Blazeaglory, the point was to have a closed bin that would avoid fruit flies without paying $500 dollars. Also it is round which is better then square and not completely closed as it drains to into the ground. That is a good plus. The other point was to not be so dependent on the whim of Starbucks having coffee ground for me. I can't get heat at all without the coffee grounds. Lately I have had a bad run of trying get the grounds. But, now I don't really have to get them as this bin is making heat without coffee grounds. I don't have waste time driving over to Starbucks when I don't have any reason to go to Starbucks. Gas is very expensive. Heat is very positive as it speeds up the compost and makes better compost. Cold composting takes a long time. If you cold compost you need more bins because you have to store that stuff for six months instead of using it right away and clearing out the bin space and moving on and making more compost. The more compost you make at a faster rate the better the improvement to the soil. I can now dump food scraps in there and forgot about them without having to bury the food and check the pile to make sure it's hot. Compost is very time consuming if you get into it seriously. Composting is an addiction as one always tries to improve. I do add the bagged browns Kelloggs Amend also when I add the food. If the food just sits in void, it become a sort of slime and fails to turn into good compost. I could put in the food scraps greens and throw in a hand full of browns Amend to balance them. So far it works yesterday, I have to take the temp today as it will be sunny to see how hot I can get it.

I read this thread and kind of marvel. The effort people expend to grow plants in a hostile climate. I bought a $5 sago 40 years ago when I bought my house, it is over six feet tall The male flower is (like) two feet long, every year for at least the past 15 years. A flush consists of at least two dozen fronds , (or leaves) if you prefer. I have successfully raised and given away probably three dozen pups broken off from the parent plant. Most survive, maybe 80% but some don't. It gets cold here, we are at 1700 ft. elevation and freezes some years but I have never had a sago show damage from frost. Plumaria, that's another crap shoot, but the sagos do very well here. I have managed to keep twenty pups that are well established and in the ground. In other words, this climate is very agreeable for sagos and they are common all around here, seems like everybody has at least one? I'm not rubbing your nose in it here; I salute the effort to grow (what is almost a tropical), in a climate which is not suitable. Good luck. LB PS no coconut palms here, lots of King Palms but by far the most popular and numerous palm in this area is the Queen.

isgen: Yes, that nick is a reference to Pike Fishing. I use a close version of the 5-1-1 mix that has been discussed many time on this forum. It sounds like what you are using is close to that as well. But the mix should be heavy on the bark part. I made up a bunch of the 5-1-1 mix a few years ago and am running out of it now. I don't know what I will do in the coming years. The only source I can find for bark is a very mixed size so I have to put it through two different sized sieves to sort out the pieces that are too big and too small. My back just can't handle that any more. But it is good stuff for growing peppers. I see you in the same growing season as me. I think your problem with getting pods was a result of our short growing season and you should probably be starting seeds indoors prior to March first in order to have plants that are mature enough to put out in late may so that you time to get them to production by the end of the growing season up north. I start mine in mid February.

Vitorama, I stand corrected again. The Bonide I saw was 'Bonide Fruit Tree Spray Concentrate'. Not the Bonide Houseplant Insect Control. Didn't know much about it. It is a systemic. But I love the Fruit spray better now because it is much safer to use. The Bonide Houseplant has the same stuff as Bayer does. Imidacloprid; a class of insecticides that share a common mode of action that affect the central nervous system of insects. I purchased a gallon of imidacloprid that will last me a life time. Just a small percentage is used in those products. I think the FDA is trying to ban it due to it's toxic effect on anything that ingest it. Can not use it on any Fruit or vegetables due to it's systemic effect. It kills bees and good insects that eat the affected ones. For my house plants it is fine but not for outside on flowers or even my roses.