Regular Brandywine Pink did great. It had some foliar symptoms of verticillium on the lower leaves, but no wilt (only one of the Brandy Boy F11s had some wilt, but not very much). No discernable viruses. It produced fine, and even in the heat, surprisingly. It got some big fruit. I saved seeds from the largest fruit. Brandy Boy F11 had more taste, though. I'm trying Brandywine Pink from those saved seeds again; we'll see if the taste improves this year. Brandy Boy sets fruits in the heat just fine, too, by the way. (Brandywine Pink, however, doesn't exactly have a reputation for its heat-setting ability; so, that's partly why I was surprised.) Note that Brandywine Pink was closer to the house, and the plants closer to the house seemed less bothered by Verticillium for some unknown reason.

Larsi, I love LOVE LOVE the mounted wicker baskets. I'm so copying that in some fashion. @Enduring - I grew up and nearly all my family is in Clinton County, then I did my undergrad in northeast Iowa. So other than some time in France and the last ten years here, I'm an Iowa boy :) You mention university town so I'm guessing you're central -- either IC or DSM. Given you have a Miele, you must not be too far out in the boonies. Haha.

Bring back Figs4Fun

I want to hire fsq4cw. But unless he lives in Denver (do you fsq4cw?) I can't. We had our system redone 4 years ago. Just last week I went downstairs and found zero pressure on my radiant floor heat. I hunted around and found the Amtrol Ex-30 tank had rusted through and was leaking. I called the installing company to come replace it under warranty. I sent pictures of the rusted out portion and the whole tank so they can bring it and replace it in one visit. So they didn't bring it and it takes 2 visits. This always happens so I should not be surprised. When they finally bring the tank I reminded my husband to have them fill up the pressure from the air valve to 20 psi which is what the system is pressurized at and it is clearly labeled on the dial. The tech tells him that they don't do that, they just put them in and it isn't needed. My husband says he doesn't want to argue with the professional. After he leaves and I found out the tank was not pressurized properly I pull the instructions for the Amtrol Ex-30 that shows this must be done. I download a youtube video showing how to do it after it is installed. We isolate the tank, depressurize it by draining the system, pressurize it and then refill the system. In finding the instructions I find out there is the Amtrol RX-30 that has a plastic liner that is to be used for radiant snow melt and non-oxygen barrier tubing applications. I order two of them and we will be replacing both our EX-30s (one snow melt and one radiant floor heat) with the RX-30s ourselves. If you look at the Amazon reviews of the EX-30 there are other people with them rusting through in 1-4 years. Ours rusted through at 4 years. I don't know if they all have them on snow melt or older non-oxygen barrier tubing like us. But I can say that even after a short time the EX-30 is loaded with rust. Our contractor also installed the wrong size Amtrol EX-30 on our boiler system that is 225 btu and had to pull it for the Amtrol EX-60 since the pressure was all over the place. Even though it was only on for a short time we can see it is loaded with rust as it is still in our basement. Our old boiler had a Honeywell expansion tank that lasted over 20 years so not impressed with the Amtrol EX-30. Will your contractor buy and replace both tanks? Probably not. But you should get at least the snowmelt one replaced because it is the one for snow melt. He may buck against the other one. And I'm not sure that will even be a good part. I don't know how long it has been in their line-up but it was probably introduced due to the failures of the EX-30 on snow melt and non-barrier tubing. Hopefully Amtrol did a better job on the RX-30 than the EX-30. Edit: Just reread your post and you have a grey expansion tank on your side arm. That needs to be a potable water expansion tank if it is on the potable water side. Otherwise it will rust into your potable water supply. We also have a sidearm hot water tank and there is a check valve on the supply from fresh. That is why we have the potable water expansion tank on that line. The heated water from the boiler is on the same line as the boiler expansion tank so does not need it's own.