Jodik says: The coir might look dry on top, but down in the center of the pot, it could be quite moisture-laden! I have found it helpful to insert little wooden skewers carefully into the soil to about root level, and leave them there... I take them out and press them against my cheek to test for dampness... if they feel at all damp, I wait to water... but if the skewer comes out dry, it's time to water. My coir is 4" deep in a closed pot. I put the skewer to the bottom of the pot. When I take it out how many inches of bone dry top "soil" should there be before it's time to water again? Is it 1", 2" or 4"? I just went 10 days without water and only 1" of the top was dry so am I supposed to water this direct sun pot once every two weeks or so to avoid over watering, really? And how much water for my 6" closed pot? I had been watering 1 1/2 cup or so once a week and my plant was fine but I'm now worried that was too much so I'm re-evaluating. I know what conventional wisdom says (water deep, not shallow) but that advice doesn't seem to apply to my situation. Also how long should it be before I see new leaf growth in the summer time (first season outside)? My 18 month old Red Lion so far has only grown new leaves once a year. At potting and at dormancy end.

maybe I do need to explain my idea of dry brining a little bit. I did a google search and it seems I differ from some of the info. Almost all of it is about meat and I must tell you that dry brining is just as good for vegetables. It takes that little hard edge (maybe bitter for some people) off the vegetable making it more palatable. What I do is pretty informal. I prepare vegetables for cooking such as washing and snipping off the end of green beans, or slicing mushrooms or peeling some of the coarse stem off broccoli and chop, etc. I then put the vegetables in a collander. I use about 1 tsp kosher salt per 8 oz of fresh mushrooms. Or two teaspoons for 1 1/2 pounds of green beans. For carrots, I use two teaspoons for 10 mediums carrots thickly sliced (on the diagonal). But don't leave out the seasoning step. Stir the salt into the vegetables in the collander. Then I mince a large jalapeno with seeds in my food processor. Then stir the jalapeno bits into the vegetable mixture in the collander. I think this is the point you could substitute other seasonings such as thyme or dill or garlic or oregano. Stir everthing well trying to make sure your veggies are coated with the herbs (or jalapeno bits). Then put the collander over an empty bowl and cover the collander with a dishcloth. Here is where I get really loose with the directions depending on how much time I've got. But I rarely leave the veggies sitting on the counter in the collander (covered) for more than 3 hours. But I think you could if you accidentally went that long but I have no idea what the maximum time would be. May depend on the veggie. Once your ready to cook, then nothing else special to do but cook. A lot of veggies are good roasted. You can put the results from your collander on a roasting pan and spray lightly with one of those spray cans of olive oil. And then roast for normal amount of time. There will be liquid probably in the bowl beneath the collander. I just discard this though it might be good for making a stock but could be rather salty. Sorry I'm winging most of this but the main point of this is that the salt besides taking the edge off the veggies seems to somehow cause the seasonings to really be drawn into the veggies and penetrates them better than without the brining, IMO. When I cook catfish fillets, I let them sit in the collander with the jalapeno bits and salt covered for a few hours. But inevitably, when I roast them, I need to roast for about 10 minutes, drain and roast some more. Not sure if I get the liquid because my catfish is cheap or what but the final version of the catfish with the jalapeno spicy flavor is nothing short of fabulous. I don't eat catfish any other way now. Yum, yum, yum. Sorry to make this so long but when I went looking on google, turns out there isn't much on this. I posted a pickled carrots recipe in other thread that I love for low fat, diet snacking and healthy too that involves dry brining first with minced jalapenos, then briefly boiling in vinegar and water and chilling in jars in the fridge. If you like spicy food, the salt will really enhance the jalapeno flavor, IMO. Search for "pickled carrots" and I bet it will pop up.

Dar, The problem is, you have this path... C:\pspStuff\Texturizer\filter It needs to be this path... C:\pspStuff Mine is C:\PSPStuff\PlugIns because I have another sub folder there. And I don't have the 3rd box checked...Limit loaded plug-in files... But that's not the reason this isn't working. It's your path. When I said in my inst. "So the path to one of my folders and one of the files in it is this..."C:\PSP Stuff\PlugIns\Xenofex\Xenofex .exe" That was just to show you where one is. What I said in the next line in my above inst. was how you enable the path. That was this... Find the path to where you created your new plugin /filter FOLDER. Highlight it and then click OK at the box. Don't forget to close and re-open psp for the filters to take effect. About the .exe question. Most plug-in filters don't come with an executable file (.exe). If they do, then double click on it to install it, and make SURE that you direct it to install to the folder you want it in. Just read all the boxes carefully as they pop up before clicking next. But most don't have an exe file. You just extract the zip file to the folder it's in and that's it, as long as you have that folder enabled in psp. And about having one filter in your psp plug-in folder. That's okay. A few there won't hurt. But if you want to move it, just copy and paste them all to the new folder, then delete it out of the psp folder AFTER you paste it in the new one. Or you can drag and drop it in the new one. I hope all of this helps hon! :·)) -:¦:- ) ¸.·´ .·´¨¨)) ~Summer ((¸¸.·´ .·´ ( -:¦:- ((·:

Well, I uninstalled the program & reinstalled it again. Nothing changed, still same problems. Then a couple days later & went to try & figure it out again & the program was working correctly like it used to. Don't know what happened but I am not to thrilled with this version but I have it now so will mess with it once in a while. For now I prefer PSP7 LOL Thanks for the tips. Still haven't managed to download the patches since my dial up connection is so slow. Terri