I grow lots of roses in pots. We have a deck where they can be enjoyed better up close. Over the years, I find it essential to pay attention to the following details: 1. Watering. Inconsistent watering is probably a container rose's worse enemy. I have a dripper system with a timer - I can set the timer to water once every few days, or a few times a day. Over the hottest days of summer, it's at least 3 times a day of watering. 2. Feeding - it's true, with all that watering, fertiliser leaches out quickly. My container roses get an application of slow release pellets (3 month) in the spring. The conditions in containers invariably mean that even the control release pellets doesn't last three months - I give it a second application after the first flush. The dripper irrigation system is hooked up to a siphoning system which adds a weak dilution of soluble fertiliser into the water - I get this system started once they are at the peak of blooms. 3. Drainage and aeration. Which invariably means repotting once every two years for containers less than 5 gallons, and 3 yearly for containers 5 gallons or larger. 4. Keeping the roots cool. I suspect that this is a bigger problem than we think. I have documented soil temperatures as high as 40-50 degrees C in pots exposed to late morning sun. A pot-in-pot system seems to be effective in keeping the media cool. 5. Keeping the size of the roses appropriate for the size of the containers. For me, the limiting factor is the size of the containers. Large containers are too heavy and cumbersome to be lugging them up and down the stairs. I any case, I worry that I may overdo it and overload the deck to beyond it's engineered weight capacity. So, I am mindful of keeping the plants from outgrowing their containers by careful pruning. For the same reason, I select the roses carefully. Most of them are miniatures (which seem to thrive better in containers where they don't have to compete with other plants for sunlight and sustenance), the smaller HT's and shrubs. What the above adds up to is that it needs a lot more work than planting the roses in the ground, and often for less blooms. But if you need your roses up close, then, nothing beats having them in containers. One more thing I have learnt is that the mortality rates in container grown roses is much higher than those in the ground. So, I treat them as "throwaway" plants. I.e., I won't grow the only specimen of my most treasured rose in a container - it will get a spot in the garden ASAP. But I accept having to replace the container roses on a regular basis. I don't shed any tears on the miniatures - they are cheap, and there are so many varieties that it's fun to try new ones on a regular basis. Other roses are usually rooted off what I have in the garden. I usually have several rooted "copies" of my favourite container roses on standby to replace sick, dying or dead one's.

Worked a little radish seed into the garden yesterday and now have tiny bunches of lettuce starts out there. We will see if that works out. There are more lettuce starts if the 1st ones shrivel up and die. More radish seed for later sowings, also. The onion harvest is making room for succession crops. Since I have now harvested about 40sqft of the potato patch, and the soil has been returned to the bed over the top of a thick layer of compostables, I will begin sowing seed for Asian greens tomorrow! What I'm most looking forward to is Komatsuna Summerfest. The plants are tender and nice early in the season but they bolted quickly. They won't have that problem in the fall and were superb last fall! I've only planted it in the spring but Choy Sum is something you want to bolt because, like broccoli, the stalk and flower buds are valued. Still, the leaves are tasty too - if it decides not to develop flowers. There's also a chance that Choy Sum can overwinter and I just might allow it to do so. A fan of Maruba Santoh, I grew Beka Santoh for the first time this spring. It is supposed to be a "loose head Chinese cabbage," as is Fun Jen, which I've had in my garden for about the last 5 years. This fall will be my chance to grow them side-by-side and see how much difference there is between the 2. Honestly, they are very much like tender mustards. Maruba Santoh is more mild and a great salad veggie but I learned last year that it is too slow growing to work as a fall crop. The greatest number of square feet in the soil of what will become my former potato patch will be taken up with baby bok choy. For over 20 years, I've grown bok choy and found times for sowing and harvest throughout nearly all of the growing season. I've got both green stem (2 varieties) and Red Choi. Filling in the entire potato patch will take me much of August since the potato harvest will take that much time. Succession sowing thru most of it then, transplanting from the 1st part into the last few sections. Got the seed packets all in a bundle, ready to go! Steve

Terribletom, I appreciate your caution in responding, and I thank you for your diplomatic concern for my feelings. I certainly can understand your fear that I might rip haphazardly into wiring I don't fully comprehend, then go about my business till the house burns down. But I've come here to learn, and my skin is thick, so forgive me if I press ahead. "I (or others) could shoot from the hip about some of your specific questions." And I thank you for your interpretation of the cut red wire. You apparently are right about the PO using a piece of 14-3 when he actually needed 14-2; had I noticed that the red wire was clipped on the switch box side as well, I would have realized the red was just a short span of dead wire--and that would have answered my question about why it was cut short instead of being capped off like the white wire. And I suspect at some point somebody would have suggested that my confusion about why the PO used a single-pole switch (note my question mark in my initial description) might be because it isn't a single-pole, that perhaps 3-way switches in the 1980s looked like single-pole switches with a wire coming out of their backsides. So that clears up THAT question. "Without fully mapping out the circuitry and assessing the whole situation, any answer or set of answers would be pure conjecture--potentially dangerous guesswork." I understand that. And I realize that by describing the circuitry rather than posting my diagram of it I managed to scare and confuse people, possibly making my wiring project sound more complicated than it is. I HAVE mapped out the circuitry and have presented it all here as concisely as I could so that more knowledgeable heads than mine could assess it. The only piece I've left out is the origin of the 12-2 from Junction box 2. I know the wire to the basement has to connect back to the circuit box, but I assume that it also connects to the switch by the front doorway (the one inside the wall that I'm leaving alone)--because it HAS to. For one thing, in order for all 3 switches to work together, that front switch cannot be an island; for another, that switch has to connect to the second light source (whether it be the overhead or the side lights), because I only have 1 set of K&T wiring exposed, and clearly the overhead functions independently from the side lights. I can (and should) go down to the basement and trace that connection. But it has to be there. Otherwise, why involve junction box 2 in this at all? "Moreover, your description of the problem(s) betrays a lack of understanding of the basics of house wiring." Could you please elaborate? If it is because I used the terms "positive" and "negative" instead of hot and neutral, I apologize. I'm also aware that I used "beam" instead of "stud" at one point. And, having had my "eureka" moment, I am relieved to realize there are no single-pole switches involved here. I've tried very hard to be clear but know that precise vocabulary is important in technical explanations. I need to know what I'm missing, because I'm obviously not explaining myself adequately. "you're planning to move some switch boxes and rework what they control. That raises the issue of 'abandonment'." I am planning to move 2 switches, but I'm not sure I have the wherewithal to rework what they control, nor is that my goal. There will be no abandonment here. I'm not moving either junction box 1 or 2 (nor do I really want to fiddle with their contents)--just including them in my explanation in order to present "the whole situation." I need to place a switch by the door to the outside, connect it to another switch 3 feet away on the same wall (by the door to the back hall), move the 14-3 coming thru the floor from its current location to the new wall, extend the new wiring around the corner back to the 2 junction boxes, insulate the wall with the new switches before the carpenter (he didn't get to that wall last Sunday) drywalls that short section. No drywalling is being done at this time on the wall with the junction boxes. "And make no mistake about it: that's exactly what is at issue--a rewiring of the room and, perhaps, adjacent dependencies." But if I don't alter the contents of the junction boxes, I can't affect dependencies, right? The only function coming thru junction box 1 is some of the overhead lighting. I don't believe any of the outlets or the back hall light would be affected by moving the 12-2 out of junction box 2 (which might well be the most sensible thing to do, given how crammed that box is), but right now we intend to leave that box alone--just lengthen the run of 12-2 so it can reach the new switch. "But re-routing and re-working K&T is a perilous business at best." I've noticed that mentioning K&T does seem to make folks nervous. I would LOVE to get rid of the K&T in this room, but that's a much bigger project than we can manage at this time. All I want to do is to confine the K&T in junction box 1. And in order to do that, I have to understand what's going on with the "white wire" leg of this circuit. What I want more than anything is to replace the existing mess coming out of the bottom of junction box 1 with a single 14-2 (or 12-2, if that is the better option) and feed it, along with the 12-2 from junction box 2 thru the holes in my studs over to the new switch box locations. But I can't do that until I make sense of the current configuration. I don't own a camera. My DS took the pictures of the existing wiring. Would it help if I asked him to take a picture of the diagram I made in order to explain all this? Would you feel more comfortable if I went down into the basement and traced the path of the 12-2 back to the switch by the front doorway (yes, I know I need to do this anyway--and yes, I KNOW it would make you most comfortable if I said "I'm hiring a licensed electrician")?

Thank you for telling me what I know should have happened long ago. My sister and brother-in-law are both lawyers.We haven't wanted to upset Diane right now because of her health.But, we are going to ask Bob to help us get him out of here.Like I said, I don't want them to take them, I just want to know how to get him out.When Ken was in the hospital back in March because of taking to many pain pills, I asked the nurse case worker how I could get him out. She told me that because he was a relative and that I had let him move in, the only way to get him out was to take him to court. That doesn't seem right, and because of mine and Jim's health issues, I didn't go further.You asked me if he had mental or physical issues that would make him encapable to take care of himself. He somehow graduated from HS, has held jobs, only ones that Jim or my Dad got for him, and is not so much in pain from his back that he can't work. Sears let him go because he told them that he could only come back to work if he could work for two hours and be able to sit for 20 minutes when he needed to. The disability that he is getting is from insurance that he is payin #179. a month. It is not Government disability.As far as mental, he is really a filthy person.He doesn't shower, my children came over and tore up the carpet in his room, and painted his room purple, what he wanted. And his room is filthy already.I put his microwave and toaster oven on the porch because it is filthy and I don't want it in my house.Shortly after he moved in,I found bugs in the house so made him pay for an exterminator. He pays that every month.Sorry for venting, but that is about all I have done since he has been making our life even more miserable lately. He told me he is perfectly happy here, isn't leaving, and I can't make him leave. New Years resolution. He will leave here. We have looked into HUD houses, but they do inspections and you have to keep the place clean. So, if he doesn't and once he is out, he is not coming back. My Jim use to be a locksmith and this will be one happy job for him Thanks again, for listening.