Sorry for the late reporting. The July 4th holiday schedule in my house was quite crazy. I'm happy to report that my fig tree started to grow again! It was absent for the last 3 months. I have attached a picture showing new buds on all the tips. Terry, thanks for the tip of using sun shade. I actually used this trick when planting a young guava tree, which worked really well. However, the fig tree is facing a canyon, where the wind is very strong. I haven't been able to get the canopy staying in place, but have some other idea to try this weekend. As the old leaves continue to curl and drop, I think I have to try this trick with the watering change. I agree with you on the compost vs. chemical fertilizer. It's quite clear to me now that I'm guilty of over-fertilizing the fig tree, so I stopped doing it except some coffee grounds outside of drip line to amend the soil. BTW, my soil is ph7, very uniform, so not sure if I should use agricultural lime. HD, thanks a lot again for the great tip of coffee grounds. That's a lot of information on coffee grounds from your link! I'm not a coffee drinker, so instead of getting coffee grounds from Starbucks, I've been getting about 1/2 lb daily from my office for more than a week. I actually have a question following your mulching tip. The fig is sitting close to an edge of a slope. I did pull up ground cover and extended the mulch area away from slope, but kind of debating if I should do the same toward slope since ground cover is there to prevent soil erosion from rain. The ground cover seems improved the soil quite a bit. For the places without ground cover, the soil was really dry and barren, while the soil under ground cover were moist and rich. I've found fig roots as far as 2.5-3 feet away from trunk. Do you think I should replace more ground cover with mulch? One thing I don't know is if ground cover will compete with fig on water and nutrients. However, in places where ground cover and fig roots co-exist, the soil is better than those with fig roots alone. I've been using dripping from buckets to better water the tree, which seems to be working well. I also plan to install automatic dripping converting my sprinklers. The challenge I am not able to solve yet is ground cover and fruit trees need to be on two different schedules, but I have only one zone covering that space. Here is a link I found very informative to calculate how much water fruit trees need, which I miscalculated really badly before. I realized that I was giving my fig less than half of what it needs! http://homeorchard.ucdavis.edu/The_Big_Picture/Irrigation/ Bud, your tree is in a much better shape, as it grows really well. My tree after 3 years is less than 5 feet tall. However, I wonder if both of us are guilty of over-fertilizing the tree. From my reading, too much nitrogen during its fruiting time will lead to premature dropping of fruits. Does it apply to your case?

wiggleme: I don't have any pictures, and I imagine by the time I did, the earth will stop rotating. I'm pretty bad with taking pictures. My fiancee and I were discussing how our wedding will go, and one of the options was to have slides of us being displayed as people were being seated. Over the past 4 years, however, I think we only have about 10 pictures together. Anyway, the flow-through thread is what I based my design off of. I was unable to locate a 55 gallon barrel, like everyone else, so I just went to Home Depot and got the trash can on wheels. Personally, I'm glad I did. The wheels make moving the thing much easier, and I'm thinking that the worms won't consume much faster in a 55 gallon barrel as they will in my 35 gallon one. The worms don't seem to inhabit the bottom half of my trash can.

Oh for goodness' sake. It's a can of paint, I'm not letting him run in the street, eat cupcakes for dinner, stay up all night long, get tattoos, or ride his bike without a helmet! I posted because I was unsure how to make it work, and you all helped me to see that maybe it could, especially if I just do one wall in Downpipe. If his choice was completely untenable, I'd tell him no. But if there is a way to accommodate him, even if it isn't my first choice, why not? It's a can of paint. Besides, it's so fun watching his big brown eyes open so wide with delight when you tell him something he's happy about. He keeps asking to see pictures of the "Avengers' bed" daily. He is so psyched. Yes, he's a lucky boy to have a say in his room. There will be times in his life when he can't paint the wall the color he likes best, and much much worse. But I refuse to prepare him for that famine by starving him now. This kid wakes up every morning, often before 5:30 (!), so excited to start his life that day that he can't fall back asleep. I can only wish that feeling lasts as long as it can.

Four, from what I've read, FL is a beekeeper friendly state. There are rules but as long as they are followed, cities allow beekeeping. Some HOAs might prohibit it. FL Beekeepers are supposed to register for yearly Inspections of their hives. From what I hear, the Inspectors are nice and helpful. They are there to make sure the hives are healthy and the bees not overly aggressive. Where I live, it is mostly small acreages etc. Most people have livestock and some have beehives. If properties are not zoned as agricultural, they can have up to 3 hives if they are under a quarter acre of property..this would be most people's city lots. The # of hives goes up from there depending on how many acres one has. Where we are, we can have 25 hives and up to 50 temporarily to manage swarming (where some bees break off from their old over crowded hive and take up a new residence with a new queen). https://www.fdacs.gov/Agriculture-Industry/Bees-Apiary/Beekeeper-Registration