many posts that talk about the different mediums us bulb lovers prefer, and why we prefer them. One of the main reasons I stopped using bagged potting soil is because I experienced a lot of rot and fungus issues. Since I've begun using a more porous, bonsai-like inorganic medium, I've had no rot or fungus issues, whatsoever. Most regular potting soils are too fine in particle size, and decompose too quickly, which causes the soil to collapse. The roots literally suffocate. The soil may stay too wet for too long a time around the rootball, and because there's very little aeration, there's no exchange of oxygen to the roots and gases away from the roots. A plant's roots need to "breathe". When you run into any of the links I've posted about mediums, please read the articles. They will explain in detail the relationship between roots, the soil, water... and they'll give you some very nifty medium recipes to try. After much experimentation, I've come to the conclusion that my bulbs are happiest and healthiest in an inorganic medium made up of larger particles which allows for excellent and quick drainage, aeration, and I have complete control over moisture and feeding. Anyway... glad to have you joining us! Keep reading... you'll be glad you did! There are a lot of very knowledgeable gardeners here, and we think we've got one of the greatest groups on GardenWeb!

Background: I bought a very small Valencia Orange from Stark Brothers two years ago (along with an order of fruit trees). First year was strickly indoors, not the greatest growth. This last summer I moved it outside. I purchased a lemon and a lime from Home Depot during a trip to CA (they had Four Winds tags on them) and brought them back to Utah. Care: They seemed to be doing okay, and I fertilized all with a citrus fertilizer when I got home in August. I moved the orange to a larger pot at about this time, using a pot I had similar in size to the ones from HD/Four Winds, but the orange isn't nearly as large, but lots more leaves. When I moved them into a sheltered area (no direct sun) to prepare them for winter, the lemon lost all of its leaves - may have also been a lack of watering issue as well. At any rate, I moved them to the garage next to a north-facing window and the lemon produced all new leaves. A few weeks later, the lemon and orange produced quite a few blossoms. Of course, the blossoms quickly dropped, but the orange has continued to blossom with one or two here and there after I moved it near a second floor south facing window. Analysis: I thought the blossoms came because of the changes in settings (cool/cold to warm) as if it was going into spring? At any rate, it was my first use of a citrus fertilizer and the first time that the orange had blossomed in the two years I've had it.

Wow, tons of great ideas and different ways to go with this. I really appreciate you all brain storming this with me and your ideas. Please keep them coming! I think a long narrow table could work, but I think it would kind of make the space feel kind of tight. I'm a just touch claustrophobic, so if the space is tight, I'm apt not to use it. I know you're thinking well a booth can be a little 'squished' too, honestly I'd sit on chair side and leave the booth to the kids if we went that way. *LOL* Les, I really like the idea of a drop leaf table for the space, dropping one side and pushing against the short sink wall unless we needed the extra seating. I wonder how hard it would be to find a 8', possibly 9' long drop leaf type of harvest table like that. The island sounds great, especially from a serving point of view, but this will be our primary eating area so I'd like to have the option of a table I think. I like the small upper windows idea too, I'm going to bring that up with my DH. See what we did was flip flop part of the downstairs area to make the space work better for us. The kitchen and formal dining room were on the other side of the house. The thing is the dining room in this old house was built too tight to really comfortably accommodate more than a few people .. can you tell I don't like to feel crowded. *LOL* So it really wasn't a good use of space, the kitchen had too many door and window issues to have a good flow. Now on this side, this back eating area was chopped into two cramped rooms. One being a dark bathroom, the other just kind of a no mans land of wasted space back entry area .. this opened to the deck which made no sense. Where the kitchen we are building is, was dark bedroom, since that side of the house is North facing. So it made sense to open this area all to one space, put in the doors leading to the deck to let in natural light and make this a brighter, more useable space. The eating area is not ideal, but neither was the other arraignment and it was in the interior of the house, so cramped *and* dark. At least over here you can open the doors, people can be on the deck, people can be inside and you have an illusion of space. Now next on the hit list is taking the old kitchen and dining area and reworking that space into a master suite. At that point we actually have three rooms to open up. An old library that we'll be using for our sitting, office area, there is a double sided fireplace in the middle of that room and the dining room, so by opening on both sides of that it will open the spaces to each other, yet leave them intact as a different space. The dining area and part of the kitchen becomes a nice sized master bedroom, what's left of the kitchen our bathroom.

if you have no houseplants .. then there is no reason to fear taking them indoors, into the shower ... they will die with no plant to suck on ... they are not a threat to you in any sense ... also. i dont believe they fly... so they go down the drain ... you can accomplish the same shower effect with a quart/liter spray bottle from the hardware store.. with just plain water ... see link for example ... ken http://www.lowes.com/pd_502461-27607-52332___?productId=50022562&pl=1&Ntt=spray+bottle