Eddie, Enough, already! In SC. the pure sand soil type varies from place to place, yard to yard. Yet, through the years it has sustained the population, fed the Yankee Army as it pillaged and burned and contributed much in the way of research to the horticultural world. Random thoughts on the subject. 1. You seem frantic about pH. As you gain more experience and study other yards and farms noted will be the fact that plants can adapt to a wide range of situations, especially if you select some of the quality types which have been developed by Clemson, UGA, et al, specifically for the south. The best vegetable garden I have seen in the south was on Spring Island, SC. which is a very private plantation. The owner of the garden, while out riding his horse in the depths of the Island discovered the old saw mill and huge mounds of pine sawdust/bark composted over the centuries. He built raised beds and filled them with nothing but this very acid pine compost soil. The results are unbelievable. Brassicas that look like those pictures of crops grown in Alaska. 2. Suggest you not use or compost fresh animal manures in the south. It is loaded with Bahia Grass seed. Once introduced into a garden it will forever be a weeding nightmare. Ditto hairy vetch. Your best cover crop in the veggie garden is the constant use of straw and the Ruth Stout method. Look it up. 3. Nutrients added to sandy soil quickly leach into the underworld. Your job is to figure out how to slow this process down. Forget about tilling. 4. I'm going to cut to the chase here. Place all you reports, studies, questions in the back of a dark drawer for this year. Plant your winter veggie garden using several handfuls of bagged mushroom compost in each planting hole or spread in the bottom of rows plus a handful of dried molasses which will discourage various root insects. Water in as you plant. Now, spread pine needles as a mulch over all. Yes, I know they are acid. Don't worry about it. Press on. On top of the pine straw spread the dark, rich pine bark mulch mixed with any compost on hand. Over this a light scattering of straw. This should be all you need do to grow veggies, repeated annually, building the soil. Amend sandy soils at the surface. Spend your efforts on developing compost, of which 25% pine bark compost should be incorporated. Great stuff! Use it.

I think the whole problem here is that we are trying to compare apples to oranges. HT's and Shrub roses are two different classes for a reason. If you are expecting HTs to grow and bloom in the same manner as Shrub roses then you surely will be disappointed. Same is true the other way around. If you are expecting Shrub roses to give you the large beautifully formed blooms of an HT you'll be disappointed too. You can not compare them to each other. That's unfair to both classes. In my experience if you try to even compare one HT against another you come up perplexed. EVERY variety of rose is DIFFERENT. They each have their own habits and no two are alike. You need to just enjoy and appreciate each one for it's own unique characteristics.

I've had a few horses and I can say it is good stuff! You just have to remember fresh has to sit awhile so it doesn't burn your plants! I believe Cow Manure isn't as "hot" because of their digestive track. Pile it high and take from the bottom after a few months. You can also make a tea, in a five gallon bucket put a shovel full and fill with water. Let it sit for a week.

A paint bag was designed to filter globs of paint from the rest, so bumps don't appear where you paint. I started using mesh bags like for onions, but too much of the compost was floating in the tea, which plugs up the water can. So the bag filters it nicely, and doesn't interfere with the bacteria growth. The reason people use 'teas' might be because it's another way to nourish plants effectively. We all composted to build up our soil, but to really get great results sometimes takes years, depending on how good your soil was. So now we have worm castings, and nobody can argue about their increased value over compost as a fertilizer. Through electron microscopes we now really know how plants feed, and it's through the interchange they have with bacteria. And they not only feed through the root system, but also their foliant. My view anyway.