i can or could agree with you on some of the list, if you don't take care of your plants, i do have gold flame honeysuckle. i have it on an arch. every fall i clip it back to about 6" or so, and in the spring it comes right back up and just as beautiful as ever!! when we first bought our house, it had over a foot of dead vines under the live ones, i had to cut all that back, it was a real pain in the butt!!! now it looks great though, also on that arch is my orange trumpet vine for the hummers. and that one is very thick!! but it also has to be cut back. if you don't do this it all just dies for the next years growth anyhow. so i don't know why people wouldn't want to cut it back?? and severely!!! and the honeysuckle smells awesome!!! :') ~Medo

Peonies... I have tried to avoid getting in the middle of this disagreement, but now I feel I have to. While I appreciate the help with the question this thread started out being about, I really don't appreciate how uncomfortable I now feel with the turn the thread has taken. I don't mind that the bird flu was brought into it, or that different people have different opinions about it. All of that is perfectly fine and appropriate and to be expected. What I mind is the way in which opinions are expressed, putting down the other person's point of view and making personal attacks. Peoniesaremyfav...you may not want to hear this, but MM was correct to remind me, which is who he was directing his comments about bird feeders to, about the concerns about the Bird Flu. If it wasn't a legitimate concern, Mass Audobon wouldn't have been writing about it on their website. He is not alone in his concern. When he brought it up, I responded, and didn't take offense, he wrote back and he wasn't offended. Then you jumped into the discussion. If you really want to be fair and honest, you can go back and read the thread over to find out where it started to take a down turn. MM and I both had come to the same conclusion..that it was still ok to feed birds, but we need to keep an eye out for future changes. MM just expressed that even though it was probably ok, he had decided to stop feeding anyway. That was the point where the discussion should have ended. You continued it. You challenged MM about his decision to stop feeding and then after he attempts to defend his reasons further, you characterize his response as being defensive. You have expressed judgements about MM as a person that were unwarranted, saying he is only concerned with his own little world. Where did that come from?? If he was only concerned with his own little world, he wouldn't have been trying to help me out by reminding me about the Avian Flu. That is making a personal attack and is crossing the line of simplying disagreeing with a point of view. Peoniesaremyfav...I certainly don't want you to perceive this as a "chastisement" because it is not. You put others in the position of having to come to someone's defense when you attack them. I hope you will feel free to express your opinions. I am interested in your opinion and MMs opinion and Terry's opinion. But I also hope you can see that your opinions and the opinions of others are better heard, if the personal comments are kept out of it. If they can't be, it is better to just let it go. Adam

Just a feeling here, but I suspect the Logan Labs test will show significantly different results and not based on corrections made this fall. I don't see how you could have that green a yard in July with a horrible soil. I did read on beyond the soil test to the stuff that Penn State sent regarding establishing a new lawn. Perhaps these guys are the ones telling everyone to rototill? Here are some thoughts. Rough-Grading Remove all debris, including large stones, left by construction work. Till soil and bring area to rough-grade prior to liming or fertilization. Where topsoil is to be replaced or brought in, first rough-grade the area to the contour of the finished grade to facilitate uniform distribution of topsoil. In the construction industry this would be called 'finish grading.' Rough grading is what is done prior to construction. Finish grading is done to correct all the damage done by contractors. They don't use rototillers, though. They use tractors and box blades. A good driver can fix a pretty bad area at a rate of 2 acres per day. If the drainage is pretty close already, then they can do 5-10 acres per day. Farther down on the Penn State pamphlet it says... Soil Amendments Where a soil test indicates the soil has a low organic matter content, work the recommended amounts of organic matter into the soil to a 2- to 4-inch depth before applying the starter fertilizer. Reed sedge peat, moss peat, or a combination of the two materials is recommended as a source of organic matter. Well-rotted sawdust or well-rotted manure may be used as a source of organic matter, although these materials decompose quite rapidly and maintain desirable soil physical conditions for a shorter period of time than do reed sedge or moss peats. This is kind of unbelievable. A homeowner should NEVER till sawdust into the soil. You may as well pour gasoline on it and set it on fire. The claim that it will decompose quite rapidly is dead wrong. Once it's buried underground it won't decompose for years. And while it's trying to decompose it will rob nitrogen from all the plants. Buried wood becomes a giant nitrogen suck. As fast as you can pour it on the wood will suck it up. You'll end up with yellow grass for years. You're going to have much better results simply by applying organic fertilizer on top of the soil before, during, and/or after seeding.

Interesting comments so far, and I agree with most of them. Zach, I’ve also heard about the crops that are being “engineered” to make them more nutritious, and at first glance I tend to agree that that could be a very positive thing. But then you wind up back in the Potato Famine World, where, if major portions of those countries are in production of that one specific crop and “something” goes wrong, you have the same monoculture culture problem that created the two famines you mention. It would seem that the world didn’t learn from those catastrophes! Check out the bottom part of this page under the heading “Ignoring History.” It tells about incidents in the 70s and the 80s with corn and grapes, and that was before the “modern era” of genetic manipulation like we have now. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/agriculture_02 So if nobody ever learns from the Epic Fails of a monoculture, and now they’re creating a “super duper rice” that’s gonna feed millions of people if they can get enough people to grow it, and then IT fails, ultimately “they” wind up creating an even bigger problem when instead of people not having “rice” that’s nutritious enough they wind up with nothing at all to eat. Another thing I wonder about when it comes to these big areas where it seems people are suddenly malnourished, how is it that they lived, and thrived, for thousands and thousands of years growing the rice and whatever else they ate, and then “suddenly” they aren’t getting enough nutrition. Is it possibly something “we’ve” already done to change their diet that has changed it for the worse? Something happened to change the status quo from those thousands of years past! So, yes, I basically do agree that “good/helpful/useful things” are possible with genetic engineering, but I guess in most cases it’s the “intent” of those doing the engineering that creates so much skepticism in me! Are the people creating the “healthier rice” doing it to help Humanity, or are they doing it to help their pocketbook—and in the process creating a whole new monoculture that will ultimately do more harm than good. And when that monoculture crashes, as they all eventually must, will they be using the dollars out of their own pocket to help the starving masses, or will they be moving on to the next profitable development! I hate negative people, and I hate even more to have negativity in me, but from my “observations of Modern Man” over the last 20 years or so I just seem to have trouble seeing much Milk of Human Kindness in most “corporately involved” people! I want to believe—I really do, but I’m Olde, and I’ve seen a lot! And eating Roundup Ready grain—or anything else—really does scare me! It doesn’t scare me right now, today! It scares me 10 or 20 or 30 years down the road—when “they” go OOPS! I’m olde and it’s probably pretty much too late for it to do much damage to “me,” but for the generations growing up now, and the generations yet unborn, that’s gonna be one helluva OOPS! [I think about that in terms of all the prescription drugs that are advertised on TV over and over for several years, and then they “disappear” for about a year, and then all the personal injury attorneys show up on TV with class action suits for the “drugs that disappeared!” When “somebody” finds something they can sell “us,” we’re all the guinea pigs until something goes wrong.] Seed Savers is actively working to “have a cure” when the monocultures crash—at least with the apple trees they are. They have over 900 varieties of “old” apple trees they’re preserving, and I don’t remember exactly how many, but it was at least a couple hundred varieties of grapes. They’re also “preserving” some of the “old,” and “unmodified” poultry breeds. They’re not “getting rich,” but they are doing something good in my opinion. [And if anybody’s interested, they do sell some of their apple varieties too!] Jali! “Diversity. Moderation.” If you made it around to this thread I sort of figured you’d be The Voice of Moderation! I would have to disagree with this statement, however! “Not that my little personal protest will matter one whit.” I believe every single “little personal protest” helps! The only way we can really “fight back” against the things we disagree with in this “current world” is with our Dollars! And when enough people decide to fight against any one “cause,” it eventually reaches Critical Mass and really does make a difference. I guess that’s what impressed me so much about Fedco’s “protest!” They’re “voting with their dollars,” and standing up for what they believe in! And I so, sososo, agree with you on the Pinterest Effect! OMG! The blind leading the blind! Yeah! Go ahead and dump a bunch of salt in your garden and see where that gets ya! Insanity Squared! [No! I never heard about the Roman legions doing that! Hmmm! Agent Orange of the Roman Empire, huh?] And, do they really still make Malathion??? I basically agree with you that “homeowners” are probably scarier in the “stuff” they saturate their yards with, and wash off into the gutters, and pour down their drains, but if I had my druthers I like to see the farmers using less “stuff” too. My primary “garden cure all” is Palmolive dishwashing soap, but I do still use chemicals when there seems to be no other option. But my association with American Indians for the last several years, and seeing the reverence they have for the Earth, both historically and currently, leads me to use less and less and less “artificial stuff.” I don’t think I’ll ever quite get to a half-life of zero, but I have definitely cut back significantly. And my garden still grows! Moderation in all things! Yes! Skybird