Thanks Herb, INK, Edzard To clarify a few points: Edzard- I to an extent understand your points in regards to Fuzei. Issues that I have run into in my lifetime including Aikido is the western mind adapting to asian concepts. While cultural ideas are thought to be understood by the West they really never are. I appreciate the beauty and culture of the society and believe there are many elements that we here in North America should embrace I will never be able to emulate or train my mind to think. As we converse I am honestly not trying to put the cart before the horse I am whether right or wrong thinking like a westerner that I am. Herb and INK- First off, the garden is for myself and my wife..no kids allowed. (at least not unless accompanied by an adult!) In looking back at the house my thoughts were to build a wall where the current wrought iorn is coming off the house. This wall + the fenceline from the patio post out would effectively seal off the yard from everyone. On the newly constructed wall and on the back of the house where the brick is exposed I planed on installing a stone veneer to cover the red brick. I planned on a deck effectively making the transition from the house to outside level. Under the eaves there is a skylight not visable in the picture. My plan was to cover the current underneath of the patio with cedar soffit or another wood making that porch of stone and wood. Top off the back of the house with new 4X4 posts and a copper gutter. I absolutly agree with the idea of sustainability and That is why I am going very slow. I susbscribed to JG journel and will continue to study as I go along. I am sub-contracting most of the work, mostly because I am a numbers type person and truly not very gifted in the way's of construction. I am fortunate in this project to have two neighbors who both retired master woodworkers from their Union and a client who is an upscale landscaper. None of them have done this type of work before, however all have offered to help with the landscaper giving me his time for no charge and all materials at his cost. The catch to this project is time. I was told (Edzard this is where the 75K number came in) that client/landscapper would not touch a job that was less then 50k. If I was willing to go slow, let his crew work on Saturday's to earn extra money, and use his resources at or below cost I could literally have a 50-70k yard at a 10-15k price. The kicker was time, the entire project might take 2 years which is fine because he knows nothing of creating a JGarden and needs me to direct him as to what to do. I sorry for being long winded but since everyone is helping so much with idea's I wanted Herb and Edzard to know a little more detail then I originally gave. Regards Erik

Dawn, I received a report this evening. I'm puzzled. Not for sure if it was for the first two or all four. She says there is no disease issues and I need to quit spraying copper/daconil. Don't feel she paid attention to the part where I said I had septoria issues and also TSWV but didn't send them in as I can diagnose them. She kept repeating you don't have TSWV. I sent an email stating the plant that has it I didn't send. She says it is stress only and they will recover. I know better than that. When I sent the second plant I debated which one to send. The one I didn't send I pulled last night. It had shriveled up to where it was a foot shorter and the fruit was starting to shrivel. The roots look fine and the soil was very moist. I have left some in the past to try to ripen fruit. If it gets to breaker stage and you pick it and let it ripen inside it will be bitter. I have never seen stress affect plants in this fashion. I also had 3-4 plants that exhibited the same symptoms last fall from mid Sept to frost after the cooldown. So I'm puzzled and not sure what to think. Like I told her in the reply. I will continue to pull them as I've found even if they live 3-4 weeks they never grow again even if it is cool and the fruit from them isn't fit to eat. I yank them and plant squash in their place. At least I get some good from the water I'm using. So basically I don't know anything. I know for sure the last plant had wilt. It was completely wilted at 6 am last Sat morning when it was in the 60's. Again the soil was very moist and it had a great root system. I had the wilt hit two more plants. The one in a container was toast in 3 days. When I pulled it one morning even the stem was limp. Being that I've started I will continue to spray Daconil/copper till at least Sept and maybe for most of the season. I've been trimming leaves. It takes at least 30 minutes a plant. I feel the reason I had septoria was we did have over and inch of rain during that time. Also I had the sweet corn on the south side and our winds quit for several days. And the plants were 6 ft or taller with lots of foliage and canopy. One evening when picking fruit I noticed it was like a sauna in there. I think the combination caused the issue. Being that I've cut the corn down and it hasn't rained and i've been spraying the issue is under control for now. I plan to remove all dead and diseased looking foliage although it is a very slow process. It is just on the caged rows. They were the early plants. I've trimmed up either 4 or 5 plants in 4 evenings. I do everything else first. Will get out early this weekend and try to get several done. Have at least 20 plants to go. This evening I finished up a Prudence Purple from George's seed. It is setting fruit good now. And then moved to the Cowlick''s Brandywine. Knock on wood it has considerable fruit set. One reason I won't quit spraying. I hope I can taste a few this year and save some seeds. I'm guessing maybe 20 or more. From tinies to some around 2-3 ounces. Due to the heat I have some malformed fruits. Mule had some pictures on his site of some he has picked. I have some real oddballs. The one Grandma Suzy's plant that shows heat stress has several with big scars on the bottoms. The other GS's plant so far knock on wood hasn't shown any stress issues. It is at least 2 ft taller and I haven't noticed any problems on the fruit on it. But it is fast proving to be a good setter here. Hopefully both plants will last through the season. Both plants are fairly well loaded. So the fruit set on the Cowlick's was the good news I needed after finding out they didn't find the reason the plants decline and eventaully die. I just never heard of stress causing a change in the color of the top leaves and stems to a light yellow and the blooms all die. Some very small fruit set drops off. The leaves usually never curl till later as the light yellow color works it's way to the bottom of the plant. As it goes down then the stems and leaves curl. She said the one almost looked like herbicide drift. I guess that is possible but why not all the plants in an area and whyt does it continue to happen 1-2 plants a week or so sometimes several feet a part for most of the season? May never know the cause. If it continues I will send plants elsewhere to get a second opinion. Jay

Jennifer, I would have been here sooner but I had to eat my way through the M&Ms. My new system is 2 months old now and as anyone here who knows me I was dragged into the 21st centtury kicking and screaming. The old system, a HP 400mhz P2 WIN98 OE suited me for what I was doing. It was just the learning curve getting wider and wider. I spent a lot of time researching purveyors and manufacturers. I finally decided on a dual core Vista HP a6040n DVD +/- RW 2 gigs ram with a 17" flat screen monitor for around $1100.00 at Best Buy. I dumped the included trial Norton and installed AVG. The system has everything I need and more. I'm not a gamer either and I have no regrets. I was searching for a double drive system when I was advised that with the current software only one was necessary. No outward saving to the HD they told me. They were right. In actuality if you are copying a disk with Roxio 9 you 1: Insert the original in the drive, 2: Utilize the software, 3: When notified remove the original disk and replace it with a blank disk and 4: Click to finish. Nothing to it. Even I can do it. I am not certain if your version of Word will work on Vista. However, I am now using Open Office (Word compatible) without any concern. Whatever you get I am certain you will enjoy it greatly. Good Luck! Da

Finally found my way back to this topic. LOL I'll give my input on Facebook. I'm on Facebook. but I wouldn't want to use it for something like this. I don't want to post my comments about why here, but will be happy to share them by e-mail if anyone is interested. And now for today's Bingo word: Love Story Did I forget to post one yesterday? I'll have to look back over the list. Our internet connection seems to go out several times a day lately so I don't know what's up with that. Sometimes if I try to sign on several times that day and can't get through I give up and try again the next day. It went down to 12 degrees last night. Also our high for today was a new LOW for a record high if you can understand that. I think it was for 2 days in a row that happened. Brrrr! But no snow so that's a plus. I do have some good news. The round robin package from Melinda arrived here today. She enclosed a note that she can't get on houzz so I hope she gets it worked out. There were really nice things in the package. I think some members added more things than they took out. I won't list all of it, but I got flower stickers, baking cups with a snowflake design, a spool of wired ribbon, tissues, magnets, and note cards. The seeds are great, too -purple fountain grass, big juicy strawberries, baby's breath, variegated tomatoes, and several more. Thank you, everyone! I haven't done it yet, but I'm going to try to e-mail Melinda to let her know her package arrived. I'll ask how she's doing because I know we all hope she is doing better. Well, the later it gets in the day, the colder I get so I'm going to burrow under my afghan again. It's supposed to be warmer tomorrow. Jeanne