Not sure why this old thread got resurrected, but... I just harvested a pathetic crop of spuds. Early this summer, little baby slugs showed up on my potato plants and within a week, the little buggars had completely eaten all but two plants. I had one Bison and one Peruvian Purple survive, and they yielded just enough spuds to overwinter for next year's seed. *whimper* I use Ciscoe's method (see link below). I have two garbage cans and one 3x3x3 bin (actually one of the old wooden slat compost bins that Bellevue was giving out about 15 years ago). I usually have a ton of spuds. I have gotten seed from Ronnigers.com, Irish-eyes.com, and a couple of local nurseries. Actually, NOW is the time to pre-order if you want something special for next spring. About when to harvest: Ciscoe says to wait until the stalks die back, then wait another two weeks after that. I've waited even longer, and the tubers seem to keep just fine in the dirt, as long as you don't have any bugs in the soil that start to munch on them. Here is a link that might be useful: Ciscoe Morris' page on growing potatoes.

I have a real life example. We had a rent-controlled apartment in San Francisco for 17 years - 1973 to 1990. No garage (serious problem in the city). Our utilities were $10/month - the landlady paid for heat (old fashioned steam radiators), water and garbage. She sent around a handyman annually to do any small repairs needed. Rent started at $265/mo and rose over time to $465/mo before we left. At that price it was still 50% lower than comparable apartments in the area. She preferred to have goods tenants who would stay, rather than renters coming and going. We were, in fact, the newest tenants in the building! In 1991 we moved into a 2bd 2ba cottage we had spent 18 months remodeling. At that point we were seriously underwater: we had bought the home at the top of the market in late 1989 for $180K. After the Loma Prieta earthquake we lost 25% in value, like everyone else in CA. Had to continue the remodeling because the house had already been gutted and was worthless at that point. Eventually spent another $75K to finish (along with a personal bankruptcy, yet another unpleasant memory of those times) and finally moved in April 1991. Had the house reassessed lower twice. Seriously thought we'd NEVER see any profit from this place! For purposes of this comparison, let's eliminate the mortgage deductions. From 1989 through 1998, we paid 6x/mo what we had paid for our apartment, BUT we had been at a below-market rent. Realistically, the house expenses cost about 3x/mo more than market-value rents. The eventual RE boom worked to our advantage, as did tightening rents. The latter was particularly helpful. We also paid off our first mortgage (we have a $20K second). At this point a comparable apartment to what we have now would be $2K/mo or more. Our overhead costs of utilities, property taxes, and homeowners/earthquake insurance, are $925/mo. If we still had a first mortgage, we would still be paying more for the house than for a comparable apartment. The house has been worth it to us as a savings vehicle. We are not terribly good savers - never have been, unfortunately. Even with the decline in RE it is probably still worth around $500K in profit after sales expenses. This is only a portion of our net assets. We have that much in a retirement portfolio, along with a government pension and retirement health benefits worth an estimated $1.75M. If the house were the major portion of our retirement assets (as many people seem to be counting on), I would be very worried. It is pretty clear we would have been better off economically to stay in our rent-controlled apartment, even if we eventually lost it and had to move elsewhere. BUT, that assumes we would have been disciplined enough to save the extra and invest it - which frankly, I can't guarantee that we would have been able to force ourselves to do. In my view, the house has not been cheap (despite being an inexpensive cottage for an urban CA area). Still, the satisfaction and enjoyment gained in having a personalized, private home was worth it. I'm glad we did it, but I'm not going to claim it didn't cost us quite a bit more than if we'd just rented.

silviatexas: You raise an interesting topic: How would one survive after a disaster that wiped out most of the world's population. You'd have to go back to living off the land like our early ancestors did, but that might be more difficult to do than they had it, because our explorer ancestors struck out from an established support group. In this disaster, no such group would exist until re-established. As I envision it, you'd have to survive a few years until enough peole found each other to form a community. For example, one can not be all encompassing, e.g., a doctor, dentist, engineer, woodsman, hunter, carpenter, and blacksmith all rolled into one. One would soon realize that he needs the specialities of others to aid comfort and survival. Yet, at the same time after a wipeout by disease, peoplw would be very suspicious of each other - whom could you trust to be 'clean'? All knds of senarios can be imagined. For example, human population would eventually build again, if only for the notion that nedical birth control would be missing. But one needs to look back only 150 years ago to see the burden placed on women who bore large families. So who would survive such a disaster? The time of the year would play a role. Someone mentioned planting a garden and raising chickens. If this proposed disaster struck right now as the northern hemisphere is appraoching winter, it would have a grave effect on it. The southern hemisphere would have a greater chance at survuval because they'd have more time to prepare for their winter. In the northern hemisphere, we'd be forced to wait until next spring to plant crops. mManwhile, we would have to scrounge for food and heat, or at least enough shelter to make it through cold winter nights. A temperate climate would be good and many would gravitate to such. many would find the summers unbearable hot by a move south. Interestingly, much of the environmental polution would abate. Vast tracts of land once tilled would lay fallow. Fields and bottom lands would begin to return to brush and grasses Wildlife would increase, but its makeup might be different to that of virgin America. Run off to streams would slow, soil erosion would slow, and stream waters would clear. No chemical fertilizers would exist to be spread around. City water plants and sewerage outlets would stop. Nature would havea hey day, but it takes time, many years for nature to revert the land back to non-farm. Meanwhile, what would humans do? If there was too many of us left, there could be too many for existing game to support during tghe winter months. More would die or starvation until our numbers matched the supply. Modern ammunition for hunting would soon be gone, and only a few of us might know how to make black gun powder and that would not matter anyway since one might not be able to gather the ingredients. From my own experience as a boy on a farm, we derived 50 to 70 percent of our food from our land; It also consumed more than 30 percent of our time. Without refrigeration, the menu has to be adjusted as the seasons change. Its not an easy life and I would fear it. You should see what misery a toothache can cause with no dentist in sight.

NCrealestateguy has a clue. Pricing is a concern. Get on it asap. I would suggest going through the listing pictures and eliminating some of them. This action is free. Nothing says you have to use all 30 spaces allotted in a listing. It's not a large house and there just isn't enough going on to justify 30 pictures. 15 Good pictures is better than 30 so-so pictures. They become repetitive or feature areas that don't need highlighting. Get rid of a few of the outdoor pictures that have been a subject of discussion. Now, that we are on the subject of price, let me explain some of the psychology. Price searches run in groups. Under $500,000 they run in $50,000 dollar increments. Over $500,000 they tend to run in $100,00 increments. Your basic searcher will look at houses under $150,000, under $200,000, under $250,000, so on and so forth. Then, they will search in $10,000 increments within that $50,000 range. If you can get to $199,000 you will bring in a whole new set of buyers. If you sit in the $209,000 to $200,000 range, you are in the bottom of the range and are being compared to much nicer properties. You may miss a whole group potential purchasers. It's better to be at the top of the range. If you can take it off the market for a few days to get a new MLS number and new listing designation, it would be helpful. There are different rules for different MLS associations, ask the realtor if this is possible. Do not despair, you are going to get this done.