I kind of disagree with you not researching it first on text material like books. Since a book can provide a wealth of information, inquiring a person will give you limited information. Its simply too much for one person to type. The reason there are books out there, and one of the best is the Peter DÂAmatoÂs book: The Savage Garden. Amazon.com will sell books at a discount price, but you can find that book in a pubic library if you donÂt want to pay say $20 or $30 for it. It usually best to research what you want to buy before buying it 1st then asking questions later. To many a newbie have killed their plants right off the bat by adding fertilizer, planting them in regular potting soil and watering them with tap water. Or simply sending them into an irrecoverable shock by exposing them suddenly to drier air, under the sun, without hardening the plants 1st. As a result more then one newbie have wasted $2 or $5 when some purchase their plants in a general store or nursery. But others have wasted $25, $50, and even $100 worth of plants they bought from a specialized nursery. The idea people go to forum to inquire to a particular problem like a pest problem and want to find someone how they handled that problem or learn what done wrong if a plant fails to grow. So if you donÂt want to research it yourself, people will think you will be to lazy to do you own work yourself and will eventually kill their newly purchased plants anyways. Now I donÂt now which pitcher plant you fed bugs and how small these insects are? Since the plants themselves sold by Lowes are quite small and lacking the digestive fluids inside their pitchers. Most likely whatÂs going to happen is the bugs are going to rot and kill the leaves. Sundews and butterwort (P. primuliflora) donÂt have catching appendage, since it is the leaves itself that does the catching. The leaves of sundews are covered with hairs and has a "dew" drop on each hair. Butterworts on the other hand their leaf surface is covered with sticky mucilage. DonÂt feed the plants, they can do that themselves. DonÂt try feeding the Venus flytrap, even if it grows new traps, it will be too weak to digest the insect. Digesting an insect takes a lot of reserve energy before it can utilize it. It may take up to a month or 2 for a VFT to recover. Now your "Should they be fed into the soil like a regular plant?", are you referring to adding fertilizer to the soil. If so DONÂT. That is a common mistake made by newbies trying to grow their 1st CPs, adding fertilizer to the growing media. Fertilizer will kill your plants, CP have a weak root system, and is mainly used to anchor the plant to the media and draw out moisture, and thatÂs it. Fertilizer will destroy that root system and eventually kill your plants. That also means not to use regular potting soil, even if part of the ingredients contains sphagnum peat moss and perlite. It also has other things like fertilizer and wetting agents. What you need is pure sphagnum peat moss and perlite to aerate the media, nothing else. Make sure it doesnÂt have any additives at all. You mix it up in a 50:50 mix. This is the true and tried growing media for most CPs. Sit the VFT, sundews, Sarracenia pitcher plants (the purple pitcher plant) in a dish with 1 inch of water. The butterwort P. primuliflora in my experience does well growing in straight long fiber sphagnum moss and likes its media quite wet. Nepenthes only require having their media most and not as wet as other CPs. Nepenthes will require a mix of long fiber sphagnum moss used for orchids, again make sure no additives and you can mix it with one part perlite and one part fine orchid bark. They like their media most but with enough drainage for their roots. Use distilled water to water them, donÂt use for any reason tap water, purified water, or drinking water. These still contain minerals that will eventually kill your plants. Second choice is rainwater collected in a bucket, followed with R/O water but distilled is still the best choice. For now have them growing in a wind sill from indirect sunlight in their own Âterrariums (aka the cubes-of-death by the CP community), lift one corner slightly to allow ventilation, checking for drooping or wilting leaves. Be careful not to let the media dry out. In a weak lift one corner a bit more, again checking for wilting and do this slowly. This way you can harden your plants to a drier environment and give the plants time to build the natural wax coating over their leaves that protects them from drier air. As they develop new leaves, gently expose the Sarracenias and VFT to stronger sunlight, keeping an eye on wilting or sings of burning leaves. Control the amount of sunlight to allow them time to harden. Although the sundew will recover the quickest, followed by VFT & Sarracenias. Neps may take 4 months to develop new leaves and even then it will not develop new pitchers. They are known to take about half a year to recover. Nepenthes, butterwort, and the sundew will do best growing under indirect sunlight or under very bright fluorescent lamps. Nepenthes especially require at least 12 hours of bright light to grow their pitchers properly, Neps are tropical plants that do receive long hours of light. That basically covers the basics but it is better to you research things 1st and read books for information to avoid mistakes in the 1st place. Good luck.

I came here today because I have 3 days left before my mothers yearly visit. She flies out from the east coast on Monday. I have been working at decluttering and organizing for the last few months, but today as I look around...I am thinking I didn't do enough...there is still so much stuff! I am between putting myself down and patting myself on the back for what I did do. When my too much stuff really shows up is before my mothers visit every year! She is neat and clutter free...I am just the opposite! We have moved a number of times in my marriage, but each move was provided by my DH employer. I had a number of young children and got rid of nothing! They packed us up and they moved us. The extra stuff staying in boxes in the garage. Really, I love to shop and buy...it is a favorite pass time for me...other than grocery and necessary hardware type shopping. I have really been working on it to make a change in my behavior, but like someone said...I have not under gone a personality change. This is going to take continued effort on my part to get things in order and keep them there. Thanks...I needed to vent before I get onto dusting and vacuuming this morning. When I go to dust and vacuum is when I really know that I have too much stuff!

There is a difference between a natural finish, in which a wood is finish sanded and a poly or other type of top coat applied, and UNfinished. UNfinished wood has not been protected, may not be smooth, and cannot be cleaned and used as finished wood without it looking bad quickly. Rev-a-shelf does not finish its products to match your cabinets. They are all shipped as natural finished maple, but are NOT unfinished. If you actually got UNfinished, you or your KD or kitchen installer should contact them to correct this error, and it should have been caught before they were installed. If there are pencil markings on the natural finish they were almost certainly put there by the installer for the purpose of measuring and installing them. If you want them painted or stained to match your cabinets, they will need to be stripped, because there already IS a clear finish on them, and then REfinished to match your cabinets. There is no reason that cannot be done, but you would have to arrange to have it done by someone separately. If I bought pullouts and organizers from my cabinet company with my original cabinet order, I would expect them to match. If they come from 2 different companies as separate orders, they couldn't match. Rev-a-shelf has no way of matching your cabinets. My SuperSusan, from my cabinet company, match the interior of my cabinets. My pullout, from Rev-a-shelf, has a natural maple finish. I don't mind it, but if you do, have it refinished. Sue

Always have fruit - we eat it as a dessert for dinner or with spinach as a salad. GS is 2 and mainly eats fruit. Right now I have - Rainier Cherries Apples Pears Red Grapes Watermelon Strawberries Lemons Lime Peaches Bananas and some very old blueberries that got hidden under other stuff!