Early blight is a very common fungal infection that makes rings like a bulls eye on the leaves with dark rings, darker rings, and yellow spreading out from the infection spots. If this is what you have, it will spread quickly and has the potential to kill the plant or severely stunt production. It is however treatable, and even organically treatable. The first step is, if you only have a few infected leaves on the plant and the plant can live without those, the best thing is to remove all infected leaves. At least remove severely infected leaves because they're as good as dead anyway. Make sure to remove all fallen leaves from the garden and put them in the trash, NOT the compost. Don't handle healthy plants after handling infected plants without washing your hands thoroughly with soap. Next what works for me is to treat with a dilute vinegar spray. Mix 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar with one gallon of water and 1/2 tsp cooking oil. Spray this lightly on the leaves and on the soil around the plant. Do only a light misting and don't pour it on, too much vinegar will harm the plant but just a little will only harm the fungus. Do this twice a week for two weeks. This levels the playing field by killing all fungi present. Then begin a cornmeal and compost treatment to encourage only the beneficial fungi to grow back. You can brew a tea of cornmeal by putting one cup of regular grocery store cornmeal into an old pair of nylons, then place the nylons like a tea bag into your watering can and let this steep for at least 24 hours. Spray this on all your plants, it's only helpful and not hurtful so don't worry about doing it too often or too heavily. You can also spray with compost tea (make a "tea" in this same way with the nylons except fill them with compost instead of the cornmeal) and spray this on to boost healthy fungi populations. You can also sprinkle cornmeal on the ground around your plants for a natural fertilizer and fungal protector (but sprinkle some soil on top to hide it from the ants). The key here is to give the healthy fungi a fighting chance against the harmful ones. If you encourage a good population of helpful organisms in your garden, those organisms will kill off the harmful ones and you will have healthy plants.

Wintersowing in milk jugs, here, too. Gardening of any kind when it's below zero outdoors, snowing and blowing, is a good thing. I garden indoors, too, with a four shelf lighted rack filled with blooming African violets. In fact, I accidentally found help for my winter depression because I set up this rack in my bedroom a few years back in an effort to keep the plants safe from my toddler grandson. I have the lights on a timer and found that unlike an alarm clock, when the lights click on and bathe the room in artificial "sunshine" I am wide awake and ready to take on the world. In fact, in my new house the AV's on the rack are in the room at the end of the hall, next door to my bedroom. The doors to both rooms always stand open (I live alone now) and even though it is not direct light on my bed, if still feels like "dawn." No more hiding under the covers, hitting the snooze. I feel just as cheerful in winter as I do in high summer when the sun is up well before 6 a.m. (All that's missing is a few bird calls!) I know everyone can't fit a plant rack in their bedroom (nor would they want one) but it does work for me! :-)

Hi Stan, I can't even remember when or where I got it. I started my plant database about 10 years ago, which is when I started keeping track of where my plants came from, so it was before that. If you e-mail me through this site, I'd be happy to send you a nice chunk of it. I'm betting you have something in your grand repertoire that I'd love to have in trade?? Denise in Omaha

If the water just drained thru, it could be very compacted. If that happens (and it does very often if the potting soil contains too much peat), water just 'slides' around compacted soil and doesn't soak thru, so roots still don't get any. It would be good to check it out. It is hard to tell if over- or under-watered at this point, my plant looks like that when under-watered just as marquest said. If the soil is compacted, it should be replaced. They take little more water than most succulents. They also loose leaves very easily even when healthy - just by brushing by the plant.