For me, making SS's COF is quite practical. Cottonseed meal and Soybean meal are available at the local Wilco for $20 per 50-pound bag. I was surprised to find they also sell Kelp meal. There's also a local organic fertilizer outfit that sells phosphate rock and fish-bone meal, as well as virtually any other organic (or almost organic) soil building supplement you can imagine. For anyone near Portland, OR: http://www.concentratesnw.com Checking out their price list is an interesting exercise regardless of where you live. I keep three 45 gallon plastic drums, each with one of the following: Bone meal + fish bone meal + phospate rock (33% each) Lime (25%) + dolomite lime (50%) + gypsum (25%) Kelp meal To make a new batch of COF, I dump a 50 pound bag of CM into a 4th barrel. That's 10 gallons, or 40 quarts. Then from the other barrels, I add 5 quarts of the bonemeal/phosphate mixture, 5 quarts of the lime mixture, and 5 quarts of kelp meal. Then I seal the barrel with the lid and locking ring and roll it and flip it around until thoroughly mixed. Steve Solomon has been living and gardening in Tasmania for at least 5 years now, and that's about as far from Cascadia as you can possibly get. And he still uses the same COF formula. For whatever that's worth. Cottonseed meal is generally sold for animal feed. SS in one of his books mentions that they may be surprised at the feed store that you are using CM for fertilizer. Go ahead and use is in your garden.

In a effort to be clear I have rewritten my post about Dr Ingrams. I have used contemporary language to the best of my ability. If there are still questions of what I am saying I will attempt to try again... Im tired of people messing with Dr Elaine R. Ingrams. Dr Ingrams be working hard, real hard. Dr Ingrams got courage and character just like Superman. Dr Ingrams, that girl know about her compost tea (dirt too!), she in the front row (snap) sitting on the corner. Dr Ingrams was telling people to geek up their compost tea. Somebody found out she was doing wrong and put it in the funny papers. You know everybody seen that! Dr Ingrams jumped up and told everybody they were right with the quickness. She covered that butt and dont care what nobody say behind her back. People be talking about they be calling Dr Ingrams all the time. I bet they be calling her when she get off work too, and she talk to them anyway (hmmph). I am NOT having no talking about Dr Elaine R. Ingrams behind her back just so you can stay stuck on stupid. Dr Ingrams is a real nice lady and helps everybody, even if they talk funny to her. Dr Ingrams take them just like they come, she dont pick and choose. If you wants to talk about somebody with me you best be picking somebody else. If not, you can talk to the hand Blutranes

I have read SS's books with great interest. Vegetable gardening in the PNW is unlike anywhere else in North America. Consider yourself lucky to have such a person dedicated to veg gardening in this region. SS has spent a great deal of time not just gardening and composting and the like, but studying, experimenting and researching. SS is a compost expert in his own right, as well as a regional expert. My suggestion would be to study everything he says and understand it. Then apply it to your own circumstances, when possible. For example you may not want to have such a large, spacious garden as SS recommends. You may have to garden more intensively. Still, his region-specific vegetable variety information is priceless. By the way, if your read "Gardening When It Counts" then I would go back and read "Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades" for more general information. The former book was meant for "lean times". As with any source of information, you have to adapt it to your own circumstances and not consider anything to be gospel. If it works for you, great, if not then move on.

The mouse/rat poison seems tempting, but I was reading google on it, and the dying animal wanders around thirstily looking for water and easy to pick off by predators which are then also poisoned. Cats, dogs, and protected raptors can fall victim. Apparently in Mexico they used a lot of rat poison and killed off all the predators and were overrun by rats. I found one article claiming feeding mice dry instant mashed potatoes would expand in their stomachs and kill them. Also a mixture of chocolate milk powder and plaster of paris would kill them. Peanut butter mixed with plaster of paris and hung from trees in bags has been recommended for squirrels. I grow lots of plants to provide nectar for bees, and have great pollination of my fruit trees- mint beds (and great for tea), allow dandelions to bloom, then cut off seed heads, flowers in general. As for the bay laurel, it is only hardy from zone 8-10 so the next bad winter will kill it. I try to grow stuff hardy to at least zone 7, preferably 6 or lower. Lots of herbs are extremely hardy and tough- oregano, marjoram, thyme, and upright rosemary. The hellebores are really great when they bloom so early in spring, reserve judgment until you see them then. The last year's foliage is cut off around then. Plants that do really well here are biennials like Lunaria- money plant and I won't mention Forget-Me-Nots, because they are so rampant and hard to control; and ephemeral plants that grow in the wet spring weather then disappear in the dry summer- Anemone nemorosa, daffodils, some tulips, Muscari, etc. I find moles very damaging as well, I also have plants heaved out of the ground by them, buried under their mounds, or roots left hanging in the air underground. They make burrows that attract voles as well so the ground under some fruit trees or vegetables becomes more burrow than dirt. 3 winter squash were flourishing then suddenly began to wilt and die, I pulled one up out of the mole mound and it was eaten clean off. I actually have to plant pole beans by digging just a small hole for the bean, sprinkling on cayenne pepper, and putting a 4" galvanized nail into the ground by each bean (warning: danger!). Then after the beans are growing I wrap the bottom 9+" of stem with aluminum foil to keep them from being nipped off by voles, and still lose quite a few. I'm appreciating one bed by the driveway the PO filled with gravel- no voles! I've been putting quite a few of my seedling perennials in there and hope to raise them unmolested. I also pretty much ended having my daylily roots eaten off by putting lava rock in the bottom and sides of the planting holes. That would probably work for fruit trees if enough could be put in a big enough area- difficult. I'm looking for more shrubs that have fruit. I already have an extensive blueberry collection, and really like the evergreen forms, and also like Aronia, available in tall or dwarf forms. I'm getting interested this year in barberries, Mahonia (Oregon Holly Leaf) which is tough as nails here and makes an attractive hedge, in various heights, and Berberis- the ornamental red import thunbergii you see everywhere is pretty but no edible fruit and potentially invasive in forests; preferably the native fendleri, green deciduous leaves, gets tall, and has fruit supposedly tasting like sour cherries. Also lots of non-native Berberis like darwinii, most have edible fruit, attractive foliage, some evergreen and some deciduous, and medicinal properties in the bark and roots. Raspberries can be great if you have the room, since they spread. I also like mulberries, the lavender or white trees have non-staining fruit not noticed by birds, and the weeping form has small tasty fruit hidden by the weeping branches and leaves.