Gardngrl: What a great post! Your very good at expressing yourself. My wife and I bought a country home 2years ago. It just kills me to leave the big city and step back into time. Yes the wave thing, kills me. We have great neighbors, but your right bad neighbors can make you move. I am in a very expensive area and when meeting the locals I don't like to tell them exactly where my house is, because then they say oh your in one of those mansions. It's not a mansion but many local people live in trailers. So when you go some where your better off being vague. But they like local residents better than tourists. Then they ask, where you live. You might as well tell them, because they want every detail and the color of the house. The also know the names of everyone and your house is named after the person you bought it from. I love them all but they follow the beat of a different drum. Had my farmer friend grade my driveway, I paid him. He did a nice job so I asked him if he wanted a 25" color TV I had. He looked me in the eye and said what would I do with it. My gravel driveway needed repair and put 70 yards of gravel in it. Can be very expensive to maintain. Especially if not done properly like mine was. To drill a well by me cost $42,000.00, so you better check out what a well cost and septic, electric run to the house etc. You could drop a fast $75,000 real fast. The locals will help you anytime you need it. Just mention you have a problem and you get offers, use of tools, wanna borrow the dozer etc. In my opinion big city people and city life you can keep it. We dress down and accept everyone for what they are and make no judgements. It really was a wake up call for me to see what is really important in life. My town is about 160 people, and yes they all know everything about everyone. They like to know, where your from, what you do. But they do it in a friendly way, like breaking the ice and some small talk. What I like if some one works on your house, they would rather take trade than cash. Great system if you have a skill or service to trade. Very handy people, can just about fix or build anything you need. I would also recommend that you get as much land as you can afford. The last thing you want is to have a neighbor close by whey you move to gods country to get some room. I just purchased the land west of my property and I am in negotiations with the owner of the land east of me. Just want to make sure I am secluded. Neighbor down the road has a beautiful log cabin home and someone bought the land next to him and put up a house that looks like a garage, with plastic siding and on the lot line. The guys nice and a builder from the same city Iam in but when his neighbor looks out the window he sees white plastic siding. I cannot see any homes around my house and I am going to insure I won't either. When I first bought the house I wasn't sure how much we would use it, or would we get tired of it. Was worried that maybe this was a very expensive mistake. But we love it and I am so glad I bought it.

They are metal with the plastic or paint coating. I am considering putting them into the closet under the stairs instead of the two chests there...easier than opening the drawers....or they may end up in the garden somewhere as shelves...I do have some older ones I may use on a fence as a trellis

Well, you can pack it all up and send it to me. What a wonderful haul and it must have been a wonderful vacation. Good shopping to you! ! ! My favorite sport!

Rosarama, im in no way taking credit for this growing medium, I learned about it on this forum. Its strickly for containers for what I know about it. The man that came up with it to my knowledge is Al Tapla. 5 parts pine bark, ground up cut up or whatever is done to it till its the average size of a dime. 1 part coarse perlite 1 part peat 2 cups dolimite, 1 cup of pro max minors, 2 cups of slow release fertilizer I mix every thing in a 36 gal container, a little at a time. I believe its the best thing since sliced bread. Look up and study Als mix. If your serious about growing maters in containers you should learn about Als mix, it would save you a lot of heart ache, and make you much more successful in growing in containers. Plant em if you got em. Sam