I have been looking at Satsumas and other citrus to grow in a container in my area of Oregon's Willamette Valley - we are on the "warm side" and I can offer protection and even greenhouse for at least a few plants, but am hoping for hardy to high teens. But I want fruit no one else does - as a diabetic, oranges are typically too sweet for me to eat - I make marmalade and juice from sour oranges - I love Sevilles but they are not cold hardy. It's not easy to find out which mandarins, etc., orange-tasting fruit are highly flavored but at least mildly tart. Flavorful is important - insipid won't do. Tart, sweet-tart, tangy and flavorful is what I am looking for. I use xylitol for a sweetener and it makes fantastic juice and marmalade. On another line, I am interested in budding different varieties onto a rootstock. I have seeds for Flying Dragon - should I start one and bud onto that? Does the rootstock affect the cold-hardiness? How does that work? I have not done bud grafting before (tho am tempted to do a little with my micro pinot noir vineyard). Joe Real, maybe you can give me a pointer on this. Your multi-plants sound awesome. Thanks - love to read the citrus talk! Thea

Owari Satsuma will ripen in December, so it's right on time. Younger citrus trees sometimes take a little longer to ripen up fruit, as they don't quite have the canopy yet, and energy to put forth, to get fruit to ripen on time. And, fruit drop that first year is perfectly normal. It's the tree's way of putting its energies into growing, rather than a bunch of fruit development. We often recommend pulling that fruit the first year, if your tree is really small, and trying to get established. You can support the branches if you're fearful of the branches breaking, and the can. Satsumas, once they get going, can be very prolific producers. They do tend to alternate bear, so this may be your main bearing year, and next season you might see a lighter crop. Again, perfectly normal. And the blooms are for next season. I'm seeing blooms starting to form on many of my citrus right now, too. We can get more off season fruiting here in our mild climate of S. California than other places, so again, perfectly normal. Be sure you're fertilizing properly (I would recommend fertilizing with a good citrus fertilizer every 2 months your first year, from Feb through Oct/Nov), and then once established, every 3 months. Patty S. Here is a link that might be useful: UC Riverside Citrus Variety Collection: Frost Owari Satsuma

My apologies, I refer to rafters as trusses. The trusses are all engineered, I meant the rafter construction and walls were all site fabricated. Thanks, that name sounds familiar. We already have an inspector hired specifically because I did not like the plumbing etc showing daylight. We hired them about .. actually I think 2 weeks ago. There is nothing that looks out of the sorts enough to stop them at this point. The issues I have are things that need better support on one end, but that is a pretty easy fix at any point. The major areas are already supported, actually more than most homes I have seen / had experience with. My concern was, had anyone else seen the sort of framing like this. That answer would be a "no" lol. The pictures I showed are the areas I went through last night. One had already been resolved with a new beam being placed and support being placed above that to the end of the beam they needed support for. The second one was being done today the same way. What they did was bring in what appears to be a 4x6 manufactured beam, similar to the large beams they used for longer spans, and they placed it across multiple walls and supports. Then they brought up a 2-ply stud to support the end of the rafter beam, 2 wrapping it and 1 underneath, all nailed together. Pretty solid work. I told them I wanted the same thing done with the 3rd and they agreed it needed it, so those 'strange' supports, according to them, were temporary and not permanent. The last piece I wanted reinforced was the center beam. I am having them bring up a 3-ply load-bearing support all the way down to the slab to replace that one support. That should be in later today. BTW, if I sound defensive of them, I am not. I am totally with all of you. I love the input and I totally appreciate the help and guidance. Frankly, as I stated to them, the likelihood of me ever getting on that roof or the likelihood of a real "load" on that roof may be small, but the point is, I want to sleep well in the home and I cannot do so if it is not as safe as possible and so no matter what an engineer says, I want extra reinforcements on certain things, THEN.. we will let the inspectors tell them where else they need to add stuff. The bottom line is, they are willing and glad to add any changes I want. That makes it easier. They are not balking at anything I am asking for and welcome (or at least say they do.. heh), the inspector, so we will see what the inspector says. To their credit, they even found a couple things I missed, nothing structural, but it is good to see they are looking at all of it. I'll keep you all updated. Oh, one other note. I let them know.. "you fix concrete with concrete.. you fix wood with wood.. you do NOT "seal" things with anything other than what was meant to be there in the first place. You CAN come back and add an extra sealant.. but you do not make up aspects with a different material". I had a builder in the past that tried to tell me the crack going all the way up my brick fireplace (outside) was going to be "caulked".. I was like, "you fix a masonry issue with CAULK? Tell ya what, go get the engineer to sign off on that in writing and we will see what the manufacturer of the brick and fireplace says"... they came back and redid the entire fireplace.. lol. I have zero problem holding people's feet to the fire. This was step 1 of getting the issues resolved. Prior to sheetrock, the entire house will be safe and secure. R

You can... and imho should.... periodically remove the debris from the bottom and clean the filters without destroying the bacteria. Just dont scrub hard and dont use any chlorinated water, or any type of cleanser and certainly not bleach. A bucket of pondwater and scrub brush work fine. if its matala pads just bang them on a rock to shake out the sludgy stuff. You want to keep the filters clear so that they dont plug up and block the flow and so that they can keep filtering out the fine debris. Bacteria also live on the walls of the pond and in the tubing so periodic removal of debris is not going to harm anything. Fish helping to clear layer of dirt and debris??? That makes no sense at all -t hey are not going to eat it, only contribute more poop (ie organic matter). If the pond looks reasonably clear and tests well now with all the organic stuff in it, that will definitely change with the addition of fish and their waste to your bioload. Glad to hear youll only put in 2 koi bc thats about right, any more would be too many. The guy who gave you that advice - I wonder if its an Aquascape store bc that is a particular method of ponding that relies on using their products and using their chemicals at particular times of the year. Guess it works for some people, but the problem Ive found isif they seem to be unaware of other methods of ponding and make these pronouncements that can have dire consequences if you arent following their method or have adequate equipment/filtration. Almost killed my fish once following their advice which was to just ignore the build up of debris and nitrates and just use one of their sludge removal products .... once I got a clue and put in adequate bio & mechanical filtration ev has been just fine.