It seems everyone's rudeness sensitivity has a different adjustment. If you want to see rude, flip on over to the Soils forum or the Organic Gardening forum where it is too common to gang up on one member and flat out call him stupid in so many words. On the corn gluten meal thread which ZS started a week or so ago, he said I had accused him of something but he would ignore it because he wanted to remain positive. I put the following into a message. Can anyone help me see where I might have made an accusation and one that had a negative note to it? Then ZS replied with the following Dchall_san_antonio wrote: > In real life it is rare to find someone who has had a good experience with CGM as a preemergent. I'm not sure if he was ignoring my request or replying to it. If anyone would care to help, please send me an email through my member page. I don't see it. It seems to me that ZS is egging us on by posting quotes that fly in the face of what has become common knowledge. When we try to explain either what is wrong with the quote or where the quote left off vital information or where the source quote was taken out of context, then the tone of the messages changes for the worse. To me it is clear who threw the first punch on this thread. Tiemco asked some questions and ZS bit his head off. I offered some clarification and got my head bit off. ZS if you prefer to read books and do not like to read what we have to say in this forum, then why are you here? I'm not saying there is no reason to be here, I'm simply asking why you are here? Are you here to offer us the benefit of what you have read? If that is the case then we will respond completely differently. Most people come here to find out if what they have read holds water. We have made that assumption with you. If we have been giving you advice when you were not looking for it, then that might be the root of the antagonism. Giving unwanted advice is considered rude to a lot of folks. Please let us know. You can establish your credentials based on what you read outside the forums and we'll leave it alone. I might add that disagreeable messages are one reason that forums lose membership. I've seen some really great people leave this forum simply because of one or two members who pestered them mercilessly. If you would not like to receive our thoughts and comments on your threads, it is easy enough to make that happen. Since I seem to be a catalyst for you, ZS, and since I don't see where my remarks are setting you off, then I'll stop replying with these thoughts and let you go.

I clean up active blackspot by spraying with mancozeb 3 times, with 3 days between each spray. I then return to my regular spray schedule of BannerMaxx/mancozeb/Indicate5 (pH balancer with sticker properties to hold the products onto the leaves, some people use dish soap instead)/liquid seaweed. I "usually" spray my regular mixture every 14 days (I've been very lax in spraying this year). Many people use Bayer Advanced Disease Control as both the contact and the systemic. Michaelg noted above that spraying the Bayer product weekly for a month will get control over the blackspot and provide the systemic properties needed to control future outbreaks. Others will have to chime in on this as I am not well-versed on the Bayer product. You don't need to alternate between the Ortho Garden Disease Control and the mancozeb, it won't buy you anything. Just a note, though, that the Ortho product can burn at temps over 80 degrees, but mancozeb does not burn. You will also need a few drops of dish soap in the mancozeb solution to hold it on the leaves.

I have done some recent testing with my Honeywell tstats and the CPH adjustment definately changes the cycle rate, but it takes a while for the settings to reach a steady state. I lowered mine from 3 to 2 and the average number of cycles per hour dropped accrodingly, but it took at least 2 hours to see a rotuine, repeatable cycle per hour rate. When the cycles decreased the ON time for each cycle increased. I also measured the swing in the various room temperatures: they increased from a +/- 0.5 degree swing with CPH=3 to a +/- 1.5 degree swing with CPH=2 which I did not like, so I eventually reset the CPH back to 3. The techs you talked to at Honeywell must not understand the software running in the tstat. I found a nice description of the Honeywell P+I algorithm way in the back of the Vision PRO documentation - and I believe that same algorithm is used in the other PRO tstats (I have 3210 PRO non programmable digital tstats). If you read the description of this algorithm, you can see that it is a combination of room temperture/set temp differential and long term room temperture trend that the tstat uses to decide when to call for heat and how often. In your case it may be that even with a lower CPH change the tstat will still come on more frequently beacause the differential between room and set to temperature is also a factor. How are you measuring the room temperture? One thing I noticed is that it takes quite a while for the stat to reach normal operation when you change the settings - and this makes sense after reading the manual on the P+I algorithm. I let it run with the new settings for 12 hours, and took 2 sets of measurements: one set at night and the other in the early morning for 3 hours worth of cycling each. I evaluated both sets of readings, and made one GW post for advise, before making any decisions on re-adjustment of CPH. The other thing I learned is that the Honeywell "Room Temp" has quite a range on it - something like +/- 2 or 3 deg. So while the tstat was showing a room temp of 65 even when I lowered CPH to 2, the actual temp swing I measured in that room was 64 to 66 which I verified with a standalone thermometer that i placed on a stand right next to the wall tstat. Prior to the CPH chnage, that room alawys stayed in the 64.2 to 65.2 range. This room temp display range is also described in the Vision PRO manual - and with the Vision PRO device you can actually change the tstat so that it displays the actual room tempertaure, which I cannot do that with my tstat. That alone was a good discovery for me. I don't know how you did your testing. Even with the decision to change to a different tstat, i would still test the Honeywell unit throughly so you have a good baseline from which to compare. Use independent thermometers in a few rooms to measure the temp at the on and off times with the CPH at the recommended manual setting and then again with the change to a lower CPH. Make measurements at night and in the early morning when the outside temps are lowest,and do this for a few hours of cycling. It is a pain to do but the data will be useful when you compare the results with the new tstat. After chnaging to the new tstat, I would repeat the tests and compare. There is a lot happening behind the scenes in these digital tstats. You have to get into the details of not only what algorithm the tstat uses for contolling heat ON/OFF, but also what algorithm it uses for displaying the room temp. best of luck.

I've really enjoyed reading about all the projects. Thanks for sharing! Maybe it will inspire me to get going. Very long, I'm sorry. This has been an odd year. It was not without its social drama. DH retired- twice- and DD got a new job in a new state (at least a little closer, only one time zone away this time). Then she got engaged, bought a house and got married. DS and DiL had baby #3 in June. We kept our older grandbabies for the month of June, at first only during the day and then full time. (Need a vacation? Keep an active 5 and 7 yr. old for a month then send them home. The relief and relaxation you feel will be as great as any you can get on a vacation.) Mom lives alone about 100 mi. from us and manages quite well. This year she fell. Fortunately someone was there to help. We were able to get there and take her to the doctor and nothing was broken but it continues to concern us. Next the weather- a long drought with less rain than normal at the beginning of summer, only a sprinkle or two for the rest of summer and then none at all for fall. Temps higher, at times recordbreaking. Till now. After Thanksgiving we began experiencing wind, rain, more wind, then cold, down to 20's and lately teens; actually not abnormal for early December. However, we had only about a week of fall and we are far behind in our fall chores. The biggest gardening problem we had this year came from a neighbor who decided to sell some of his wood in late summer during the drought. He cleared the right-of-way that he owned between our house and our neighbor to the NE and cut the trees behind our property and that of our other neighbors. He felled a good many trees that were deemed not market worthy and left them. However, very hungry wildlife, now with nowhere else to go, came into our yards hunting for food and water. The deer destroyed our vegetable garden and a good bit more of landscape and flowers. Even things that deer had ignored before were fair game. The exceptions were native salvias, lavender and rosemary or something deadly like digitalis or hellebores. So the projects- Drought and less time than needed for gardening have made me realize that I need to plan for these things in the future. With no water source in the front of our house, the bed beside the drive was reachable only by adding a long second hose to the first and then snaking it around to reach the bed. As a result, that bed didn't get the water it should have. The tree removal in the woods behind us didn't seem like a welcome change but it allowed more sun from the east in the back of our house. I am planning on making a new bed for those roses behind the play area/sandbox for our grandbabies. It will be a tight fit but I think it will work. I'll move my culinary herbs to the driveway. That bed is also a place where I planted a lot of my heirloom daffodils and iris, so I want to keep them where they are. Bulbs and herbs are better suited to low rainfall and not much supplemental water than the roses. Second project- On our own property, we also had a couple dead or dying trees removed that were likely to fall on our neighbors' buildings since the other trees between us had been removed. After clearing out some of the exotic invasives, we have some room to add a few natives; a sourwood, a carolina snowbell, a native smoke tree, cinnamon clethra, maple leaf viburnum and a couple of Guthrie chickasaw plums on the edge of the clearing. Someday they should bring in pollinators, provide food and shelter to some of the birds and forest creatures and be a delight to the people who live here. I don't know if we'll see much of it but it won't happen if we don't get it started. I will need to make wire cages to keep them deerproof. The weather has cooled and we have some rain so time to get started. Third project- I start most of my garden from seed or cuttings. I need to be getting my milk jugs ready for all my winter-sown seeds ready to go. First I have to finish planting everything that I couldn't get into the ground earlier this fall because of the weather. And somehow I have to get ready for Christmas. <Sigh>