What it comes down to is all this blather about how this soil benefits what is growing in it. The water in the well tells a great story....its being poisoned by something....and the farmer doesn't know what it is. You can guess until the cows come home about how much is too much, how much of this benefits the quality of the compost or is what is being added not a benefit at all, its a hindrance to what is being tried to grow. Without a proper, and widespread soil test, the farmer is guessing....farmers' don't usually guess...its their livelihood to know what they are putting on their fields. Aspen is widely used as a bedding material...its usual name might be "excelsior"....not much good for anything else. Is such waste good for composting....I've looked, cant find any definitive answer. So the use of it as an addition to any compost is of unknown quality. So the water in the well is bad...so what's the farmer doing about it....evidently nothing. To suggest that a raised bed can be benefited by the adding of raw horse manure for vegetables.....well, you gotta take that with a grain of salt.....lots of salt to kill the pathogens that is giving the ingester the runs. Hopefully, diarrhea is the least of anybody's problems of eating such vegetable from such addition. Personally...I don't believe a person would do such a thing....but then, who's to say what strange behaviour is the norm in the family. The farmer needs to have somebody with expertise of land management come in and tell him what is wrong and how to fix it.....if it ever can be fixed in time before the children come to grief. A half acre is not that big a piece of land that, with proper care, couldn't be brought back to goodness of its soil. To suggest that just because such compost is being layered 1/3" to 1/2" over a span of 5 years is doing something FOR the soil--with that kind of compost and possibly as well, not finished, is also GUESSING about its quality. I rate it as of poor quality....very poor quality and the future, it seems, will not be any different.

You gotta be careful with blanket statements, esp when it comes to gardening or composting :) Any time someone "discovers" a garden "truth" or "rule", someone else is sure to find the opposite just as true. "I have heard that too much sawdust is not good for gardens" As stated above, in large quantities fresh sawdust can tie up nitrogen in the soil. Of course if you are turning grass clippings etc in at the same time, the nitrogen hit is not so great - and not so bad. It's relative! As for sawdust generally having no "nutrition" value for your soil, sorry, that is simply not the case. Sawdust all by itself (along with an army of microbes and worms) transformed a patch of clay soil magnificently for me. Took three seasons, and 2 pickup truck loads spread almost 6 inches thick. Years later there is no sawdust to be found, and the soil is lighter. Some mighty fertile ground can be developed using nothing but sawdust (material-wise). Having manure in there is just more goodies for the soil web. You don't gotta have the fruit or coffee grounds, but they aren't going to hurt much (another blanket statement) but in concentration, grounds can make things acidic for you. Sounds like a terrific opportunity for your garden to me!

Hello, snowling888. Too much sun would cause the leaves in direct contact with the sun to turn all yellowish or even white-ish. Hydrangeas wilt when the amount is water lost thorough the leaves is more than the amount absorbed by the roots. So anything that promotes water loss (say, temperatures, windy location, not enough water) will need to be looked at. As for the F&E shrub, your soil could be alkaline. If it is acidic, this could be a new plant whose potting soil is not acidic and whose roots are still growing in the original alkaline potting medium. Acidic soils will result in blue blooms and alkaline soils will result in pink blooms. If your soil is acidic then you need to amend it with dolomitic lime (follow the label directions) or grow the shrub in pots where the potting medium is neutral to slightly alkaline. If this is a new plant whose potting mix was neutral or alkaline then just wait until the roots have grown into the surrounding garden soil that is acidic. Adding some phosphate will also help. As the blooms age, they will change colors. I observe the first change sometime in the month of June. The exact change in colors will depends on the hydrangea variety that you have. Luis

Check out the thread linked below for a really long discussion on this issue. It has pics of a comparison study going on between heavily pruned plants vs. normally pruned plants. Should answer all your questions. ;) Dave Here is a link that might be useful: Organic tomato magic thread...