Both of my older beds that had tomatoes are 100% affected. Tomatoes: badly. Bush Beans:badly. Parsley: somewhat. Sunchoke: somewhat (I think. The choke had a couple of weird hairy roots with knobs growing on them). Unaffected: Basil, marigolds, dill. Still, the infected plants were spread throughout both beds so I think it's safe to assume that the entire beds are infected. I spent 2 hours pulling plants and getting every bit of root I could find. I probably need to spend at least 2 more before I can solarize. Leah kept dipping her hands in the bleach and Adam kept getting his kite stuck in my fence, so it was slow going. TGIF and Dave can watch the kids tomorrow while I finish disaster control. Since it is two beds, I am guessing it came in on infected bag compost. I knew I hated that crap they sell at Home Depot, it is always chunky and never seems finished. This year, in my new beds, I started to use Back to Nature and better compost that I found at garden centers (to supplement my own very meager supply). Now here is the bad news. My raised beds are 6" tall, and I dug through that dirt and another several inches down. The soil underneath is actually now pretty good and loamy. I guess all the compost and mulch I added worked its way down to improve the soil below. In this case, a very mixed blessing. I did a couple of test digs around the roots of plants in other beds, and so far they seem okay. So all in all I lost two sixteen square foot beds. I have a total of just over 250 square feet in raised beds, so I lost about 13% of my raised bed gardening space. Not horrible, but it still makes me very sad. Now I wish I had purchased a couple of those Earth Boxes when they were sale. This year between people stealing my peaches, racoons stealing my nectarines, losing pumpkin and squashes to SVB and squash bugs, and losing 8 tomato plants plus countless herbs, beans, and flowers, I feel like I've lost about 1/3 of my useful harvest. Oh, and Dave hit one of my little apple trees with the lawn mower and knocked off the three beautiful apples that were growing on it. LOL. Still, we have had many delicious things from my garden. It's a good thing I am ornery and stubborn. No microscopic worm is going to get the best of me. This means war. Jo

We've go many different topics injected into this tread now that it is difficult to get it back on track and deal with the original question. newbgardener - it is much better for all concerned if you start your own threads rather than posting more questions on an existing thread. Especially when the questions - such as containers - aren't related to the current threads topic. It isn't fair to the original poster to pull his discussion off course, ok? So sticking with the original questions - I would like them to start to focus on tomato production. What is the best way for me to do this? Should I keep pulling suckers or should I stop and let the suckers grow? Yes, stop pulling the suckers and let them grow. Your plants are now plenty tall enough to accomplish what the goals of Sq. Foot gardening are. In fact you could have stopped at 3 feet in height which is where most quit removing them. Your only limitation now is the method of support you are using as they will get top-heavy. You were somewhat mis-informed from the beginning on how and why to do this with Sq. Foot gardening but that is a whole other discussion that involves many other factors. And does it vary by plant type? I have multiple varieties of tomatoes - Beefsteaks, Big Boys, Cherrys, Grapes, 100s. Yes it does. Determinate varieties are never pruned, you never remove the suckers (which are not 'suckers' anyway but fruit producing lateral branches). Indeterminate varieties (need to know the name of the cherry and grapes to know if they are determinate or indeterminate) such as all the others you list may be pruned but doing so will cost you fruit production. Experienced Sq. Foot gardeners are will to sacrifice some of that production by doing a limited amount of pruning . It is not done so they "can be taller". It is done so that they can 1) use stakes instead of cages, 2) plant more varieties and more plants in a limited amount of space, and 3) reduce shading of the lower growing vegetables. And yes I do some Sq. Foot gardening in addition to my normal gardens and have for many years. I was under the impression that it actually would increase production if you get 2/3 the production per plant but have space for 2 plants instead of just one. No. Misunderstanding. First because you don't get the equivalent of 2/3 production, more like half. But it does allow you to get 1/2 the production of 2 different varieties in the same amount of space. See the difference? If you plant 2 plants of the same variety then you gain nothing. So it is your choice - prune and lose production or don't prune and plant less plants but get full production - but you can't have both. k3c4forlife - does that answer your questions? Dave

I put my 6" to 12" suckers in water vessels for about a month... and keep them in the shade. Bear in mind I live in a comparatively hot, arid climate, relative to most places in the USA... so dessication is an obvious threat to any plant that lacks an extensive root system. My suckers exhibit profuse rooting after about a month, and then I pot them in loose soil. Cool weather and cloudy skies (such as our "gray May" and "June gloom") promote the survival of these delicate upstarts. By the time our August heat arrives, my tomato plants will need extensive rooting systems in their 10 gallon pots, and even then I have to shade the plants on hot days. Potted plants like those in my backyard simply cannot hydrate fast enough to keep up with the loss of sustaining moisture, lost through transpiration, in desert-like weather.

No, the picture is not removed from Photobucket. It stays in my 'album'. I contacted Mike Longo, the owner of the Lily Auction, and it looks like this is a problem that he has not been able to figure out. He indicated that it has happened to other sellers over time and it is still a problem. I have seen it myself happen to other sellers that have posted items for sale. So if anyone has any ideas about what may be the root cause of this problem not only would I be happy to hear it but from the sounds of his Email, so would Mike Longo. Here is the Email I received from Mike Longo in response to my request for help to him: Hi Robert: I really don't know why for sure. I'd like to ask for your help. Please bear with me here. Other's have also had this problem at times and I still have not figured out why. I think it has to do with the time difference between the time you upload the photo and the time you actually post the item (after previewing). Even though the preview comes up fine, if the time exceeds a certain length (I don't know what length), the image is no longer good......again, but only under certain circumstances which I would like to figure out. I have never been able to reproduce this problem....and I have tried hundreds of times. I need to figure out exactly what the sellers that are experiencing this problem are doing. Something is different from the norm. Any ideas? The biggest variable is time. How much time has elapsed from uploading the image to posting the item. Again, seeing the image in the preview has little to do with it. I need to know what you are doing differently and/or how much time goes by from upload to post. In order for the image to be good, there must be a text file created that has the same number as the image. If the text file is not created the image will auto-delete within a few minutes. In the cases where the image disappears after posting, the txt file has not been created. I am, trying to determine why. There must be some reason why that text file is not being created, but it must happen only under some, as yet unknown, circumstance. Here is the normal steps involved in posting an new item (not re-posting from your closed lists): 1) go to an 'Add New Item" form (Standard form, Quickpost form, or Storepost form). 2) Upload the image (thumbnail then appears in the Add New Item form before you preview. 2) enter the description and all other variables 3) preview the form 4) post the form after preview. Questions?: 1) Which form are you using? The Standard, Quickpost or Storepost? 2) Are you uploading the image first? Is the Thumbnail Image appearing in the form (before you preview) 3) Does the problem occur when you are re-posting or when posting a new item from scratch? 4) Have you any idea of the time frame between uploading your image and previewing? If none of this makes sense to you, don't worry....but please do report any further reoccurrence of the problem to me. Thanks, Mike Here is my response to Mike Longo's Email [above]. HELLO MIKE, THANKS FOR THE RESPONSE. FIRST LET ME TRY TO ANSWER THE QUESTIONS YOU ASKED AS TO THE PROCEDURES I AM USING TO LIST AN ITEM. HERE ARE YOUR QUESTIONS........ Questions?: 1) Which form are you using? The Standard, Quickpost or Storepost? I USE THE QUICKPOST FOR EVERY POST, USUALLY HAVE NO PROBLEM. Are you uploading the image first? Is the Thumbnail Image appearing in the form (before you preview) SEE NOTE BELOW, I WILL TRY AND EXPLAIN THE STEPS I TAKE TO POST AND PREVIEW A LISTING. Does the problem occur when you are re-posting or when posting a new item from scratch? FROM SCRATCH Have you any idea of the time frame between uploading your image and previewing? THIS WILL BE IN THE RESPONSE TO QUESTION #2 HERE IS BASICALLY THE STEPS I TAKE TO POST AN ITEM. AFTER I HAVE THE QUICKPOST PAGE TO START MY LISTING, I GO RIGHT TO THE PART THAT SAYS : Click here to use HTML EDITOR to format your text into rich text ,I CLICK ON THAT, GO TO THE 'HTML EDITOR PAGE' AND DO MY WRITE UP AND PULL MY PICTURES FROM MY PHOTOBUCKET ACCOUNT. AFTER I AM SATISFIED THAT I HAVE THAT PART RIGHT I GO BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE TO FINISH FILLING OUT THE FORM ITSELF. I PULL THE THUMBNAIL PICTURE AND GET IT SHOWING ON THE FORM. THEN I CONTINUE TO FILL OUT THE FORM ALL THE WAY DOWN TO THE "COUNTER" OPTION. ONLY THEN DO I GO BACK TO THE DESCRIPTION BOX TO PLACE THAT IN THE SPACE REQUIRED. I GO BACK TO THE 'HTML EDITOR' AND PREPARE THAT TO BE COPIED AND PASTED TO THE DESCRIPTION BOX. I PASTE THAT INTO THE DESCRIPTION BOX THEN GO TO THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE AND HIT THE 'REVIEW YOUR AUCTION ITEM' BUTTON. MOST OF THE TIME I DO NOT HAVE TO MAKE ANY CORRECTIONS BUT THERE ARE CERTAINLY TIMES THAT I DO HAVE TO MAKE CHANGES BEFORE I HIT THE 'POST ITEM' BUTTON, SO THERE IS CERTAINLY A VARIANCE THERE. YOU MAKE THE POINT THAT THERE SEEMS TO BE A CONNECTION TO THIS PROBLEM INVOLVING THE TIME BETWEEN UPLOADING THE IMAGE AND POSTING IT. IN THE POSTING I DID TODAY, PRECIOUS CANDY X BLUE ME AWAY~10 FAT SEEDS Item #1254698275 I FOLLOWED MY USUAL STEPS NOTED ABOVE, AND UPLOADED TWO PICTURES SIDE BY SIDE OF THE SAME FLOWER, 'BLUE ME AWAY'. THEY WERE THE LAST ITEMS I UPLOADED FROM PHOTOBUCKET, THE FIRST ONE I LOADED WAS 'PRECIOUS CANDY'. SO WHAT I'M GETTING AT IS IF THE TIME THING WERE AN ISSUE IT SEEMS THAT THE ITEM I LOADED FIRST WOULD BE THE ONE THAT WOULD DISAPPEAR. AS YOU CAN SEE IN MY LISTING, ONE OF THE PICTURES OF 'BLUE ME AWAY' IS GONE BUT THE OTHER IS FINE, ALTHOUGH I LOADED THEM AT THE SAME TIME ONTO THE 'HTML EDITOR' PAGE. THE FIRST PICTURE I LOADED, 'PRECIOUS CANDY' IS ALSO FINE. DON'T LOOK LIKE I'VE BEEN MUCH HELP BUT MAYBE THERE IS SOME INFO IN THERE SOMEWHERE YOU CAN USE. ROBERT S.