Well, It's nice to know that I got close. This is the reason I felt safe bidding so much for your seeds. Yes, I do know that these seeds can produce wonderful plants or bad plants. I'm willing to take that chance up to a point. The cost can get just out of my reach and then, I'll bow my head and say, it wasn't meant to be for me this time. I've been growing seeds for the past 2 years. The first year about 400 the second year about 1,000. My problem with seeds, once they grow out of their baby pots, then they must be either planted or potted up. Since my soil is so bad, I choose to pot. This takes a lot of time and expense since I have to buy all my soil and fertilizer. I have most of my 2006 seedlings (about 1000) in 2 gallon pots or bigger. I figure most will bloom in 2008. My 2005 seedlings bloomed this summer and I had some really good ones. They all need to be repotted up into 5-7 gallon pots, The cost will be less than last year because I am using pine bark, expert and a soil conditioner that is nothing much more than compost. All of these together will cost about a third as much as I paid for the "Expert" and "Mircle Grow " soil last year and is not suppost to compact as bad either. I sure hope it works. This mix comes highly recommended from some of the Florida growers. Repotting all of these will take a long time for me. I have about 2000 seeds setting quietly in the dark of my fridge awaiting my decision to plant them or sale them. That's the reason I've reframed from buying any seeds this year, thus saving a bundle or last year. You are so right about keeping records. It's time consuming, very much time, alot of time! It takes 3 times as long to make the crosses, take a picture, and record these crosses on paper than it does just to dabble a little pollen on an pistol. Oh Yes, you have to label these crosses too. Then if you get a pod, you have to harvest the seeds and record all this info again! That's one of the reasons I slowed down on seeds this year too. But I sure did want the seeds of "Bass Gibson and Puffer Fish". I didn't get those so I'll keep an eye on whats being posted next time. It's been fun and I may bid one more time, but I don't think so on this round of seeds. I love growing seeds and hope everyone else does too. It's a beautiful day here in NE Mississippi and I hope it is for you too, Blessings to all, Mona

Hi everyone! Great responses! I am getting the G2830sci - for $1699. I found it on Craigslist. Never used. It was a "floor model". I am getting the cash for appliances rebate for the *thing*, and a hopefully $50 rebate from the utility company. I have right now a GE Nautilus. It came with the house and it's awful. The front panel on the G2830 is black, it's already on there. It's coming on Friday, I can't wait. The GE Nautilus leaves dishes dirty a lot of times and has an awful silverware basket at the bottom, which if you remove leaves a big hole in the bottom! I can't put a lot of dishes in it and so I wind up running the dw 2 or 3 or more times a day and there's only 2 of us! And the noise, omg, the noise of the GE Nautilus is unbelievable. We wanted to save some money so that's why we're going with the older La Perla rather than the new one.

"I'm glad the lady had the means to live a full life and have some adventure." Did we read the same article? "Too poor to retire and too young to die" is not a tale of the bohemian adventures of a free spirit. She's not living a full life; she's living a desperate life. She's an old woman who has to take jobs where she's on her feet 12 hours a day, and lives in an RV that's on its last legs, without the means to make necessary repairs. She's hanging on to the memories of a former life when she could afford to indulge in little luxuries, in denial that her current situation is far more dire. She's one illness or injury from being hospitalized long enough to have her RV impounded, and will then be without a home or transportation. (She couldn't afford a speeding ticket, much less impound fees. There is no buffer in her life.) She may likely spend her remaining days in homeless shelters. The article spoke of no relatives or friends who would take her in. Yes, she's trying to make lemonade out of lemons, but she can't afford the sugar that could make it drinkable. I fear for anyone's future to end up in such a sad, lonely, desperate place.

Okay then good news about the top dressing. It could be so old that it was never graded properly the first time. Or it could be optical illusions. My inlaws in El Monte had a perfectly flat lawn where the soil met the concrete at the driveway and sidewalk with no bulges, so in that respect it was perfect. They didn't water, so it was a mess, but... Yes, dig for grubs just for your own edification. You might find as much as a few per square feet. That's fine up to a dozen per square feet. If you find it squishy with hundreds of grubs, then you should have treated it in July. Treating now is like closing the door after the horses are out. They have stopped feeding for this year. Hot? Okay here's the watering schedule broken down by temperatures. Watering: Deep and infrequent is the mantra for watering. This is for all turf grass all over the place. Deep means 1 inch all at one time. Put some cat food or tuna cans around the yard, and time how long it takes your sprinkler(s) to fill all the cans. Memorize that time. That will be the time you water from now on. My hose, sprinkler and water pressure takes 8 full hours to fill the cans. Your time will likely be less. I like gentle watering. As for watering frequency, that depends on the daytime air temperature. With temps in the 90s, deep water once per week. With temps in the 80s, deep water once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 70s, deep water once every 3 weeks. With temps below 70, deep water once a month. Note that you have to keep up with quickly changing temps in the spring and fall. This deep and infrequent schedule works in Phoenix and in Vermont, so it should work for you. The reason for deep and infrequent is to grow deeper, more drought resistant roots and to allow the soil to dry completely at the surface for several days before watering again. If it rains, reset your calendar to account for the rainfall. If once every 5 days works in Phoenix at 115 degrees, then 2x per week would never be right for the San Gabriel Valley. It is likely, too, that 1/2 hour is not enough to get an inch. Here's another tip: spray the yard with any clear shampoo at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet followed by 1/2 into to 1 inch of irrigation or rain. That will help the soil absorb the water much deeper. j4 is a non-believer in corn meal. I don't know if he's tried it, but it has worked for me every year for the past 14. I have never let my lawn get as bad as your mother's is. It does look dead. I have recovered a dead lawn, but it was from the outside in and required serious patience. Mine was in the Texas (almost) desert and caused by a broken sprinkler system before I moved in. St Aug only spreads when temps are in the 70s, so fixing it in the heat took a little longer than I had hoped. I fixed it with deep and infrequent watering. You might be surprised to see new grass popping up in the middle of the dead. Or not. Just because everyone is mowing short in the area, that won't make mowing short the right thing to do. St Aug will absolutely thrive at 32 inches tall. Here's a picture of my dog walking through my semidesert St Aug. You can see her tail and ears. That grass was never fertilized (or mowed) in the 2.5 years I lived there. When the grass grows up tall it grows deeper roots which can get moisture and nutrients from much deeper in the soil. These roots were in uncharted territory picking up nutrients from way deep down. As it turns out you don't have to water nearly as frequently when the grass is up tall like that. I had one spot that grew up to 32 inches quickly. I never watered that area in 30 months through a full year of drought and then some rains. This hyperinfrequent watering was the point of growing the grass that tall.