I'm thrilled to see these gorgeous pictures---I have lots of buds on CS and hopefully the weather will cooperate and the blooms will be like yours-- Patrick sent this bush to me 2006 so this should be a great year--- Your pictures give me hope---- Florence

Nice, Jnfr! I just noticed a tomato on one of the plants in the Earthbox showing color too, and then when I looked closer the bottom had a huge brown spot. Do you guys throw the whole tomato away, or cut the bad spots out? It only seems to happen to my container plants, the ones in the ground don't do that. I tried to be more consistent with my watering this year, but there was a day or two that I missed, and before I could get there, the foliage was droopy. Almost immediately the brown spots showed up on the bottoms of some of the fruit. Anyway, I have quite a few full sized tomatoes that should ripen before the first frost ... if it's not earlier than usual, that is. Oddly enough, I have some pie pumpkins that are already orange. Never knew them to ripen this early, but it's been a weird year all around.

I read the article twice and I still don't see where he's " bashing her character ". IMO, it's another one of those sensationalist articles that turns out to be nothing like the headline suggests, and exists only to draw attention and stir up dissention. I feel sorry for the young lady, and I'm sure it was a huge disappointment, but why would she want to keep the medal - as a reminder that she lost ? I'm certainly not a follower of Mike Rowe - too rough around the edges and too full of himself to suit me - but I think we need to stop reading things into these articles that aren't really there.

It's not unusual for long periods of repressed root function to cause ruination of a plant's foliage, even when there is no fungal pathogen infecting the root system. I too am interested in the answer to Dave's questions re repotting vs potting up, and would also have asked if he hadn't, this, because they're different procedures and yield different results. Potting up can be done any time with little concern for an adverse turn toward decline, even though it's best to do it in very late spring or very early summer, unless the plant is circling the drain and intervention is a necessity. Repotting, which is more stressful initially but yields far superior results ultimately, should be a regular part of your tree's maintenance. Repotting includes bare-rooting, root-pruning, and a change of soil, and should be performed sometime around Father's Day or the Summer Solstice if you live in North America. The plant will recover much faster if any heavy work is planned for the point in the growth cycle when the plant should have ample energy reserves and it's ability to carry on photosynthesis (make food) is about to peak. Since a plants natural defenses are linked to its metabolic rate, repotting when the plant is at its most robust makes sense. What Dave said about using a wooden dowel (a "tell") is also something I'd've suggested. The advice to water when the top inch or two of the grow medium is dry is ok if the pot is 5" deep or less, but the baseline of watering when there is 2" of dry medium in a 10" pot more often than not is a recipe for over-watering, and I'm not just talking about Ficus. There can still be more than 6" of 100% saturated medium in a 10" deep pot when the top 2" of the soil column is dry; so, habitually using that metric to to determine when it's time to water is almost certain to end up seriously sapping a very large measure of a plant's potential in areas like growth, vitality, yields (for crops), and appearance. Using a 'tell' Over-watering saps vitality and is one of the most common plant assassins, so learning to avoid it is worth the small effort. Plants make and store their own energy source – photosynthate - (sugar/glucose). Functioning roots need energy to drive their metabolic processes, and in order to get it, they use oxygen to burn (oxidize) their food. From this, we can see that terrestrial plants need plenty of air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support the kind of root health most growers would like to see; and, a healthy root system is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips leads to avoid over-watering leads to a residual build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil from tapwater and fertilizer solutions, which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma. It creates another problem that requires resolution. Better, would be to simply adopt a soil that drains well enough to allow watering to beyond the saturation point, so we're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids whenever we water; this, w/o the plant being forced to pay a tax in the form of reduced vitality, due to prolong periods of soil saturation. Sometimes, though, that's not a course we can immediately steer, which makes controlling how often we water a very important factor. In many cases, we can judge whether or not a planting needs watering by hefting the pot. This is especially true if the pot is made from light material, like plastic, but doesn't work (as) well when the pot is made from heavier material, like clay, or when the size/weight of the pot precludes grabbing it with one hand to judge its weight and gauge the need for water. Fingers stuck an inch or two into the soil work ok for shallow pots, but not for deep pots. Deep pots might have 3 or more inches of soil that feels totally dry, while the lower several inches of the soil is 100% saturated. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the root zone situation can wreak havoc with root health and cause the loss of a very notable measure of your plant's potential. Inexpensive watering meters don't even measure moisture levels, they measure electrical conductivity. Clean the tip and insert it into a cup of distilled water and witness the fact it reads 'DRY'. One of the most reliable methods of checking a planting's need for water is using a 'tell'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) would work better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half and serve as a pair. Sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener and slightly blunt the tip so it's about the diameter of the head on a straight pin. Push the wooden tell deep into the soil. Don't worry, it won't harm the root system. If the plant is quite root-bound, you might need to try several places until you find one where you can push it all the way to the pot's bottom. Leave it a few seconds, then withdraw it and inspect the tip for moisture. For most plantings, withhold water until the tell comes out dry or nearly so. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue. Al