The seaberry blooms require a close look but once you know what to look for the male and female blooms are very obvious. If all your plants have blooms that look like tiny green worms, they are all female. Male blooms look like tiny coin purses, they open up like a clam shell to release pollen. I had 10 seedling plants from Oregon Exotics in 1992. For 4 years the whole group produced only a few berries. There is no shortcut: Buy a known male pollinator or try to get very lucky. I just harvested 30 pounds of fruit from 2 named cultivar plants, I have sawed them all down to stumps for removal. Next year I will start with newer varieties. The juice in the freezer will tide me over for the next 2 or 3 years.

So do you remove the first fruits to set right after they appear? How many do you remove? **** I can't speak for anyone else but heck no, I don't remove the first fruits to set. I've waited how many months of cold, snowy bitter weather to taste those first fruits so no way am I going to delete/discard/demolish or otherwise get rid of them. And with few exceptions I gave up growing earlies many years ago. I'm not one to look for those first fruits at all, especially on earlies, I wait until some of my early mid-season ones start ripening fruits. And unlike some above who find that first fruits don't always taste the best, that's not been my experience with most varieties and I really do think it might be related to where someone, in a geographic sense, is growing their tomatoes as well as weather conditions, and the way folks grow their tomatoes. And no, lets not take this long thread into ways of growing tomatoes for there are at least 20 K threads here about that already. LOL Carolyn

Sorry to ask but are you sure the closets are not cedar lined? For perfume/soap smells just leave the closet door open for awhile, maybe put a fan in the doorway to the closet and let it blow on low.

"How did you determine how much you can afford to build / how much you need / etc.? We started with discussions on desired lifestyle and goals for house. What activities did we need to plan for? What sort of space would they need, and could it be shared? You need to have these discussions before you start drawing up floor plans. Many of the construction details and materials are driven by the desire to use minimal energy for heating and cooling, to have low ongoing maintenance, and to minimize water usage. Did you say, "We can build this many square feet", or "We can spend this much money"? We have an upper limit, based on wanting to fund the building out of the sale of the current house ... square feet is determined by life style. And we're not into McMansions, we're into efficiency. One goal is to get it into as small a footprint as possible. Did this change much as you built and your budget dwindled? We've identified places where costs can be cut, and what can't be cut. We could do some DIY, and leave some things unfinished, use less expensive finish materials. Did you start with your wants and downgrade as necessary, or did you start with the budget and determine what you could have for that money? After the "how do we want to live in a house" discussions, we started with the dimensions of and the desired view from a California king bed ... seriously that was what has driven about half of the floor plan. The plan was radically revised a couple of times as the possible lot to build on changed ... you HAVE TO take the site into consideration. To get the view, the bed has to be placed against an inner wall on the second floor, facing a large, low window or a door, aimed in a certain direction. To the bed's dimensions we added clearance for access (in a walker or wheelchair - we're geezers) and the desired bookshelves and small wardrobe. Bed placement determines door placement ... which controlled bathroom placement, which controlled ... you see where this goes. To get to the second floor bedroom, we needed stairs ... and the SO's size 14 shoes controlled the tread depth, and the building codes controlled the riser height. That in turn controlled the height of the main entry. Kitchen size was determined by appliance sizes, workspaces, need for certain size walkway, etc. We will have a large pantry because it's a small town. Need to buy in bulk and have a place to store it. It's mostly been lifestyle, activity and traffic pattern driven after that. The need to "age in place" meant that one bedroom and full accessible bath had to be downstairs. ============ Some of the things we are doing to keep cost down: * Square floor plan with almost no hallways (American Four Square influenced) * Kitchen designed to use "standard" appliances - niche for frig instead of counter-depth, etc. * Straight run counters (galley kitchen) and simple layout, simple cabinet design, probably local cabinetmaker. * Standardizing bath fixtures and finishes (you get a better deal on the tile, and the contractor doesn't go nuts remembering what goes where) ============= I could easily increase the cost of the house by 50% by using the fancy stuff: designer tiles, "pro" appliances, ornate trim, and expensive lighting fixtures. I'd rather spend the money on books, art, and travel. =========== What about resale value? Screw resale value. That's the heirs' problem :)