My crockpot "superheats" queso and Rotel on "LOW", so I am thinking that it will be too hot. The stew pot with the big heating pad wrapped around it was 117 yesterday. When I shoved a washcloth in between on one side, it dropped it to 110...so I think I'll be ok with this very scientific method. I am giving the pot 5-6 hours to equilibrate between my adjustments. I will submerge them on Wednesday... Think I'll do 2 bulbs that way. There's one bulb that doesn't have as much damage, and Chris at Southern Heirloom bulbs (just east of Dallas) suggested that I soak it in a dilute solution of systemic insecticide. I may chip another bulb later this week. That will take care of all 5; 3 will be intact and 2 chipped...AKKK still ill over it. Just checked the chips from Friday, and although it's only been 2 days I was relieved that I didn't have bags of icky black mold balls. I am going to be very patient and check them every 3 days (checking more often won't make the bulblets grow any faster!!). I really do believe now that these were just opportunistic flies, as none of the other plants that were scattered in the front were affected, just the soggy bulbs in one big pot. Systemic insecticide is my friend now. Went to Home Depot, Lowes, and Houston Plant and Garden looking for Orthene a few days ago, and none had it. Have my standard toxic 0-0-diethyl S-2-(ethylthio) ethyl phosphorodithioate as well as a new bottle of disulfotone. Will no doubt kill something!! New bulbs from Holland start shipping in a month!! Then the next round of excitement starts! Kristi

So sorry about the text in the OP. ;-( It was indeed a copy/paste job from one of my older posts, with a few changes. I hope you find (found?) it worth trying to figure out. Anything we add to our soils that isn't needed and finds it's way into the soil solution has the potential to limit growth/vitality. Many growers cling to the idea that a little more of this or that nutrient is better - for instance that since a little extra Fe or Mg will green up a plant, it must be good for it - true only if the plant is deficient in one or the other of those nutrients. Greener does not mean healthier when it comes at the expense of an excess of one or more nutrients. Since aquarium water contains a number of nutrients, is it necessarily a good idea to use it? So what's actually IN aquarium water - anyone know? Not with any certainty, so it's a very good bet that A) if you use aquarium water as your sole nutrition source, there are bound to be deficiencies, and B) if you combine using aquarium water with a sound nutrition program - 'because a little more of this and that is better' - you end up duplicating nutrients you don't need, which we know from Liebig's Law of the Minimum has the same potential to limit as a deficiency. If you rely on a sound nutrition program with no extra little treats, you're much more apt to end up with a lean mean growing machine. Whenever I consider anything as a supplement that my plant might need, I ask two questions. A) What will it supply that I know my plant needs? and B) What impact will it have on the soil's structure? In the case of worm castings and seaweed (other than emulsion), they supply nothing a plant needs that can't already be found in a fertilizer like Foliage-Pro, and they have only the potential to reduce aeration and increase water retention in container soils; though to an insignificant degree in the case of fish emulsion. So on two counts I would avoid them in my soils. Actually, there is a third consideration. I also tend to avoid the addition of soil amendments added for their nutritive value if I think they will promote significant growth of soil biota. I love it in the garden, but we can grow just fine in containers without courting the micro-herd. If we are going to use practices that support large populations of soil biota that break down soils quickly, why bother building all that wonderful aeration and drainage into our soils, only to have them stolen as our soils collapse in a feeding frenzy of micro-organisms? Growing in containers is well removed from gardening, and much closer to hydroponics. On a scale of 1-10, with growing in the garden being a 1 and hydroponics a 10, container culture is probably a 7 or 8, which is why a good part of what works so well in gardens (compost and organic amendments, worm castings, bone/blood/feather meals, feed the soil instead of the plant, .....) doesn't work well in containers. There's just no substitute for a healthy root system and a sound nutritional supplementation program that the grower assumes responsibility for and control over. Al

I think that depends on the Kohleria. I don't grow them much so they are mostly outside of my range of being able to to offer advice though I'm sure Irina may be able. I have one, Tropical Knight, and it gets fun sun in the morning for about 4 hours. It takes it just fine as long as it has plenty of moisture (wicked) and keeps the plant a lot more compact that I can under my artificial lights. But Tropical Knight also has dark, almost burgundy leaves and another Koleria with pale green leaves might burn easily. If yours is reaching and getting leggy at all, I'd /ease/ it into brighter light (so not to shock or burn it) and see how it adjusts. Pinching also helps keep it busy and thick rather than bolting.

Have you filed a police report yet? This is a legal matter, and you aren’t going to get anywhere until you treat it as such. Your contractor is responsible for his subs, and it is in his best interest to know ASAP if he has subs that he cannot trust. If he values his business, he knows that this can bring his reputation down very quickly, and will likely do all he can to make it right. As far as your accusations that the GC is lying-that sounds like a grey area to me, without knowing more facts. He did call your husband, after all. Maybe he wrote the rebuttal at that point, making the assumption that your husband would return the call. Honestly, by not returning the call, you did not give the contractor the chance to make this right. File a police report, and then make an effort to reach out to the contractor.