Well, since I made the original post, I top dressed with a mixture of MG potting mix and my own compost, which is mostly leaves and kitchen scraps. I also watered with MG for tomatoes, and poured some very diluted fish emulsion on everything. Here's the update (3 days later). Everything BUT the tomatoes look a world better. the broccoli, carrots, beets, lettuce, onions, leeks, and peppers all grew overnight and look greener and healthier in general. I think the tomatoes have put on some new growth, and they have continued to get new flowers and set fruit, but they leaves are still all curled, and the plant in general has a sad look to it. I'm still at a loss about what the exact problem is, but I'm leaning toward it being a combination of poor nutrition and perhaps some herbicide drift from the neighbor's application. I think we are going to give the tomatoes some time, but we're also going to build one more SWC and get a couple tomato plants from the nursery, just as a back up. The two cherry tomato plants (sweet 100 and husky cherry) in our SWC are absolutely thriving - I think we will do more of those next year! Thanks to everyone for the input. I will update in a couple weeks to let you know if they lived or not! Granny - my tomatoes do look a lot like the over fertilized ones on EG's blog, but since everything else in the garden showed such overnight improvement when I fertilized, I have to think that at least one of the problems was lack of nutrients. But since the toms are the closest to the neighbor's yard, it very well may be herbicide damage as well.

The pic I posted shows my left thigh after surgery for a broken femoral neck bone when I fell only a few feet off a ladder after unsuccessfully trying to use a broom to disengage a battery in a hard-wired smoke detector. I fell onto carpet and carpet pad, and even though my bone density tests showed all was well, and I'm tall (5'9") and in good shape, I must have hit the carpet and pad really hard because it stopped that detector and the others from going off. The detectors had been going off for years, only in the very early morning hours and very late at night only on weekends and holiday since I bought this house in Peoria, Arizona. But no one told me. Not one person, including the sellers, bothered to disclose this. I guess seeing the battery dangling from one of the smoke detectors and wires to electrical outlets in the living room and master bedroom hanging out that the Realtor told me was something the painters did should have given me a clue. But it didn't. I guess I expected that the home inspector -- who I paid -- would have said something, but no. Even when I had no electricity in the living room, part of the kitchen and master bedroom when I moved in, and had to pay a professional "electrician" after the home inspector and Realtor said they were clueless, I still was so stupid I didn't realize that the entire house in this "upscale" section of Peoria, Arizona, had been improperly wired! The detectors would still be going off if the City of Peoria (Arizona) Fire Department hadn't taken them all down cause they were tired of responding and as they said, they aren't electricians. After this major injury and surgery (and a total hip replacement after this surgery failed) since I never cook and don't smoke (nor does my dog), I decided to investigate why the smoke detectors had been going off. I checked to see if they had been recalled, but no. I called the electric company, APS, that serves this part of Peoria (Arizona), but they say there has never been, at any time in history I presume, any problem with their electrical service that could have caused the issue with the detectors. So I believe anything about electricity, wiring, etc., and home systems at this point. When the air conditioning turns on, my Internet service freezes, drops, etc., although Century Link says it "shouldn't". When I shower, when I turn the water to hot (so I guess it uses more of the water heater power?), the lights flicker. The plug for an electric toothbrush I never had any problems with at my old house (in an older part of Peoria that the city allowed to deteriorate even though I asked the city and council for help) began to smolder, smoke and melt while I was out for a few hours (I kept it). So I don't believe what companies, home builders (stay away from TowneHomes aka HBT and whatever else), city officials, building inspectors (approved lots of badly plumbed houses in this part of Peoria), home inspectors, real estate agents, and anyone else says. They don't know anything about electricity, so of course they're going to lie. And if they can get us to keep paying them (monthly bills, taxes, etc.) for lying to us, then the top officials are happy. They don't care about us. I believe all of you with bizarre problems with smoke detectors and everything else electrical. No one knows how to build homes anymore, especially in the U.S., nor do they want to learn. Those who do know don't want to do the job right because it's "too much work". I have never run into so many people in the last several years who hate to "work". I don't know why they don't try to get a job as a sleep study subject. How much work can that be?

"If you get your windows armed and wish to arm the system at night, you cannot have your windows open. There are special screens you can choose which will set off the alarm if the screens are cut. Then you can have your windows open at night if you wish." The first sentence of that paragraph is not exactly correct. It all depends on your system. You can have the windows "armed" but it's done in such a way that when a window is opened beyond a certain point, the alarm will sound. So, you can have one or more windows open (but not fully open) for ventilation without setting off the alarm. If a burglar comes along and tries to open the window further so he/she can get in, it will set off the alarm. You can also have an alarm system that has specific windows assigned to specific "zones." When you "arm" the system, you can bypass whatever zones you want. So, you can have windows (or doors) in any specific zone(s) completely open because they're bypassed and won't set off the alarm. "You can arm your system to sound off if there is motion within the house. If you have pets you can de-activate the motion detector part of the system so pets can walk around." You can have the motion detectors' infrared beam set to a point that is low enough to catch a human's movement through the area, but high enough to miss cats or dogs walking around. If you have a bird that is allowed to fly through the house, you wouldn't want a motion detector, or if you had cats that jump up on high surfaces. If you have stairs in the house, the beam should be set high enough to catch the motion of someone going upstairs. Again, motion detectors would be set as a specific zone(s), so they could be bypassed when desired. We have a monitored ADT system, and are very happy with it. We can, and have, set "guest codes" so that when we are away on vacation my sister can come into the house without having to know our "official code." There is also a "distress code" -- if I come home and a "bad guy" is waiting outside and forces me to go into the house and turn off the alarm, I would enter the distress code. That turns off the beeping sound (that starts when the door is opened), so the bad guy thinks everything is ok, but it notifies the monitoring company that there's a problem and they would dispatch the police. Or, if I push a specific sequence of keys on the keypad, the monitoring company would call and ask for a "secret word." If I give the right word, all is well; if I give any other word, they know there's a problem and will dispatch help. We have two keypads in the house -- one is in the foyer by the front door, and the other is in the master bedroom (upstairs). Yes, our monitoring company is in the United States.

SJ, I'm sorry you're sick. It showed up middle of last week as a minor cold but then morphed into a horrible wracking cough. The Kaiser doc on-call told me it lasts about a week, except for some and it lasts for 2-3 weeks. Sounds like they're talking about you, my friend. Friday and Saturday were horrible, but I feel so much better today. I need to lay off the codeine because it was making me feel icky. They also gave me a QVAR inhaler. Anyway, my cough has improved considerably. I hope you're on the mend soon. Either hardwired or good batteries should suffice, right? If you have power and the alarm beeps, is it telling you it's time to replace your batteries? Even if it's hardwired and receiving power? It should be easier, and less scary, to be able to service these things. As it so happens, the alarm that went off is on a 9-ft. ceiling and accessible by ladder. The other two are on walls near the apex of a 13-ft. vaulted ceiling. It's out of my reach, at least on a ladder I'm willing to trust. Of course people shouldn't be disabling them and then forget about them, but they should be easier to maintain.