The photos suggest to me that your ph was off. In hydro, you would typically want to see near 5.5ph. If that is off, the plant can't accept any of the nutrients. I'd suggest getting a ph test kit, fairly cheap and available at any garden or pet store. For the lettuce I might suggest a T5 style light, l.e.d. tend to not offer enough brodcast for broadleaf vegetables

I have the Brother 8500 card only (purchased in 2002) and 2003D which uses both cards and floppy disks (purchased in 2004) and used the OESD Magic Box to convert to cards from floppies, CDs, online purchases as well as Bernina Artista cards. Magic Box is also compatible with Pfaff, Singer, Janome, Elna, Kenmore & New Home (stated on the Box slots). The drawback to a Magic Box versus the Ultimate Box is that the cards only hold about 6 designs at a time. The Ultimate Box cards are able to hold more but the Magic Box won't accommodate doing so. I have both Vikant and Magic Box cards. At the time I bought them, they were both about $69. Last year I purchased the PES2Card box which allows me to convert from Artista to Brother cards, as well as the floppies & CDs. What it also does is transfer from most cards -Brother, Artista are the only ones I've used- back to my computer to store on my hard drive or write to a floppy disk which is used in my 2003D. In other words, all my cards are now on floppies which are used most of the time in my machine. If I need to use the 8500 -which is card only- I use the card. I believe there may be other boxes now that do what the PES2 box does. I use it for all my converting now. It operates on the same principle as all the boxes, just that it writes from a card in the box as well as writing to a card in the box. Now the PES2 is the only box I use. Whenever I get a new design disk or card, I can write to a floppy and keep the original as backup. Since your machine does not use a floppy, you must stick with cards and - while I have not used the Vikant box - I believe the Vikant cards can hold more designs at a time. The PES2 box came with information telling exactly how much different manufacturer's cards can hold, stitch numbers I believe. I think Vikant was about 450,000, vs 50,000 or so for the Magic card. Don't quote me on the numbers because I haven't looked at that info for months.

wow, it's been forever since i popped back into this forum and i was reading through the threads and found this one that i posted 2 years ago. what a blast from the past! update on situation... in november of 2004 my ex contacted me (no surprise, he needed money). i sent him the money with the demand that i be allowed to contact my son and see him. it was difficult, but i made the decision that what has happened, happened, and i did not pursue any type of legal action on his disappearing with my son. nothing can bring back the time i lost with my boy, i figured all i could do was move forward from that point in time where we reestablished contact. i am happy to say that my son spent last summer with us, and again this past christmas. it hasn't all been easy, my older son wants nothing to do with his brother and refuses to be in the house when his brother is here (older son went out west to visit his father last summer while younger son was here, same at xmas time) i remember long ago during mediation the counselor used the term "polarized" regarding my boys, i didn't really understand what it meant at the time, but now i think i do. i'm hoping over time the boys will come together as brothers and that they can overcome the damage that their father has done to their relationship. it's almost summertime again, and i am looking so forward to having my now 15 year old son back in my home for a couple of months. his little sister adores him and she misses him terribly when he leaves to go back to his father. my son is not happy with his father, he has expressed a longing to come live with us (and since he is over the age of 14, in the state he lives in, he would be able to go into court and tell the judge which parent he wants to live with) , but the feud with his brother is getting in the way. i would love to find a way for these boys to get along and try to find some sort of neutral ground, and then i could put my family back together again completely. in the meantime though, i treasure every visit and phone call with my son and i thank god every day that my boy is back in my life. :) jiggreen

Was it very root bound? I ask because sometimes those bushy large JMs in containers come out with roots in a giant cylinder. I planted one like that last year, and now I need to dig it up, work on loosening the root ball, and put it back. I'm fairly new to JMs (in the past three years), but I think it would probably be good to trim yours back gradually. You don't want to take off too much, but you also don't want to watch an unwanted branch get bigger and bigger or the resulting wound from removing it will get bigger and bigger as well. Many of my JMs are young, and with most of them I left them for a year before doing any pruning, but when I buy a new one and I know I won't want a branch, I usually keep that branch in mind and trim it out during the next good pruning season. I've read that winter (Nov-Feb) is the best for pruning branches larger than your pinky, and a dry summer stretch (June or July) is good for pruning smaller branches. I know some people say to let the tree grow for 2-5 years before pruning, but usually when I prune I have a very specific structure in mind. If a branch is in an ugly spot, it's in an ugly spot. Three years won't change that. I'd spend a long time looking at its current shape once it's in the ground, giving yourself a season to get to know it in your landscape. Don't trim anything yet-- you may decide after a month or two that you'd like to rotate it or see the branches from a different angle. Once you're satisfied and know it well, then sit down and come up with what shape you think it can attain with its current branches. From there, mentally remove one or two here or there and see if it's an improvement. Waiting until next winter may be a good choice-- you'll see the form more easily then. Sometimes I sketch the main branches out on paper so I can more easily envision the shape of the tree once these little branches are more like trunks, and the tree has grown significantly. It's a beautiful tree!