I don't know if the tractor is new to you, or the yard is new to you, or both. But it does sound, from your note, that you might not be totally familiar with mulching tractor decks. With apologies to Woody Hayes, "Three things can happen, and two of them are good". He was talking about running, versus passing, the football, but let's look at your mower situation: three things can be wrong, and two are quite easily fixed/adjusted. 1. The mower deck needs to be clean. That means there's no grass under there, where the blades spin around. I mow almost three acres with my 48" deck. This is a distinct pain in the butt. Every other mow (in 'normal' dryness conditions), I have to remove the mower deck, turn it over, and clean it with the hose, so that there are air spaces for the grass clippings to blow around, get chopped up, and fall down, quite small, as mulch. Hence the term "mulching mower". But what happens if I don't clean out the mower deck? The grass collects under there, (MAN does it collect under there), and clogs the airflow, and I get clumps in the lawn, all over the place. Just like you're talking about. "Normal" dryness conditions are about June and July. "Not Normal" dryness means: a. April and May. Darn, but I hate April and May. That grass is quite moist, positively sticky, and you KNOW where that sticky grass sticks. All over the mower deck. During April and May, I have to drop the mower deck, and clean it out after each mow. Each one. I hate it. And I'm getting good at it, from practice. But MOIST grass sticks. Clean the mower deck. b. August, September, and later. DRY lawn conditions. Baby! Luv Ya! Yahoo! When the lawn is drier than 'normal', the grass just doesn't stick under the deck. I can go four, maybe five, mows without having to drop the darn deck, and clean out the mower deck. Mulching those dry, crackling leaves in October? Hey, I'll be there all day. Love It! But here's the point: if that mower deck is clogged up, you're leaving clumps all over the grass. Get used to dropping the deck, and cleaning it. You're going to be doing it a lot. Welcome to lawn care. Here's the second point: Mow downhill, but not uphill. Here's why: the mower is moving with less stress on it, because it's going downhill. That means the blades are turning faster, and mulching better. Turning faster, because that tractor isn't carrying Mr. Lardbelly uphill (well, mine does that, if your tractor carries Mr. Skinny, well, good for you.) while it's trying to mow. The third point (remember, only two of the things that can happen are easy to fix) is that the tractor needs maintenance. If you have a worn belt (and you will. Is it this year? Or can we wait 'til next year? Really? Serious?) that belt will not grip the pulley, it will slip, and you've lost a little speed on the blades, eh? Dirt or oil on the belt? SPARE me. Or the engine is not running up to snuff? Worn out sparkplug? The RPM's have dropped a hundred or two? That can make a serious difference in performance. Not good. Think about these things, and let us know what you do, and how it turns out.

I don't know about your planting dates, but you can find that on the internet. Find out what zone you are in, do a search for planting zones. Then find out your last frost date, also easy to find in a search. For example, here in north Miss. around Tupelo our average last frost day is april 15. After that we are pretty sure we can put out our warm season veggies like tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, squash. What I would highly recommend for you is to build some simple raised beds. You can use cinder blocks, wood, brick, railroad ties (don't use treated lumber due to the toxins). You can lay cardboard or newspaper over the area you want your raised bed, wet it, and then add compost and garden soil. Do a little research on "raised beds", "square foot gardening" and "lasagna gardening." it will be very enlightening and definitely something to put yourself into. Most experts recommend like 4x4 foot raised beds. you can do squares, rectangles, triangles, whatever at various spots with mulch or grass mowed between your beds. It is also a good idea to rotate your crops from year to year, whereby you plant tomatoes in area 1, for example, and the following year, plant something else there. That way if viruses or insects are there that love tomatoes, they will not increase and take hold by having tomatoes there every year. Yuou can read about this under "crop rotation." I plant my veggies in with my flower beds, but I am seriously considering the geometric shaped raised beds becoz I want to get more food production. Hope this helps you some. Laurie

Tomatoes are self fertile. With an 8 mph wind you have the perfect pollinator already in place. I would imagine fruit isn't setting because the plants are stressed. Even under ideal container conditions you are looking at 30-40% of normal production. There was a recent post about this. Throw in the Houston climate and I think you should feel good if you get anywhere near 30% of a normal yield. To improve you chances, I would try to stick to cherry types or go really big with the container - i.e. full wine barrel.

Just to be clear: I believe your issue is water volume, not pressure. That said, the most obvious reason for a reduction in water volume on just one fixture is a restriction in the pipe or in the fixture itself. Since you've replaced the fixture, I'm going to guess it's somewhere else. The most likely place for a restriction is where the pipe is smallest - which would be the shutoff valves or balancing valve. Were the balancing valve (if present) and shutoff valves to the tub replaced? If not, that's where I would look. I'm suspicious that the water volume is low on both hot and cold... that would seem more like a balancing valve to me. Let me know if you have a balancing valve and if that and/or shutoffs were replaced.