I never soak the bark for the gritty mix, but I make sure the bark is moist when I make the 5:1:1 mix. The 5:1:1 mix can become hydrophobic (water repellant) and hard to rewet when it dries down to less than 30% water content. (Soils feel dry to the touch as the ingredients start to fall below about 40% water content). To combat this, I moisten the bark and the perlite before I mix all the ingredients. The peat will lose its water repellency overnight as the moisture from the bark and perlite diffuses in the mix and 'breaks' the peat's tendency to repel water. Even if the gritty mix is completely dry and the bark very hydrophobic, you can still wet the soil because the Turface sucks up water quickly, and it also clings to the surface of the grit. The water in the Turface and on the grit then diffuses into the bark, breaking its water repellency. The next time you water, whether it be in an hour or after a couple of days, the bark will readily absorb water. Like Josh mentioned, the only advantage in pre-wetting the bark is if you intend to soak the planting in a tub in order to wet it. When you do this while the bark is dry, the dry bark will want to float like a cork and often floats to the top of the soil, but not nearly as much when the mix is partially moistened. Al

The girl who designed that pattern is a military wife with 4 young children. She supplements their income with her designs. Her patterns are unique and very well written; easy to follow. I've purchased a few of them, including that one.

Having read through all the posts I can see that there seems to be some rather confusing information here. As a retired plumber allow me to help you sort it out. Although there are some rare exceptions, generally on the front of your property there is a strip of land from the curb to the house side of the public sidewalk that is owned by the city. That strip of land is defined as the "utility easement" and that is were the underground water lines, sewer lines, storm sewer lines, gas lines and buried electrical or communication lines are located, as well as the poles to support overhead electrical, telephone, cable TV & commercial communication lines are located. Whenever a structure is built the municipal water supplier taps the municipal water line and they install a short length of pipe to a buried valve which is known as a "Curb Stop Valve" A curb stop valve has a raised flat bar across the top of the valve that serves as the valve handle. A piece of 3" or 4" pipe is then extended up from that valve to finished grade where they place a round metal cap that says "Water". To activate that valve they remove the cap and use a long rod that has a tee handle on the top end and on the valve end it has an inverted U shape that will stradle the bar on the valve to turn the valve. By code, the line and the curb stop valve must be a minimum of 1' deep or 6" below the average frost depth for your area, whichever is deeper. The line from the municipal main, and maintenance on that line is the responsibilty of the municipal water supplier. The line from the curb stop valve to the structure is technically defined as the "House Supply Line" and the property owner is responsibile for installation and maintenance of that line. When we pull a permit to install that line the water company will provide us the exact location where they intend to put the curb stop valve. We then attach the new house supply line to the end of the curb stop valve and run the line to the structure. In regions subject to freezing that line must enter the structure at the minimum depth below grade. If the house has a basement we then go through the footer wall and into the basement. If the house is on slab we have to enter the house through the footer wall, then stub it up into a utility space inside the house. In southern regions where there is no frost the line may stub up on the outside of the house. When we pull the permit to install the house water line the water company will also give us a location and the "Fitting alloances" for the water meter. In regions where frost is not an issue they may require we install a "meter vault" at any given point from the house side of the sidewalk to the exterior base of the house. Generally the meter allowance will say we have to cut out a section of the pipe from 15" to 24" and we have to put a female pipe thread on both open ends of the pipe. Once the installation has been completed and passed inspection we contact the municipal supplier and they send someone out to install the meter. Code also requires that we install a "House Main Water Shutoff Valve" on the end of the line downstream from the meter and generally the main ater shutoff valve must be within 6' from where the line enters the house. Jemdandy mentioned that there is a valve on both sides of the meter, but that is not correct. Code requires the valve on the house side of the meter, but the valve on the input side of the meter is optional. Code also requires that we install an electrical grounding wire that must be attached to the pipes on both the input and output side of the meter and that wire must be connected to the house main electrical ground at the electrical service entrance panel. Years ago all water meters were manual and they had to send a meter reader around once a month to read it, although more often than not they sent someone every third month and estimated your bills on the two odd months. They then developed an electronic sensor that could be attached to a manual meter and a wire was run to the exterior of the structure where they attached a small black hokey puck looking thing on the side of the house. With that, the reader just walked up the driveway and touched his/her recording device and it read automatically. They then developed a sensor that reads the meter and it has a built in two way radio device so the water company can slowly drive down the street with a specially equiped car of pickup truck and it will automatically read all the meters as it goes by. There is another type of meter that has a sending unit that is connected to your telephone line and they can read your meter via the phone line from a remote computer. And for those of you who are like Jan & I and use cell phone exclusively, the old phone wire is still attached to the house and they use it. Some electric meters work the same way. OOOOOOOOOOH and while discussing the old phone line. Even is you do not have landline service, if you still have the old phone line attaced to your house you really should get one analoge type telephone and keep it hooked up. Although you don't have phone service and that phone cannot be used for normally telephone service, there is a federal law that says all phones, whether the phone service is on or not, must be able to call "911", so if you have a power outtage where the cell phones are down you could still call 911 in an emergency because the phone company has their own power system, but keep in mind, you must use a phone that does not require power.

I had a look around for the maxibloom analysis and as the name (and low N %) suggests its not really geared for vegetative growth. The high phosphorus levels combined with additional P from phosphoric acid based ph down will increase the need for Mg but will also reduce the availability of Ca,Fe,Zn,Cu and K, which are directly linked to chlorophyll production. http://gh.growgh.com/docs/LABELS/maxibloom.pdf At 7g per US gallon you`ll have around 92ppm of N, 121ppm of P, 214ppm of K.and 64ppm of Mg. In comparison, Maxigro at 7g per US gallon will give you 157ppm of N, 40ppm of P, 214ppm of K and 37ppm of Mg Maxigro can be approximated by combining Maxibloom with calcium nitrate, potassium nitrate and epsom.