I really love that plant. It turned into a big tree. I took a cutting but don't know if it rooted but it doesn't look dead so maybe its ok. Had to work today am beat as well but Lucy is doing better and John was really behind on the paperwork so I had to go in and catch up.

It depends on how you are dividing. Are you dividing them down to 2 fans or 4 fans or what size? I've purchased in the spring which were just bareroot double fans and had them bloom the same year but not to their full potential. I will be dividing some plants this spring and I'm not concerned about how many blooms I get from them this year. I figure it is best to get it done before something else comes up in the fall and I can't get it done again. Good luck with whatever you decide to do. Julia

Becky, Congratulations! Isn't it fun when you get to start seeing the fruits of your labor? For cabbage loopers, the easiest solution is to spray the plants with Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt)'Kurstaki'. It is a bacteria that specifically kills caterpillars. You spray it on the plants they are chewing holes in, they ingest it as they eat, they get sick and die within a day or so. The nice thing about it is that it only targets caterpillars. The bad thing about it is that it targets caterpillars that might otherwise turn into butterflies, too, so use it carefully. You can find it pretty much anywhere that sells pesticides (including places like Wa-Mart or Lowe's or Home Depot), and there are many different brands. Look for something labeled Thuricide, Dipel, Caterpillar-Killer, Bio-trol, etc. and read the active ingredient list to make sure it contains Bt. (For future reference, there are other forms of Bt that kill other pests, including Bt "Israelensis" which targets mosquito larvae in water and Bt 'San Diego' which targets Colorado Potato Beetles and other leaf-chewing beetles.) With tomatoes, it is hard to give an "average", but usually you will have ripe fruit within about 7 weeks of the appearance of blossoms. There is wide variation, though, since some tomatoes (like Early Girl) produce fruit roughly 53 to 57 days from transplantation, and others, like Brandywine, take 90 days or longer. Also, the widely quoted Days to Maturity (DTM) for tomatoes are averages only, and I have found that many tomatoes produce ripe fruit in fewer days in our hot climate than in cooler climates. Determinates seem to bloom anywhere from a little later to a lot later, but yours should have blooms by mid-June if your Early Girls have already bloomed. Most of my determinates already have fruit and flowers, but I planted a lot earlier than y'all did. About the Swiss Chard and lettuce......Swiss Chard produces well in the summer, and in general, lettuce doesn't do well after temps are regularly exceeding 85 degrees, although a few kinds are more heat tolerant than others. So, don't take it too hard if the lettuce peters out in the heat....that is typical. Keeping it very well watered and shading it a bit can help prolong its' life. I am glad things are going so well in the garden. Hope your weekend was terrific and that you have a great Memorial Day too. Dawn

I often like the look of the stainless steel appliances, but hubs and I agree that we don't want them. Don't want a stainless steel sink, either. And, we'd much prefer countertops made from recycled glass (see Vetrazzo and Icestone). "Also...what is the deal with having the big bedroom closets in the bathroom?" I'm not sure what you mean by this... do you mean that folks do, or don't, like master closets that are entered through the bathroom? Until this house, we've always had houses that had a closet that you entered through the bedroom. But, in this house, you go from the master bedroom into the master bathroom, and then there's a door into a huge walk-in closet. There's one distinct advantage to having it that way. For many couples (and this holds true for hubs and me), one has to get up and get ready before the other. I can get up, go into the bathroom and close the door, and he remains asleep and undisturbed. I can go back and forth into/out of the closet without bothering him. If the closet door was in the bedroom, I'd be going in and out of the bedroom, disturbing hubs.