A note about sugar ratio and percent: To say a 1:4 sugar:water mix is 20% sugar is incorrect; the sugar is in dry, granulated form and the water is (obviously) liquid. The sugar industry expresses sugar concentration as percent sugar by weight (mass for you scientists) also known as Brix; where one Brix is equivalent to 1 gram sugar dissolved in a 100 gram sugar solution. This is the number a sugar refractometer will give you. A cup of sugar weighs 200 grams. A cup of water weighs 237 grams. A 1:4 sugar mix is 200 grams sugar + 948 grams water = 1148 grams total. Percent sugar by weight or Brix is: 200g / 1148g x 100 = 17% (rounded to the nearest percent). You 1:4 purists are only offering half the sugar concentration found in natural nectar preferred by Hummers! So, get over it already... By the same method: A 1:3 sugar mix is 200g / 911g x 100 = 22% by weight A 1:2 sugar mix is 200g / 674g x 100 = 30% by weight A 1:1 sugar mix is 200g / 437g x 100 = 46% by weight Benjamin F Tucker was among the first to mass-feed hummers in the 1930s and '40s. He used laboratory glassware to make his feeders (no Perky-Pet or Droll Yankees back then). His work was described in the December 1946 Popular Mechanics article: "Hummingbird Cafeteria". The lead photo shows 22 of his 'beaker feeders' lined up on wood shelves. A quote from page 125: "If you supply artificial nectar - half water and half sugar - he'll stay long after blooming time." Sounds like a 1:1 sugar mix to me - 46 Brix - and I don't believe he poisoned a single hummer... (PM December 1946 may be found on-line - I'll let you figure that out for yourself...) - waw -

Susan, No, Tomato Tone is not sufficient to prevent BER because BER is not purely a nutritional deficiency issue although that perception exists. Blossom End Rot is more of a physiological condition. BER can be linked to a certain extent to a calcium deficiency in the plant, but not specifically to a calcium deficiency in the soil. The actual cause of BER has more to to with uneven watering at specific points in the plants' growth cycle. The best way to prevent BER is to keep the soil evenly moist at all times and to avoid letting the soil go through wild swings from too dry to too wet. Some other stresses also can contribute to BER, including overfertilizing. When your plant experiences certain stresses at certain points its growth cycle, the plant actually suffers a calcium deficiency within the plant itself and this can cause the calcium to physically leave the fruit and goes back into the main part of the tomato plant to compensate, and then the lack of calcium in the fruit allows the BER to develop. BER normally shows up as the darkened, leathery spot at the blossom end of the fruit and it can cause accelerated ripening. (More rarely, it shows up as a black spot on the inside of the fruit even though the fruit appears normal on the inside. This is known as the internal form of blossom end rot. I have seen it in one of my fruit exactly once in my life.) So, BER can occur even with adequate calcium in the soil because dry roots aren't pulling enough calcium out of the soil, so to speak, and that sets off the chain of events leading to BER. In addition to extreme moisture fluctuations and overfertilizing, BER also can be related to cool, humid weather, compacted soil and excess amounts of either potassium or ammonia in the soil or soil-less potting mix. BER is more common on certain varieties than others and it is more common on soil with a less than ideal pH (either too high or too low). You tend to see it most often early in the season when the tomato plants' vascular systems are still immature and find it hard to cope with the stresses to which they're exposed, which also can include high drying winds. Many years ago it was simply believed the entire cause was a calcium deficiency in the soil, but more recent research shows it to be the more complicated scenario I described above. Some people buy a calcium spray that is supposed to prevent BER but it does not work because calcium cannot be absorbed through the skin of the tomato. Even if you have BER early in the growing season, it tends to go away on its own as the plants grow and become larger and better able to withstand stresses of all types. As far as overfeeding, I find it incredibly hard to overfeed if you use only organic fertilizers because they release slowly and are absorbed slowly. It can be very easy to overfertilize with chemical fertilizers and I avoid them about 95% of the time for that reason. I doubt Espoma considers that people using soil-less potting mixes with pelleted fertilizer are also using their fertilizers. Their focus is, and always has been, on making the best organic fertilizers possible to provide the correct nutrition to plants. They also produce organic soil-less potting mixes and I'm sure they'd prefer we all use them. Whenever any one of us combines more than one fertilizer product with another, especially when they involve chemical or synthetic ferts, we are playing with fire because combining them can lead to levels of some nutrients that are too high. As far as Supersweet 100, it doesn't crack any more or less than many other cherry types. I prefer Sweet Million because I haven't noticed as much cracking with it. Some of the non-cracking cherries have skin so tough that I won't grow them, and if I do grow them, they are only for dehydrating and not for fresh eating since dehydrating makes the skin tough anyway. Lots of cherry types crack and, once again, I think providing evenly moist soil helps prevent it. That's a lot easier to do with container plants that are not necessarily exposed to heavy rainfall since you can move them to a sheltered location out of the rain. Too much moisture causes cracking in tomatoes of all shapes and sizes because it can make the internal portions of the tomatoes grow faster than the skin so the skin has to crack...it can't help itself. I wouldn't put two indeterminates in one 25-gallon pot. For me, both Jet Star and Supersweet 100 routinely top 6' to 8' in the garden soil or if in a large enough (20-25 gallon) container. They also can be 3' to 4' across, so putting two of them in one container, even a large container, is not something I'd do because they will be very cramped and crowded and the crowded foliage can become diseased very easily due to a lack of air flow. Please do not hesitate to ask questions. None of us mind answering them, and you never know when the question you ask will help someone else who is too reserved to ask questions. Lots of folks lurk here and only read and never ask questions, so your questions/our answers may help them too. (Hey, you lurkers, y'all should join the forum and talk to us....it is free...and we are nice 99.9% of the time so---what are you waiting for????) Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: If You Haven't Seen Espoma's Mixes, Here They Are

Get Form 1040-ES for 2009. It has what should be the correct tax RATES for 2009. Figure what is your yearly salary, estimated interest income, whatever else you may have. Self-employment, even, but then you have to include Schedule C and SE. Figure your personal exemptions and deductions as best you can based on either itemization or standard deduction for your filing status. Calculate what is the tax liability against the rates in 1040-ES and divide that by the number of pay periods you have. That tells you have much tax to withhold from each check. I've been doing this for years on a spreadsheet, correcting the numbers as the year progresses. Some things are difficult to estimate, such as dividends and capital gains for income, or unexpected medical expenses for deduction itemization and any last-minute changes to the tax code. I AM the payroll department at work, so I can adjust my withholding whenever I want. I purposely try to have a small balance due. One year I owed or was refunded (don't recall which) $26. For 2008 tax year I owe $115. 2007 tax year I got a $1,055 refund, tripped-up by some medical expenses for an incident in June that I couldn't predict if it'd all be settled by end of the year (which it was, by just a few days).

I'm with ideefixe...Nancy Lancaster and all that. Very English Country to me. Actually that style relies on mixing various patterns for its lushness, as you have done with the pillows. I think that simply repeating a fabric on the windows gives you the look and doesn't present the challenge of "getting it right" as you might by introducing something new. I think using the plaid panels will actually strengthen the look of the sofa, where a different WT would start to dilute the room. Plain white would be straightforward enough but a a bit predictable. Before I scrolled down to your pics, I thought...uh oh...plaid! But it is such a soft plaid and with all the pillows and no skirt on the sofa, the room can certainly handle it. More bold and stylish than anything else would be, IMO.