The pictures are so lovely! Speedy recovery Joyce. You are incredible. So this site is not only about lotus, also about survival-? The lotus seems so full of life maybe there is a connection-?:)) I am looking for advice and tips too - being a novice lotus grower or wannabe. The lotus out on my balcony, which are all in containers, are struggling but haven't given up yet. I planted them in regular potting soil, so perhaps not enough nutrients, and they are getting half a days worth of sun? Should I replant them in early spring with compost? I have six from seeds, but I haven't seen an aerial yet... still they are trying but the leaf browns out of water... one grown from root has a few floating ones... which is probably Momo Botan, the seedlings I don't know. So they are not dormant yet, with Mediterranean climate. I really don't need seven lotuses, but who knows if they make it! Other question... the seedlings are in jugs, like big juice jugs, should they go into bigger pots packed with compost even now they are struggling? Thanks... Tarja

Jay, It puzzled me too and still does. Your freeze damage occurred in a manner that contradicts almost everything we've been told about freeze damage....like the fact that yours occurred on higher ground and not lower ground. Mine is always the opposite. The year the bed of black tomatoes survived freeze damage that severely injured or killed everything else, they were in the highest bed at the top of my sloping garden. I had thought that maybe you had some wind and it kept the damage from settling in uniformly, so your damage seems even more odd in the absence of wind. I also have had times where I thought the foliage from nearby trees protected some plants, but that didn't happen in your garden either. I guess it is one more oddball thing to add to the whole oddball year. Ilene, I've been thinking about those of you in northeastern OK and wondering what the 2009-2010 El Nino with all its excess rainfall will do to y'all and to your plants this coming spring. It seems like y'all have enough issues with excess moisture most years, and now to have the looming specter of El Nino on top of that.... The only issue with starting seed in the ground is that your whole crop will be very late, and you might not get any ripe fruit until fall. It's that whole pollination thing where the plants need to pollinate while temps are in the right range, and it is doubtful that direct-sown plants would be large enough to bloom while temps are in the right range. Still, you never know....if you have recurring cold fronts next year like we had this year, you might very well get fruit set all summer during the recurring cold spells. I love your description of the friends that remind you of the Baldwin Sisters! I always thought they were so funny. I didn't save any seed from anything because I am always so overwhelmed with trying to keep up with the harvest (more about the latest harvest in a minute) at the same time I ought to be saving seeds, but I can still save some from Tess's later this week because it still has several hundred tomatoes on it. In fact, if it ever stops raining, I need to pick those tomatoes today and dehydrate a bunch of them. First, I'll look at my seed envelope, because I'm thinking it was packed with oodles of seed, so I might not have to save any since there might be plenty from the original seed packet to share. Here's where Tess's Land Race Currant gets interesting: are you ready for a simple lesson in tomato biology? Tess's Land Race Currant, like all currant tomatoes, is not Lycopersicon lycopersicum like most tomatoes. Instead, it is Lycopersicon pimpinellifolium. It has extruded styles on its flowers, so it is very, very prone to cross pollinate. Because of the extruded styles, all currant tomatoes cross very easily with other currant tomatoes--that is one thing I know for sure. What I am not sure about is how readily they cross with tomatoes that are Lycopersicon lycopersicum. Most modern hybrid tomatoes have retracted styles, so likely wouldn't cross with Tess', but some heirloom tomatoes, especially those that have potato-leaved foliage, also have extruded styles so they might cross. And, even with beefsteak types of Lycopersicon lycopersicum, any fruit formed from double blossoms (also referred to by some as megablooms) may be crossed. So, saved unbagged seed of Tess's might or might not give you Tess's---which is why I'm hoping my seed packet of Tess's has a lot of seeds in it that are more likely to be pure. Another interesting thing about Tess's is that it mostly produces red fruit, but is not stable (perhaps because it crosses so easily?) and sometimes you get gold or pink or a sort of rosy-gold fruit. On this year's plants, I've had all red ones though. Either way....whether from the packet or from some seed I can save and ferment this week, I'll send you some Tess's seed this winter when we start exchanging seeds. I have tried to grow Tess's in ever enlarging (diameter-wise) cages and in ever-taller cages. Because it simply won't stop growing, and I hate to prune/top a healthy plant, I am thinking that an arched panel may be the best solution for it. I guess we'll know by this time next year if I'm right. Isn't Jay's plants' damage the oddest thing? I guess we should be grateful, though, that it was hit and miss because at least he didn't lose them all. When green tomato time arrives, I have a recipe for a green tomato cake that tastes like a spice cake, and for fried green tomato parmigiana. We're not mincemeat eaters either, so I don't make tomato mincemeat and I don't care for pickled tomatoes either. Earlier, I said I don't even try to save seed because I always get so overwhelmed by the harvest, which is exactly the case here this summer. The harvest was late but abundant and I have about 150 jars of food put up in the cellar, and an equal amount in the freezers. Looking at it all, I am kind of amazed to think it all came from our garden. Except for a steady flow of smallish numbers of tomatoes...with no more than a dozen or two large ones on any given day....and recurring rounds of peppers, the harvest has really slowed down......until yesterday. I went out to the garden to pick ears from the earlier of the two fall sweet corns, and this is what I ended up bringing inside just before dinner time: Hundreds of Tepin peppers to dry Dozens each of jalapenos and habaneros A good-sized mess of black-eyed peas (the last ones, because I then pulled the vines), A good sized mess of Royalty purple pod beans and a similar amount of Contender bush green beans A modest amount of okra About a dozen tomatoes (large ones only, still need to pick bite-sized ones from the six remaining bite-sized tom plants) and still need to pick big ones today from the containers in the back yard A few dozen ears of corn About a dozen pickling cukes So, today I'll be in the kitchen processing all of these one way or another, although I'm about out of ideas for hot peppers, having already canned pepper rings and pepper strips, frozen plain green jalapenos and roasted red and green chipotles, dehydrated jalapenos and habaneros down into either dried, ground power seasoning or chopped dehydrated pepper flakes, and dehydrated tepins. I've also made several batches of Jalapeno Jelly, Jalapeno Gold Jelly, and Habanero Gold Confetti Jelly. I am really getting sick of peppers. I guess I could make more salsa--I think we have plenty, but DS thinks we need much more. I could make pepper ristras, but in this humidity, they'd likely dry on the outside and mold inside. So, I guess I'll just make more of the same stuff I've already made....and I haven't made any vinegar/pepper sauce yet, so that's a possibility. The second fall corn should be ready to harvest in 10-14 days so I guess we'll know in a couple of weeks if it has beaten the frost and matured, or if the frost gets it first. I'm hoping for another frost-free month so I can harvest a lot more beans and cukes, but the rain/clouds aren't helping because they stall without sunlight and some heat. In a way, it is nice to have bowls and bags of produce stacked everywhere to process again, because the harvest really has dwindled down. Harvesting the last of the purplehull pinkeye peas was bittersweet--I hate to see the harvest end, but they produced copious amounts of peas from July through October, so that's a pretty good run, and we ate them almost daily 'in season' and still have plenty put up in the freezer for winter. I really need more cukes in order to make a batch of pickles, but the others aren't enlarging very much in the absence of sunlight. I guess I could make a half-batch of something. So far, the only pickled cukes I've done have been whole Dill pickles, bread and butter slices, and sweet pickle relish, so I am hoping to get enough cukes to make dill spears, dill relish, kosher dills and bread-and-butter stackers before the cucumber harvest ends. I tried to help myself in terms of NOT having an overwhelming harvest to process by saving pickling cukes and bush green beans for fall, and it helped a lot. I don't think I could have handled the harvest I had in July-August if I'd had to deal with cukes and bush beans at the same time. Still, because the tomatoes produced great, if late, and the peppers were overachievers (and still are, which makes it tempting to just pull the plants now and put an end to my pepper misery) month after month, I still had weeks where every flat surface in the house had piles of produce waiting to be processed, or in some stage of being processed. I wish there were a way to spread out the harvest more evenly but you really can't.....the veggies produce when they produce and that's just how it is. In a year like this, I really think I could produce almost an entire year's supply of veggies here....but, then, most years are not like this...most have half the rainfall we've had so far this year, so I should be grateful for the non-drought years because they are fairly rare. Still, I'm at the point where I never want to look at another pepper again....and my jalapeno plants are still heavily loaded. The rain, by the way, continues to fall, and we've had thunder and lightning since the early morning hours, but nothing violent. Dawn

No criticism taken. Forgive my lenghty research, but it may prove interesting to read. I have been researching the MeBr phaseout and have found alot of interesting facts/bs in different places. In carols leading post it states: "International negotiators granted the United States request to continue using the popular killer of insects and weeds at a rate of 37 percent, or 5,550 tons, of the 15,000 tons used in 1991. " That is not actually true instead that only 30% of new MB can be produced with and additional 5% from old stock produced prior to Jan 1,2005. An additional 2.5% of the baseline was more recently authorized for 2005 critical use. I only mention this because it is suppose to limit the production of "new" in this equation by 5% of the baseline.I just wonder who and how all this will be monitored to meet the correct amounts legally?! Also, I found out that in a fact sheet by the EPA that MeBr was listed as "an odorless gas, that is used to control a variety of pests in many different situations. Methyl Bromide has been used in a wide variety of agricultural and commodity applications ( for example:growing strawberries and tomatoes and fumigating flour mills) across the U.S. There was no mention of any other negative or mutative charateristics of the chemical behavior except that it is "a powerful ozone depleting substance." http://www.epa.gov/ozone/mbr/CueFRfactssheet.html What I did find out about the chemical combination of MeBr: Other than caused a number of health problems with exposure was... A newly proposed rule by the Dept of Agriculture would demand that methyl bromide fumigation for nearly all imported raw wood packaging ( instead of heat methods). The use of imported treated raw wood packaging would not be controlled or regulated before shipment abroad. This increase could be a very significant increase. It would not be limited to just packaging material, but all wood products. As well as being a ozone-depleting agent, MeBr is also classified as a class 1 acute toxin by the EPA. It has been used for over 50 years to sterilize soils prior to planting as a herbicide and pesticide(strawberies, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, tobacco, and ornamental). Its also used to fumigate for pests strawberries, coffee beans,tomatoes, ginger, sweet patatoes,fruits, vegetables,dried nuts,and grains before they are sent to market (to control insects) and then again later to fumigate homes, warehouses and grain elevators. And golf courses turfs. I found that info from: PR 95-4 Regulatory Status of Methyl Bromide and Priority Review of Methyl Bromide Alternatives There is alot of rumors about political contribution amounts in the agribusiness the strategy to keep MeBr going as Marshall implied. Of course these rants I would need to validate the other claims as many political names and chemical companies were thrown around. One author, of an article about how the Agribusiness is very happy, ends his article on the thought that if the Montreal Protocol parties fails to control the USA in regards to MeBr and methyl bromide stays on the market how terrible it would be "or at least until the ozone fails." The link below is on 2 laborers who were applicators of methyl Bromide in California as reported by the sierra club. Other than that the only other thing of interest I found was that in 2002 when the Methyl Bromide Technical Options Committee translated documents for the United Nations Environment Programme there was a note by the Secretariat that states in outline the following: "1. This note is prepared pursuant to agenda ithem number 12 of the twenty-forth meeting of the Open-ended Working Group of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol and in consideration of a request made during the 24th meeting of the Open-ended Working Group (see the report f that meeting, UNEP.Ozl.Pro.WG.1/24/9, paragraph 174 to 177) that the Secretariat translate into the official United Nations Languages, and publish in those languages, the assessment reports prepared by the Methyl Bromide Technical Options Committee (MBTOC) on altenatives to methyl bromide. The Secretariat deems it necessary to cirulate the information on translationof documents issued by the Technology and Economic Assessment Panel (TEAP) and it technical options committees along with the information onthe cost implications of the translation of MBTOC documents. 2. As stimpulated in paragraph 3.1 of the TEAP terms of reference ( annex V to the report of the eighth Meeting of the Parties, UNEP/Ozl.Pro.8/12), which the Meeting of the Parties approved in its decision VIII/19 on the organization and functioning of TEAP, the stipulated language of TEAP meetings is English, and reports of the panel are produced in English. The Secretariat has thereforealways circulated all the reports of the panel and its committees only in English. 3. Notwithstanding the provison in the terms of reference, and in accordance with the request of the Open-ended Working Group made at its 24th meeting to forward the draft decision on this siisue to the Sixteenth Meeting of the Parties, the Secretariat wishes to inform the Parties that the cost of translating the 2002 MBTOC assessment report, which consists of 184,618 words, at $90 per standard page of 330 words, is $50,350 per language. The total cost of the translation of the MBTOC assessmentreport from English into five other United Nations languages therfore will be $251,750." UNEP/Ozl.Pro.16/INF/4 11 nov 2004

>>If the price of gold were to react in sync with the conditions of *those* times, we'd be at $2,000 for an ounce. If it were in sync with THESE times, it could go far higher. >> Exactly. Which in itself tells you something, from a historical context. It's fear that drives small investors into it, whereas government purchases, for example, such as India's, are for specific reasons of diversification. My diversification into commodities, as a small investor, would not have the same goal and timing as a large investor. Im currently having a similar discussion on another finance forum, with someone who recommended "liquidating everything and buying silver, as its sure to go up with gold." I certainly agree that commodities can play a part in a diversified portfolio. I dont agree with taking that to the extreme, as some do - not you, bkelton, but some folks do veer off in strange directions, such as the the guy who started the recent thread about putting a lien on his own home! The trouble with anonymous forums is that the smart folks know to take the advice for what it can be worth sometimes valuable, very often not. But many are not quite so savvy, and when it comes to investing, that is very dangerous. For example, at yet a third forum I participate in, one person posted the following: "one client was a mall owner. He told me if I was ever to invest, invest in three things...FOOD..everyone eats...CARS..of the future...(he told me this in the 80's and he said.. only if people knew whats out there)..and CLOTHES..textiles...everyone is wearing something on their back..." Others began to comment how smart that was, and such sound advice that made a lot of sense. Well, yes, it sounds folksy and wise, but consider what might have happened if youd invested in some of the following: 1) Lucky grocery store stock: at $35 in 2002, it fell to $18 in less than a year. In Sept 2005 when Albertsons (which bought Lucky in a failed attempt to grow larger) broke up the stores into regions and sold the CA stores to SuperValu, the stock price was $21. As of today, 11/16/2009, the stock price of SuperValu languishes at less than $17. 2) GM and Chrysler bondholders well, we know how that turned out! 3) Federated/Macys staggering under LBO debt, theyve closed several chains but the stock price is in the dumps, and their bonds are now rated barely above junk level. Obviously, these fit those folksy parameters, but wouldnt have made any money unless you were sophisticated enough to short them. I really try to be careful about what I say in these public forums because so many people are not educated investors. They are looking for the quick and easy, set and forget investing mantra that doesnt exist. I think you and I are having a very interesting and thoughtful discussion, but weve probably lost most of the audience along the way. And no, I would never confuse soft sciences with hard sciences, LOL. However, I'm not sure why you think 'dark matter' is not a controversial subject, since it's one of the main reasons for the Hadron Collider being built at a cost of 330M Euros and counting. Like string theory, they are fascinating theories that have yet to be confirmed, but that doesnt mean they wont be proven true. The dichotomy between Einsteins theory of relativity and quantum physics has yet to be resolved, and until it is, our understanding of how the universe works remains woefully incomplete.