Glenn, That's the term! Couldn't remember what it was called. I did do a search about it, but it seems it just puts the yellowish tinge on the edges of the leaves. Mine do have that as I said, but the descriptions I've read about the Yellows doesnt match up with my my lower leaves are all curly and small. Any ideas what that is? Thanks, James

Finished compost will look like dark, rich soil no matter the source. If you find evidence of what went into the compost when it is supposed to be finished it isn't. Compost from manure should not, ever, have any identifiable pieces of the manure (ie. road apples) or the bedding in it, it you can see that it is not finished compost and you should be paid for taking it off the sellers hands.

Aw shucks, thanks folks! ":^), Yeah I think that tilling it two or three times before the final time definitely is a big factor in making good compost like that, because it does help break it down but it also mixes it thoroughly and aerates it too. I went thru an evolutionary process to arrive at using my tiller. I tried turning with a fork, poking holes with a big crow bar, burying a perforated pipe in the pile and then used my and drilling numerous holes in the pile. Each of those approaches will make compost, given time, were progressively better, but took varying amounts of physical exertion, and my supply of that was limited. I decided to use what ever mechanical means I had available to do the job in an agressive manner and it paid off well. I do not use much fossil fuel at all, it only takes a few minutes to till the pile up, and even less to pile it back up with my little on my garden tractor. I also had a little brainstorm and made a to work on the lift on the garden tractor to fluff the pile with in between tillings. It also doubles as a fork lift on a limited scale. (I just enjoy playing around with my cutting tools and welder and making useful, functional stuff like that, not to mention saving labor and enabling me to do stuff that I could not otherwise do, The other factors are lots and lots of shredded oak leaves and I have been very fortunate to obtain those pick up loads of about every imaginable kind of fruits and veggies from the supermarket dumpster too. Now they have locked them off. The manager said to call him a couple of hours in advance when composting time comes around again and he will save back some garbage cans of the good stuff for me. I hope that he is still there when I am ready again, if not I will be back to using horse manure (which is hard to beat) along with what ever else I can scrounge up. Right now I am just burying my kitchen scraps and a little bit of garden waste, but that is breaking down and working. Happy composting and gardening to you all. Bill P.

More branches have started looking bad, so I snipped one off as well as a leaf that has some reddish coloring on the bottom and stopped by OTooles. They think it is blight. They recommended cutting off all the branch parts that are looking bad, disinfecting the clippers after each cut, and then hope for the best. They said spraying now might not help, and could just be a waste of money. So I gave my little tree a pretty good hair cut, taking off all the obvious bad tips as well as trimmed off the tips of all the other branches as well (partly to make it look more uniform, but also as a precaution in case those has some bit of it as well). I threw out all the branches into a garbage bag and put into the trash can. Any other tips on what I might do if it is indeed blight? From the little bit of googling I did on it sounds like it is pretty common for young apple trees, but there are some varieties that are more resistent to it (of which mine must not be!). If my tree doesn't make it after all, I'll be sure to look for one of those! I just hope it doesn't spread to my Peach and Pear trees. And speaking of my Peach tree, I'm actually wondering if that's where it came from. We bought all 3 trees last summer, and the top of the Peach starting looking bad fairly soon after planting it. But then fall/winter came, and everything went dormant, so didn't think much more about it. I did prune that part of the Peach tree several weeks ago, because it wasn't showing signs of growth. I don't remember trimming on my Apple tree after that, though, so hopefully I didn't actually do the infecting ... but not real sure. Guess it's another one of those "wait and see" situations! Marj