Your zone is very different from ours so I don't know how to answer that question. I won't use a bloom booster except as I described above to get blooms during a rare summer cold front. The reason is that our weather is so hot in the summer that the plants stop setting fruit. In fact, at our house this week, in just a couple of days, we move into that danger zone of temperatures in the mid-90s. Hopefully we won't stay there. I'd hate to think the tomato plants have already set all the fruit they are going to set this spring/summer. If your tomato plants are blooming and your daytime highs are staying below around 92-95 and your nighttime lows are staying below 70-72, you shouldn't need a bloom booster. Your plants should bloom naturally and should set fruit. I haven't used a bloom booster in years because even though our summers routinely are very hot, I usually don't need a bloom booster unless we are in prolonged drought, and we haven't had prolonged summer drought at our house since 2015, which is extremely rare. If your tomato plants are blooming and not setting fruit, perhaps your nights still are too cold (below 55 degrees). Or, if you are having normal weather and fruit should be setting in the temperatures you have but it is not, then perhaps there is a lack of wind to shake up the flowers. Tomatoes have perfect blossoms and the flowers need some movement in order for the pollen to fall from the anthers inside the flower to the stigma, also inside the flower, to achieve pollination and fertilization. If your air is very still or if wind movement is blocked by something like a building, your plants may need some help moving. There are various ways to do this. The traditional one is to thump the flower blossoms. If you have a lot of plants and they are caged, you can just walk along a row of cages giving each cage a gentle shake as you pass by. Or, if you have a tennis racket....walk along the row of plants with your tennis racket in your hand. Give each tomato cage a good whack as you walk by. That will cause the plants and their flowers to move and the pollen to move around inside the flowers. You can use a bloom booster whenever you want, but don't overdo it. Too much can cause too much fruit set and then the plant has more fruit than it can carry to maturity.

Beth, We had sunshine! Rain returns Thursday though. I am starting to think it might be a hard winter too because our daily high temps and overnight low temps are consistently averaging 15 degrees below normal and have done so for almost all of Sept. and Oct. That cannot be a good sign. I'm glad you're prepared for winter. I think we are too. We don't get much ice here, and are happy if we get one snowfall a year because we seldom get that. We do seem a little more prone to get sleet or freezing rain instead of snow, and I'd rather have snow. It was almost 10 degrees colder here last night than the forecast had predicted...went all the way down to 39 degrees which surprised me. I'm glad it didn't get a few degrees colder or the misty drizzly light rain could have been sleet. I'm not a cold weather person, so if it gets colder than usual, I'll stay inside more. With the cougar roaming, I'm unlikely to work clearing brush at the back part of the property (the back prop line is about 1000 feet from the house) this year like I have most years in the past. (sigh) Maybe I need to come up with something else to do inside if it is a long, cold rainy winter. Dawn

Is it "normal" to get a sinking feeling every time you think about building a home? Of course not. It's normal to feel nervous about the project's enormity, the expense, the logistics. But a sinking feeling means this is not what you want. You might like parts of the house, but that is probably not enough. The fact is, you will have to put a huge amount of effort, money, commitment into a project that will end up with you living where you don't want to live, in a house and "yard" too much for you to deal with. And at an age when your health and energy are not likely to be trending upward. You will continue to resent his not following up on his commitments. He's getting his dream and you're gonna pick up the loose ends. No WONDER you have a sinking feeling. Just for a moment, and just to yourself, think about whether or not you can back out now. And how you would do it. I think you may already be too deep into this to back out now--for whatever reasons you've agreed to it. What would happen to your relationship with DH if you called a halt to it right now? (I'm not suggesting you answer any of this here; just to yourself.) If you can't see a way out of this, then what would it take to make it go better for you? I think you could assert your right to not have to work to age 70. If he's willing to handle it by himself, it's his dream--let him work for it. Or, let that be a real good reason to scale down the house. Just say you're not willing to work past 62 or whatever. He can run the numbers to see how to scale back the house accordingly. That will get you 2 big things you want: a smaller, more easily managed house and an earlier retirement. While you're having that discussion also tell him that the project has to be scaled back because you're not willing to be annoyed all the time, and scared by living in the midst of undergrowth, and you will need a bigger monthly budget to hire things done. (What was his plan for while he's away for 3 months?) I don't think he's been realistic about that and you haven't confronted him about it. Does he know how much you resent picking up the pieces for him and waiting for him to get around to things? Or, focus on how he's too busy working to consistently get the maintenance done and should plan on letting YOU hire it done; so in his free time he can play country squire or whatever he dreams of. Did you just agree to all this because you can live in a really nice house? Because other than that I don't hear you wanting any part of this. Until you come clean with him about ALL of your reservations, he will have no motivation to start planning realistically so that YOU will also be happy living his dream. (Or as happy as you are capable of, given that you basically don't want this.) This isn't just a house; it's your entire life. Especially since you work at home. That sinking feeling you have is a warning signal. I really hope you'll tell him now, while he has some motivation to make concessions and provisions and to scale things back. If you don't tell him now, he will have zero motivation later. And all you will have is the sad consolation of being right about the fact that he would disappoint you--again.

Sigh...........downpour just got over. Broken riding mower. Grass this high. Volunteer dill and flowers in the garden, more than I can pull but it won't do any good to hoe because next rain will just replant them. Possibly a handful of strawberries out there. The mosquitoes aren't so bad. I did use bug repellent the other day when I was working in the long grass in the shade. The chickweed is awful these past two years. Storm warnings for tonight. I don't know about tomorrow. It doesn't seem like their timing is hitting it even close. I turned the a/c off Sunday and it's been ok. Hot but not unbearable inside. Edited to say: Well, I guess it isn't over after all. Got drenched doing chores.