It looks like this just might be Charles after all! I have 3 bushes of CDM and mine have never started out white like that, so that goes to show that variables in weather, soil, etc. can sometimes yield different presentations. One thing I can't help noticing is that you are a FULL MONTH ahead of me here in New Hampshire.....Charles doesn't begin to bloom here until around June 20th. Maybe by the time mine are finally getting around to blooming, the weather here is much warmer. The leaves certainly look right to be CDM. By the way, Charles de Mills is the ONLY rose that I have 3 of.....he is the very first rose I ever loved and will always be dearest to my heart, out of well over 300 roses. Celeste

Equal amount of the following: Bloodmeal Cottonseed meal Alfalfa meal Fish meal Mil-organite 0-46-0 (triple super phosphate) instead of dusty bone meal. 46-0-0 Urea- This works fast while the other stuff breaks down. It's an ingredient in Mill's Easy Feed, recommended as a supplement to Mill's Magic Rose Mix. A typical 20 lb bag of organic fertilizer sells for $20 to $26. Mixing it myself it's less than $5 for 20 lbs. The ingedients have increased in price considerably in the pastfew years. All these Items can be purchased at feed and grain stores, farm co-ops and stock feed supply elevators. Alfalfa meal is horse, rabbit, feed Fishmeal is sold as hog feed. Mil-organite is a commercial fertilizer available at many nurseries and garden centers. It's packaged Milwaukee, Wisconsin sewage sludge that's been processed to kill any pathogens. Local sanitary districts may manufacture their own product under other names. Warning: Heavy use of this type of product can cause a buildup of heavy metals in your soil if the manufacturer is using sewage sludge from a highly industrialized area. 46-0-0 (urea) is farm fertilizer generally sold in bulk but also available in 50 lb bags at farm co-ops. It's also used as a hog feed. 0-46-0 is a mined and processed phosphate rock. Cottonseed meal was readily available where I bought everything except the Mil-organite and I could have gotten that except I didn't order in advance. Blood meal is also used as a hog feed. It contains readily available nitrogen and iron. Let your fingers do the walking. Call around until you find a supplier. Some will order for you if they don't ordinarily stock an item and have it if you give them a week or so. Plan ahead. A local garden center near me can get all of these if I call ahead.

I guess that depends on what type they are. If they are stocky enough to stand up on their own and be OK I'd just write something simple like 'Take me home, place in a pot with soil in a sunny place, water and watch me grow!' on the back of the tag make sure you say that it is an edible green bean - 60 days to harvest. Leave it at that. Putting too much info will make people nervous. If they think it's hard to take care of it might just get thrown away. KWIM? I can't tell you how many times I brought home sunflowers or corn starts only to have my Mother throw them out or not take care of them. LOL. Barbie

1. Coarse flour equals coarse baked goods. Fine flour = fine baked goods. It's not that you can't use coarse flour for baking, but if you do you should expect different results than what you get with fine flour. In order to have a fine crumb for a Whole Wheat Angel Food Cake, or other delicate baked goods, you must have fine flour. You also need the right type of wheat - as well as the correct grind. Use soft wheat for baked goods where you don't need a lot of gluten development (pastry, cake, quick breads, some cookies, biscuits, etc.). I mill 3 parts soft white wheat with 1 part oats or spelt to make a low-gluten "cake" flour. If you already own the Ankarsrum attachment, run the grain through on a coarse setting (if it's adjustable), and then run the coarse flour through the mill on a fine setting and see if it's any finer than just one pass through the mill. This is a common "fix" for some mills, but it also entails more work/mess/time. It will also help prevent the motor from over-heating. Most of the mills used on the multi-task machines and stand mixers tend to NOT mill fine flour and also over-work the base motor, so keep to small amounts of flour at any one time, do the coarse setting first, then the fine setting. Allow the motor to cool between batches if you need to mill a lot of flour. 2. There is not a "perfect" mill, which is why I have a number of them. I also teach classes about home milling, so that's another reason I have a number of mills - for demonstration purposes. Do your homework so you are familiar with all the different types of mills and their milling characteristics - "stone" (which are actually any number of natural or composite materials which can chip, shred, crack and break - and if your grain is too moist for milling, stones will glaze over and you will need to remove and clean the stones); cone and burr mills (generally for coarse milling); as well as impact/micronizer mills (the newest and fastest method where the grain "explodes" into tiny particles as it passes through the fast-moving "teeth", rather than being pressed or ground between stones or burrs). 3. If your goal is to mill large amounts of grain into fine flour in a short amount of time, I'd suggest an impact/micronizer mill - a Nutrimill or Wonder Mill. The Nutrimill edges the Wonder Mill out only by a slight margin because you can load the Nutrimill before turning it on, it can be stopped even with the hopper full, and it has a "coarse" grind that the Wonder Mill can't duplicate. Even though they call it a "coarse" grind on the Nutrimill, it is actually a fine-grind for cornmeal. It's more like semolina in size (and what I used to mill durum wheat for a wholegrain semolina type product for making pasta). The texture of the baked cornbread using this so-called "coarse" grind on a Nutrimill will be more cake-like because it is so fine. You shouldn't stop the Wonder Mill in the middle of grinding (someone accidently unplugging it, or during a power outage) or you can clog the machine, and it needs to be ON when you load the hopper. Cautions: -I wear earplugs when using my electric mills due to noise. If you have children, I'd suggest they stay out of the room during milling to protect their ears. -Make sure the Nutrimill canister is pushed in properly (there are embossed words "YES" and "NO" on the base and the canister needs to be past "YES") or you will have flour everywhere. -Make sure the hose connecting the Wonder Mill and its canister is properly connected or you will have flour everywhere in your kitchen. -On the Nutrimill, I apply cornstarch to the rubber ring to keep it from sticking. I use a soft, natural-bristle pastry brush to remove the flour off the cover and the cup and brush it into the canister - so there is very little flour actually lost during milling or clean-up. I did the same with the Wondermill (which was known as the Whisper Mill when I owned it) and I also used a narrow bottle brush to clean the flour out of the connecting hose. -The electric mills can "walk" because of the vibration, and have been known to fall off counters, so keep an eye on it, or place it on a silicon mat (Silpat) to keep it from wandering and becoming yet one more victim for appliance "heaven". 4. If you watched the videos plllog linked to, I have owned or currently own all but the Wolfgang. If I could only keep one mill (which would be a very sad day indeed), I would keep the Wonder Mill Junior Deluxe (the hand mill) because of it's versatility. There is an adaptor for the Wonder Mill Junior Deluxe so you can power it with an electric drill if you need speed. I also have a Family Grain Mill with the motorized base, which is another good choice and also has a number of attachments you can purchase for it to expand it's use besides milling. 5. If you plan on doing any kind of coarse grinds or grits, you will want a hand mill for that - something that will adjust accordingly. I use a Corona Corn Mill for medium and coarse grinds of cornmeal, multi-grain/bean/seed mixtures, or hot cereal (Farina, Cream of Rice, Cream of Wheat, etc.), or will use my Family Grain Mill or Wonder Mill Junior Deluxe. When milling grain for cooked cereal (or cereal blends), be sure to sift out the flour or you will end up with glue in your cooked cereal. The same goes if you make cracked wheat or bulgur. 6. You can't mill small grains (teff, amaranth) in all mills, nor can you mill oily seeds (flax, poppy, etc.), so I have a Porkert Seed Mill for milling small seeds into flour. I can also use my coffee/spice mill, Wonder Mill Junior Deluxe, and Family Grain Mill. 7. If you would like to mill grain into flakes, that requires a flaker mill. I have a Marga Roller Grain Mill for flaking, and it will also grind a coarse grind of flour and coarse flakes, as well as crushing the entire seed into a flake, but can't be used for something hard like corn or beans. Flaking grain will shorten the cooking time. You can add a flaker mill attachment to the Family Grain Mill. 8. If you are considering hand mills, make sure you can easily store it and have something it can be attached to (either permanently or temporarily). You will also want to store it in a dry environment so nothing will rust. I have a grain cart I roll in and out of my pantry when I want to use it. I store my hand mills on the shelves, and they can attach (clamp) to the thick wood top. As to the infrared heat apparatus, I don't have any information to add. I use the "dancing drops of water" test on a griddle. -Grainlady