Goneb, Never tried burning a strawberry bed but our wild low bush blueberries are routinely burned to ground level as a way to make way for the new stems and to kill diseases and perhaps some bugs. That process works very well. With strawberries it may also work if the crown of the plant is not killed by too much heat. I would add more straw later to keep the frost from heaving the plants. Burning as a cultural method may be a lost art. I believe I read where the organic pioneers, the Nearings, kept beds going far longer than was thought possible. They did not use any burning however. Sounds like this could be a good experiment. I do know that burning over fully frozen bb plants burns only to the ground level. I just remembered that we also burn old fields that have lots of wild strawberries and they are not harmed by the burning at all. Some strawberry diseases however are soil born and would not be killed by burning. Planting varieties resistant to these diseases and burning plus using the traditional renovation techniques may indeed allow one to keep the beds going longer. Bberry

I just wanted to post that I was out at the National Arboretum a few weeks ago. The large Q. acutas looked like they sustained some damage from teh past winter. Some twig and a few branches died back. Sad to see. But they will certainly survive. The Q. salicina looked like it had NO damage at all surprisingly. I have never seen acorns on them. Interestingly the Q. phillyreoides had some acorns. No apparent dieback. They all looked rather shrubby to me and not large single trunked trees. L. henyri and Q. myrsinifolias looked just fine. Q. glauca specimens at the Arboretum have all had a rough go of it over the years. Numerous diebacks. Pretty pathetic. They should really not be grown up here. But maybe they got some northern provenance stock that they wanted to try. I didn't see where they were from. Unrelated, but all the hollies looked great. Even Ilex latifolia. The Ilex latifolia in my yard looks great as well. No apparent winter damage. A small amount of leaf spot but overall I was very pleased. This post was edited by dave_in_nova on Fri, Oct 17, 14 at 10:33

It's been over 6 months since our last deep freeze, so I thought it was about time to give an up-date. All of the Olive Trees showed signs of freeze damage. Many of the leaves and smaller branches turned brown and eventually died. I would estimate that about 1/3 of the outer foliage had some sort of damage. I waited until May before removing any of the burnt looking foliage whatsoever. It's now the middle of August and the trees look green and healthy. The Oleanders and Changsha Orange didn't make it. However, I am happy to report, after turning all brown and looking quite dead, the Climbing Figs made a 100% recovery. In fact, they look better than they have in years (probably due to all the new growth). Looking around the neighborhood, it appears that most gardens suffered similar damage as mine. One can still see some dead limbs and leaf burn which hasn't yet been removed. A few homes lost some marginal hardy plants/trees like Eucalyptus and Sago Palms. But overall, it's now hard to tell that we ever experienced such cold weather. I am now back in Ireland, completing the end of a two-year assignment. If our Olive Trees make it through this winter, I plan to attach photos so everyone can see.

Chemocurl posted: "That is amazing that you could keep a room of that size with large windows and 3 outside walls that warm with just one 1500W heater!" No that is NOT amazing. Just about ALL space heaters sold at the stores use 1500W of power, and any of them will certainly heat a room. Those that use less produce less heat of course. Those that use more produce more. It is physics. Do realize that running a 1500W appliance continuously is sucking a lot of energy. "The site here explains the three major types of heat." That site does not explain anything. It is ADVERTISING. It uses a lot of fluff words like amazing, superb, excellent, and the like. Then it goes on to carefully select words that sound like solid scientific data arranged to make this heater they sell sound like it is something new and different. Everything the ad says is carefully arranged and worded to be misleading when you read it. For instance they say that the unit "only" draws 1500W of power and reminds the reader that a 'simple coffee maker' uses 1500W of power, which is true, but you don't keep your coffee maker running 24 hours a day either, do you? A coffee maker only draws 1500W for about one or two minutes and then reduces power consumption to about 300W to keep the warmer on (if it has one - some don't), and even that is shut off after the coffee is gone. The write the ad to try to convince the reader that there is some brand new scientific hocus-pocus that they invented that they exclusively sell. What they are selling is a space heater that is no different than other ones you can pick up at the store for about $30. As, I said before, a space heater does have it's advantages in some situations like for zone heating. You can set your furnace thermostat for your house at say 40° or 50° so that your pipes don't freeze and your wallpaper does not peel off, and use the space heater in a room that you are using with the door closed to keep yourself comfortable. Using a space heater instead of baseboard heaters that are already installed in their home, like your neighbors do, is NOT going to save energy. You can't cheat physics. Alisande posted: "But they wanted me to pay $250 a month on the budget plan. I got them down to $188, but that still sounds outrageous to me." ☛☛☛I hope you realize what a budget plan means. If they calculated your average to be $250/mo and you are now paying $188/mo you will have a HUGE balloon payment at the end of your cycle. I hope you have the lump sum money set aside to pay it when you get your bill. Unless you have done something to reduce your usage from the last two years, (which is what they calculate the figure from), like get new windows or adding insulation, and know that your usage will be less, OR know that the price/rate of fuel has gone down in your area, (not likely), and the new figure is closer to what you will owe, you could be in a financial predicament at the end of the billing cycle. All a budget plan does is spread your payments over a period of time so that your bill does not fluctuate wildly, and you know what your monthly payments will be, ie; no 'surprises'. ☛☛☛ It is not a "discount" nor does it produce any "savings". You pay for what you use. Period.