OMG I had a post all typed out and this thing ATE IT!!!! Man, I wish I hadn't missed the Mini Roses Cindy! I didn't have the Cleopatra, I have Orange, 1 Bengal Tiger Baby, small mini red Cannas. Please do list a wish/wants list Cindy so if there is anything we have we can offer you then we will ;). New Request from Cindy: Zebra Grass I am looking for ANY grasses I plan on putting in a grass bed at the top of our driveway so we don't have to mow up there anymore :) I put in some rocks with the house number all ready and our neighbor gave us and ornamental solar light decoration to go up there!!! Tammy you asked me how the spiderwort looked lining the drive, there wasn't as much left over after the swap as I thought there would be. I DO have some I got from my mom and a friend though, not sure if it will cover the lenght of the drive or not. And I haven't really decided if I want that or that red mini grass I forgot what it is called at the moment... OK posting thread #3 now too. :) Fran

I am reading this older thread to collect opinions about Sweet N Neat. But I want to throw in a plug for Tiny Tim, which I have grown for over 40 years when I want a dwarf. This may be primarily a characteristic of a determinant, but you have complete control over the size of Timmy. Whenever his roots start to get root-bound, he produces tomatoes, regardless of size of the plant. I love to grow him in a coffee cup. I think he is so cute at 6 inches tall loaded with tomatoes. If in a 2-4 gallon pot, he gets to be a bushy 2 ft tall before producing tomatoes. He requires less light. In fact, he will die in full sun in the garden. He is the perfect indoor tomato because of the low light requirements. Granted Timmy is no Sun Gold in taste, but I consider him acceptable tasting. If you grow him 2 feet tall in an apt, you have a pretty abundant supply of tomatoes to add color to salads. I threw out Tumbling Tom because of bad taste, and Red Robin had nothing over Timmy. But I wonder how Sweet N Neat compares with Tiny Tim.

Sorry Eva but your question got lost in all the other discussion. In the future it is best to start your own thread, ok? I don't know what the foil is supposed to do but it could be making the soil too warm. It can also abrade the stems. Wilting can be caused by many things - over or under watering, over-crowding, transplant shock, the potting mix you used, or even by all the things you have sprayed on them. What are the containers filled with? One problem is obvious, the size of the plants right now compared to the size of the container means they could easily be drowning if you are actually keeping 35 gallons of soil wet all the time. With a container that big what is usually done is to fill it only 1/2 full, plant the small transplant and then slowly fill the container with mix as the plant grows. That keeps the scale of plant to amount of soil in line. Could your tell us the actual dimensions on the container? Are you guessing at the 35 gallons or is that what the nursery claimed? The reason I ask is that 35 gallons is a very unusual size for containers sold to the public. In all my years in the nursery business I have never seen a container that shape that will actually hold that much mix. Standard sizes for hard sided containers is 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 50. Your plants are quite leggy, with long skinny stems and long spaces between the branches. That means they are not getting nearly enough sun. Plus are you sure they were aphids? It would be unusual to see aphids in soil. More likely fungus gnats. Either way I'd suggest laying off on all the sprays. Those home-made remedies usually only make things worse. Based on your photos I can only tell you what I would do. Reduce the plants to no more than two in each container, dig up the two you choose to leave and bury them much deeper so all that bare stem is buried, bury them right up to just below the top cluster of leaves so new roots will develop all along that buried stem. Then feed them with a well balanced fertilizer, preferably a liquid one so it will work quickly and move the containers to where they can get much more sun. Next year, if you plan use those same containers, first take the time to do some research into large container growing. It has some very unique requirements. I hope this is of some help to you. Dave

Do you take mulitvitamin/multimineral supplements such as One A Day or Centrum Nallah? The minerals used in these two and nearly all supplements are chemically created minerals produced by humans and the exact same minerals used in so called non organic fertilizers for plants. Such as potassium chloride, magnesium oxide, dibasic calcium phosphate and many more. We use the same elemental elements as plants do. and extract them only in their pure form known as chemical elements found in the periodic table of elements, if you remember high school science. Chemically created synthetic fertilizers are simply a combination of two or more organic elements, sometimes using high heat, to extract the pure chemical element plants can take in, along with humans. We can't eat phosphate rock or limestone but we can extract the elements of phosphorus and calcium we can consume, same for plants. Soda drink has phosphoric acid in it along with tooth paste, Phosphoric acid comes from treating organic phosphate containing material with sulfuric acid, Sulfuric acid is a natural organic salt of sulfur and also organic. So where is the danger? The idea that man made chemical fertilizers are dangerous is a myth and this is where the danger is. I say a dangerous myth because without man made synthesized fertilizers over half to three quarters of the world population would starve. Not may but would without a doubt. People who think only organic is fine only if they know the facts and not try to force everyone to do the same. it would take 30 tons of cow manure to fertilize 1 acre of crop land to produce half the yield they do now. 30 tons of cow poo requires about 4 cows. 4 cows require 8 acres of good forage land per year. Removing the manure to fertilize your crop land would then reduce the forage available next year. The next year even less, and so on until your 4 cows starve. If you did the same with alfalfa each year the source land would become depleted, and any organic source would quickly become depleted. The world would starve, and organic vs chemica is a major rant of mine because people don't know how sensitive the world food supply is and could easily collapse with the wrong laws by the wrong people. 2,7 billion acres are used to feed the world population and people are starving now, this doesn't include land used for livestock. 2.7 billion acres would require manure from 11 billion cows to support the land by ORGANIC means, but wouldn't last long. You can use organic fertilizers as a personal choice but please be aware most of the worlds population would die without man made synthetic fertilizers made from natural elements that are perfectly safe.