By your description of the appearance of and the dropping of the petals, that is a normal progression of their fruiting. The blossoms dropping with stems is another matter, not normal and can have several causes. Over or under watering. Poor drainage. The roots do not like to be soggy for very long. Too much fertilizer, especially Nitrogen. Not enough Magnesium, needed when they are very young and when they start to blossom/fruit. Weather conditions, if the plants think it will soon be winter, they will drop their less mature blossoms and/or fruit to give the more mature ones a better chance to propagate. There are probably others I haven't learned yet, I only make a few mistakes at a time. Happy planting, Pic-Z

Thanks for all your hard work Karen! Can't wait to read it in its entirety. Jodi-

Please don't be afraid to try something if you like it. The more you delve into your projects, the more experienced and creative you will get. And lukki for you, you have found the forum(s) early on. At the start a fixer upper can be really overwhelming, especially to someone without experience; I found it was easier to focus on one project at a time (like fixing the leaks in the roof) and was surprised at how quickly it started to come together. It wasn't as stressful that way too. You said initially you have the inside sort of figured out, I would love to know what you have planned and see pictures. I prefer older homes because they are usually more generous with storage and space, I bet the inside of yours has open and generous rooms with lots of potential. From the outside, it looks like a real gem in the rough. Which of the pictures are you drawn to? We bought a vacant foreclosure home in 2006. When I showed it to my DH and said I was in love, he thought I was nuts. But in my mind I could see most of it in it's finished state and it felt like home. We've come a long way, the interior is about 80% done, and right now we are focused on the exterior.

I really hate the late 60's early 70's aesthetic, and yet seeing it make me feel oddly comforted and nostalgic. For tacky stuff! We had a studio couch for years in our family room, with a quilted cover, although our was solid orange, with large oversized lamps and paneling. It has some comfort and warmth to it, I will say that. But avocado and orange for the kitchen, frankly I think that was even a reasonable "no" back then. Harvest gold or brown with orange, but green and orange, what acid trip was the person on who dreamed that up. My mom paired orange as an accent with gold, yellow and brown, but our stove and fridge was white. It was sure a highly visual look for the TV show, which I think was part of the reasoning behind the over the top decorating, even for that time . . . But hey, it was the high point for the middle class and they weren't afraid to bring the bling at that time . . . My childhood bedroom was very colorful . . . ahem. I loved the psychedelic prints back then. I was a kid, they were bright and shiny . . .