Hi, I have the same orchid... or so it appears. There are a few varieties of these phals that look extremely similar and have different names.... so i'm not convinced you have the right name for yours.. could also be an Ever Spring Angel.. http://www.paramountorchids.com/jpg/Phal%20Ever%20Spring%20Angel1%20copy.JPG Kind of a pain when they aren't labeled, but eh, what can you do? I think your leaves look fine. Phals require low light ... so I imagine yours is fine in the East window (or really any window as long as its close enough to the window to get bright indirect light). If you don't already know... be careful not to overwater the phal or it's blooms will fall right off and you can cause root rot. I can't tell from you photos what kind of potting medium you phal is in. If it's moss, let it mostly dry out between waterings so the top inch or so of the moss gets dry, then water (normally once a week or less). If it's bark, it will need to be watered slightly more frequently, but make sure again, it should dry out a bit before waterings (don't let it get bone dry, but give it a chance to evaporate) Enjoy! Debbie

Marquisa, My husband, myself and our two kids opened up a roadside stand last year for the first time. We took over by grandmother's 2 acre garden and took advantage of the good location and opened a stand on the edge of the road during the summer and stayed open until Halloween. We were open weekends and then in the fall we were open full time for 3 weeks during fall harvest. We used a big metal mailbox attached to a 12 foot wood table for when we were gone (as we don't live there but a few miles away. We left produce out with and signs for pricing and the honour system was kept. Our phone # is listed on a sign so people could contact us right away if needed. We would check it everyday and restock produce during the week and be open on Saturday and Sunday 8:00 to 5:00. I also sold vegetables directly to friends, members at my sister's health club, co-workers....all because of word of mouth and letting people know what I had. I ran off a produce list and made posters up and posted them on every bulletin board I could find. I listed all the varieties of vege's we had and when they were available. Our stand consisted of the big tent(awning)I purchased from WalMart for $30 that we placed two table under and then placed various other tables and other containers around the awning. You need some kind of protection from the sun as some vegetables will wilt and shrink quickly if left out. We thought we would sell more vegetables than we did...late July was slow at the stand but I sold a lot to my other buyers. My neighbor daughter runs a mexican restaurant and she purchased the majority of my peppers and onions after I gave her a flat of various vege's to use. Some of my best customers were the ones I gave them a new variety of squash or vegetable to try and they would come back out and bring a friend or family member. Summer crops that sold include red and white potatoes....red being the top seller. We sold by the pound and had the small potatoes already bagged. We sold white, purple and yellow onions 3 for $1.00 or a flat crate of them for $3.00. Tomatoes were late this year and so the majority of our crop we started selling late in August. I sold so many to my coworkers and neighbors I usually didn't have a large supply on hand. Top seller was Celebrity and the cherry or Sweet 100 varieties. The zucchini were tricky and had to be protected from the sun after they were picked. Tip:The eightball variety gets too large very quickly so you need to keep this picked everyday. Come fall we had 9 varieties of squash and around 17 variety of pumpkins and we sold around 800 pumpkins and 450 squash in our stand. I also sold broomcorn, field sorghum, indian corn, popcorn and ornamental gourds. The broomcorn was a huge hit with the local ladies for fall decoration and was so easy to grow....I would sell it for either $3.00 or $5.00, depending on how big of bundle they wanted. We sold out broomcorn in early November. It was very profitable and we had lots of fun running the stand and meeting new people. As to your questions, I can help with a few suggestions... " Is there a formula or "best guess" as to how much of which vegetable we should produce for our potential customer base? Vegetables can be tricky,in the sense of knowing what will sell and what won't. We grew cucumbers, zucchini (both Fordham and Eight-Ball varieties), tomatoes(14 different varieties), onions, squash, peppers (bell peppers, jalapeno, chili, and hot peppers). The cucumbers and zucchini has to be sold more quickly and protected by the sun. I would pickle or freeze the extra or leftovers. Grow varieties of vegetables you will enjoy to eat or can process and keep for later time. Don't go overboard on peppers or tomatoes until you know you can get rid of them. For you if you have limited space look for bush varieties of vegetables to plant. You can interplant some varieties...find a new farmer's almanac and it will help you figure out what varieties of vegetables can be grown with each other or with flower varieties. "What proportion of your garden would you dedicate to cut flowers and how much to vegetables?" We were going to have cut flowers at our stand and we planted large zinnias, cosmos , sunflowers and marigold on the edge of the vegetable garden...we went to the farmer's market and found that their was lots of competition. We sold some flowers at our stand on weekends in August... we placed big vases or buckets full of different flowers and sold then for $3 or $4 per bundle. It was a pain and not our main seller...once we started selling broom corn I gave up on selling fresh flowers. Plant what you can grow easily, know you can rid of(sell, give away, freeze, or can) and grow what you will make the most profit on. Our best and most profitable was small ornamental gourds. I had wagons full of them and sold them for 5 for a dollar. I planted 4 packets of mixed ornamental gourds and ran them up fences to save space. We sold a large supply of potatoes and squash in the fall. Many varieties of squash come in bush variety so they don't vine out as much. " When is the peak time for sales? In the morning or evening when people are coming home from work?" Saturday mornings were always good and late Sunday mornings(after church would let out) we got quite a few regulars back. I always opened up at 8:00 in the morning and my regulars would rely on it. On weekdays I would check the lock box and work in garden for a couple hours and be available at stand and we got quite a few people to stop on their way home from work. Best advice I can give you is.. Have a nice and full looking display. Clean your vegetables, have sacks and hand them out or have large supply of them(I used old grocery sacks or bought small brown sacks at Walmart). Keep your product display full and and colorful. Also know your product..the more you know about variety, ways to cook it or process the better...I kept my favorite recipes on a recipe run off sheet and would hand them out to regulars. Use signs on the side of the road and tie balloons to your mailbox or to fence posts on weekends. Many people would see balloons and think our stand was a garage sale and would slow down long enough to catch interest to what we were selling. I wish you the best of luck .... we had a wonderful time with our stand and look for forward to this upcoming summer and fall. email me if you have any other questions.... Sue from Hawk Valley Garden Dickens, Iowa

I resurrect this thread to give a brief report on the X8350 which I put into service about a week ago. The delay in giving this brief review/appraisal is due to the fact there was a problem. I went to Lexmark web-tech-support, which was very slow, but expert. All the time I was thinking I should take the color cartridge out and clean the print head with 91% alcohol. But as it is a new printer I didn't want to do anything to invalidate the warranty. After one go-around with tech-support telling them I think the megenta head on the color cartridge is non-op they came back, after about 3 days, to tell me to "wick" the color cartridge, using water. I used 91% alcohol. This fixed the problem. To the review (assuming a good initial color cartridge): Nice unit, excellent (wonderful) full color status/maintenance display, very intuitive. It looks to be at least one BIG step above the X4270 I had. I am very pleased, and being a refill the ink guy, I can say Lexmark still makes an easy to refill cartridge (I have not yet done so, but I've have given a close look), and the cartridges, while small, are rather inexpensive, meaning it isn't expensive to replace the cartridge after a couple of bulk ink refills.

Hi Kristine. With all of the amazing experts and great advice on here, I bet you got more than you bargained for! Are you still reading? ;-) My advice would be a little different, but also similar to what has been mentioned. Researching roses is great... and fun! But if you have a public rose garden nearby, walking the grounds and getting a feel for what roses look like in your actual climate is probably the most helpful. Seeing a rose in person, smelling it, touching it, these are all important things to me (being a very kinesthetic - touchy feely - person). Also...Don't feel Iike you always have to follow rules or common knowledge, unless you want to. It is your garden, your time, your hard work and your money after all. Simply enjoy yourself and enjoy learning more as you go. I would also tell myself to always braid my hair before doing any gardening. ;-)