As I'm sure Ken's link explains, digging a planting hole in clay soil and mixing in a relatively high percentage of OM simply creates a bucket in which you hope to get your plants to grow. They won't.....or at least, not for long. What you have created is a planting hole that retains water in the organic matter and is unable to drain freely because of the clay surround. This is a recipe for oxygen deprivation and root rot. If you need to plant in clay soils - and many of us do - you need to dig a very wide but quite shallow planting hole with sloped and roughened edges. Set in the plant with the top of the root ball several inches above grade and backfill with the soil you removed, unamended. Slope this material gently up to the top of the rootball, creating a small mound or berm. You can put whatever organic matter/mulch you like as top dressing.

Dusty: niiiiiice work on them hab cookies! They look a little more polished than our rustic batch, but with the same cool little orange hab pieces sticking out of the top and sides! mudman: you'll definitely get more heat if you put in more habs. It's hard to say why your cookies aren't very hot. Could be the habs (mild plant, or hot plant but a mild batch of habs after a rainstorm - mine do that), or the mix of ingredients, or your heat tolerance, etc. I've found it's just kind of a crap shoot. That's why I usually just put 5 habs, 3 with seeds/ribs removed, into almost any mid-sized recipe like these cookies - there's a randomness factor involved with the heat, so I figure that quantity provides an average, everyday hot-but-tolerable heat level that can then be tweaked as needed. The butter and sugar in this recipe definitely absorbs and disperses some of the heat, but still, it shouldn't be mild with 4 habs w/ seeds and ribs. Maybe try 5 or 6 next time. I should note that the tapenade has a higher perceived heat level than the cookies, so if you're trying to make something brutal and cruel, that might be something else to try ;) Also, have you tried a raw hab off your plant to verify the heat level? Sometimes they come off the plant milder, due to weather. good luck!

I'm glad the sideways thing worked for you. I'll have to give that a try. I used to be able to take any kind of pills and any amount without drinking anything. I was young then I guess. Smiles. Now they all get stuck so I always take my pills with food. I just take a decent sized bite of food, chew it a few times, shove the pill or pills in and swallow. The pills go right down with the food since you are really used to swallowing something bigger than the pill. I do follow with eating a few more bites since I'm usually in the middle of eating anyway. Been using that method for quite a few years and it's been good so far.

To your original query, if 48" is your ideal prep space, then make the counter between the sink and range 48" (and just get used to stacking dirty dishes to the left of the sink). I personally would prefer 60" for my prep counter, but I'm likely taller/longer-armed than you are, and you should go with what feels most comfortable for you. The only caveat I can think of is, if your current prep space is teeny, then 48" probably feels enormous and like all the space you could ever want or need by comparison. For sure, it won't continue to feel so enormous once you are used to 48". If you install it, 48" will eventually feel normal and standard to you. I can guarantee that. The trick is, I've seen a lot of people get used to a larger space like that and then want even more space. For example, people used to eight foot ceilings think ten footers feel enormous and cold, but they enjoy nine foot ceilings and rave about how spacious and airy they feel and buy a house with those. Then they get used to nine. Nine is their new standard, eight footers now feel super low and cramped, and they start considering ten footers for their next house because those now feel nice and spacious and airy by comparison to the new standard. It's not always the case that you will eventually want more, but that kind of of pattern is very common to see in home spatial decisions. Aisle widths, door widths, counter lengths, etc. If you think that might happen to you, maybe go a touch longer than feels perfect to you now -- 54" perhaps?