My feelings about the oven are kinda mixed; like the oven performance. There are really good things about the oven and some of the other. The good things: (1) Seriously, the door design is really good. The doors is flat and doesn't have gaskets - the gaskets are on the oven body. It's pretty thin but also feels heavy and stays where ever you put it. The door has vents near the top, but not on the top. Those vents align with some on the oven body. I guess you could manage to drop something into the vents, but it would take some work. (2) Although it will not fit a full sheet pan on a rack, it will fit a half sheet plus a quarter sheet per rack. Or a chicken roaster and two sides on one rack. It comes with 3 racks, but 4 or 5 could fit depending on how many were glide racks and what you were making. (3) Once its made up its mind about temperature, it's bang on and will not move at all unless I leave the door open for a while (but see 3 below). (4) The porcelain color of the oven is just a few shades off from burned. That means that stray people who look in the oven aren't going to be able to tell I haven't cleaned it. I do wipe it down every couple of uses but haven't done a big cleaning yet. Most stuff wipes out. I'm considering steam cleaning the sides. (5) The broiler works fine and has a lot of coverage - like a half sheet pan, centered. And, the instructions say never to clean it. If it looks dirty, just run it for 10 minutes to burn the stuff off. That's kitchen gear I can support. (6) Hugeosity! Many loaves at the same time, many dishes at the same time like 3 pans of lasagne plus 3 other casseroles. (7) Gliding rack. If they didn't want a small fortune for extras, I'd have three. This is one of those things that you didn't know you wanted until you have one. (8) It's thermally cool. There isn't a lot of waste heat pouring at the front or through the top or sides. The heat is channeled to the rear vent and it goes right out the hood. (9) The convection fan is protected by a grease filter that goes into the dishwasher. It should keep the fan working well for a longer time. The filter is easy to take off and put back. The bad things: (1) Parts of the oven floor and upper oven back have sharp edges. (2) Only one light - kinda cheezy when the oven is that big and its color that dark. (3) I bought an oven thermometer and learned to use it. The oven has something of a mind of its own when it comes to temperature. First, results improve a lot if you give the oven 45 minutes to preheat and ALWAYS use the fan while preheating. Even then, occasionally it will decide to use some other temperature - and that temperature will be as much as 75 degrees off in either direction. To "fix" that, I open the oven door for a while then close it and it will most likely be at the knob temperature when it recovers and then will stay there. Strangely, turning the oven off briefly and then on again will not reset whatever is causing that. If you don't use the convection fan, try prayer because anything could happen. In my tests, only one in ten oven starts are the correct temperature. Whatever they use as an oven temperature controller, it doesn't seem to be able to figure out what's going on in the entire oven. I wonder if the controller used just can't run an oven that large. Or maybe I gotta busted thermostat or something. Someday, when the weather is better, maybe I'll complain. I have two years and 10 months left on the warranty. As many people know, if you have a sporadic problem, it ain't getting fixed until they can reproduce it. (4) The gliding rack is difficult to remove. It's easy to put back in. Overall, I still like it, even with the goofy oven temp thing. At least I know how to get by until I want to get it fixed. And I know the old nxr ran pretty hot and the stinkin' GE profile ran pretty low - from my trusty oven thermometer. Best thing so far was lemon-blueberry cake, slightly dense with sweetened, beaten cream cheese between each of 4 thin layers. Made me wish I had a tea table.

I purposely do a scrappy every few quilts to use them up. I got serious last winter about throwing really small ones, or too narrow strips. It got ridiculous. They go into a big bag and when I feel like being in the sewing room but not working on a project, lately I've been cutting them into a standard size block to save them. It's how a couple quilts got most of its material. Here is one reason I save them..............several times I have messed up on a block or ran myself short a block or two by miscounting. My scrap bin saved the day, where I'd tucked a few salvageable pieces of that material and I'd find a match.

Good info, David. I've had some trouble germinating seeds on a heat mat in 2 1/2x3x3 1/2" deep pots this year, while the 1 1/2 x 1 12x2" deep cell packs are germinating just fine. My theory was that the heat wasn't traveling up high enough to really hit the seed in the taller pots. I believe you just debunked that theory! How high is your dome? I was using a 7 1/2" high dome, although I do have a couple of the 2 1/2" high domes. I'm using the taller dome for the emerged seedlings now and the 2 1/2" dome for the cell packs on the heat mat. It'd sure be nice to skip a transplanting step! Some of my seed may be too old. I also heard recently that seeds should be stored in a refrigerator or freezer. I don't know how I missed that handy bit of info! I have mine in the house at room temp. Barb

Very nice and autumn-ish. My fave is your rudbeckias and I am crossing my fingers that my 'Autumn Glow' sedum I bought from SRG looks like yours sometime down the road. Here is a mutant or it came from the sky via a bird dropping maybe? I don't know where it came from. All I have is annual Gaillardia and the other day a volunteer plant I came real close to pulling some time back had this open up to my surprise. Where'd it come from? I looked online and it looks like a hybrid type called G. 'Fanfare' except 'Fanfare is red with yellow tips and this one is solid red. The leaves are different than the annual types too. I just love surprises like this. A late October surprise. We haven't had a freeze yet and none in the immediate forecast so maybe the other buds will open and maybe it will form seeds but I doubt there is time for that.