Scott, isn't Biotune a penetrant and not a spreader sticker? Better make sure you use Biotunes equivalent. I think the advantage of organic vegetables is that conventional growers tend to juice things up with soluble N and create vegetables with very big cells full of water. Taste and nutrition suffers if you grow vegies or fruit this way because of the higher ratio of water. I actually grow my vegetables organically once I get the starts out of the green house. I like synthetic fertilizer for starts. Vegetables are easy, though. I just don't like this constant drum beat of healthy eating can only be accomplished with organic food. If I buy organic produce here it will cost anywhere from 2 to 4 times as much money so I don't think you should be discouraging people from eating healthy food they can actually afford.

I agree with you, Acer, that the choice is a contradiction. The Green Giant (Thuja) was the other contender when I narrowed down my choices. There were a few things that tilted the selection to cedar. One is that it is nearly impossible here in town to get an apple tree far enough away from junipers to avoid cedar-apple rust if the apple tree is susceptible -- the experts say something like a half-mile of distance is needed. There are probably several junipers in neighbors' yards just on my block alone. So one more juniper will not likely cause more trouble than the other existing dozens would. Second, I prefer native plants. If there were no resistant apple trees, I would plant the juniper anyway because the juniper is native. According to one source, it is the ONLY needleleaf evergreen native to this particular area. On the other hand, apple trees are the interloper here. As far as I know, no apples are native to Iowa, not even crabapples. So why plant an apple at all? Well, I have this stubborn conviction that every yard needs an apple tree because I grew up with one. Even tho it was out behind the garage and surrounded by tall shrubs and could only be seen when one was standing right underneath it, it impressed me enough to want an apple tree wherever I call home. "Home is where the apple tree grows." Third, along with being native is the observation that these junipers are found in native stands along with black walnuts, so they are already good friends and won't cause trouble between themselves. It's good to know that my trees will feel good with each other. Their driplines will be very close, maybe overlapping. Fourth, the juniper provides berries that birds enjoy during the winter and the thuja does not. Feeding wildlife is an important consideration to me. No, I have not heard of cedar-needle pie either! Haha. I'll have to work on that one -- what a challenge! But I think one can make gin from the berries. I wonder how the berries would flavor citrus-based confections like lemon pudding? Fifth was the growth rate. I think the juniper grows a bit faster than the Thuja. I can certainly afford a bigger juniper to start with because a close friend has a farm full of junipers -- he admires the tree -- and he'll dig one up to transplant. It'll be like a family connection through the tree. So I might have a useful screen in only a few years to block a neighboring apartment house window that looks down into my big patio window, which I like to keep uncurtained. When it's all added up, I am simply very happy that my stubborn, contradictory convictions can be satisfied with a really promising solution like a disease-resistant tree.

Monkeyman, With all the questions you are asking it reveals you are really keeping an eye on things and learning rapidly. I suspect that before too long this approach of yours will have you teaching us things rather than our answering your questions. Your enthusiasm and curious nature is very good to see.

The formula listed by neil16 is the recipe for Complete Organic Fertilizer from Steve Solomon's book titled Gardening When it Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times. His logic is to supply all of the nitrogen needs and to replace the nutrients that are removed as a result of harvesting the crops. I used the recipe last year with good results and soybean oil meal was my nitrogen source. My local farm supply sells 50# bags for about $16.00. The analysis is about 7-1-1 or 7-2-2 depending on the sources that I've found. This material gives me the biggest bang for my buck in terms of a nitrogen source. One drawback is that the nitrogen must be broken down by microbes for plant availability and that requires warm soil temperatures. In cold weather an animal source of nitrogen like blood meal or a fish product is necessary. Be aware that purchasing kelp, bone meal and rock phosphate in small quantities is quite expensive. I buy 50# bags from an organic supplier in my region for a much better price per pound. I would consider using a complete fertilizer in a newly constructed bed like the one described above since there may be some deficiencies in nutrition for the plants. In a rich, well nourished soil there might only be the need for added nitrogen. Alfalfa meal or pellets are reputed to really rev up the soil organisms although the nitrogen content is less by weight than the seed meals. You can figure out the nitrogen content in animal feed by dividing the crude protein analysis by 6 or multiplying the crude protein by 17%. Years ago I was quite surprised to hear an agronomy professor at Virginia Tech tell how quickly organic forms of nitrogen are made available to plants when they are incorporated into the soil. The animal products are available immediately. I side-dress heavy feeders by moving the mulch and applying my seed meal at the surface. I then re-cover the fertilizer and apply moisture when I can.