You?ll never stop improving the soil, but sometimes you can coast for a while and just tweak things a bit. An annual soil test will tell you where you?re headed. Be sure to write ORGANIC on your test request, as most labs will automatically give chemical farming info. Natural inputs come in organic and mineral forms, or a combination of the two. Organic Matter is basically unbroken-down compost and the manure. Both contain varying amounts of nitrogen, and both CAN contain various amounts of various minerals, esp phosphorus and potassium, but there's no guarantee as to levels, because the compost ingredients and the animal feed nutrient values vary all over the place. HUMUS is OM that has been completely broken down by soil microbes, and is the long-term source of nutrients. They are not one and the same. A volatile nutrient like nitrogen can be washed out, blown away, off-gassed due to plowing, or used by the crop. Any of these can reduce the amount of what you think you've got, even from week to week. Minerals come from the soil, from broken-down rock. Some of them are in the organic matter, but not everything your plants need; some just plain isn?t there and won?t be there unless you make a point of specifically adding it. The more crop residue you return to the soil, the more minerals it will retain. Your local soil and climate is going to affect what your soil contains and maintains. If you live in a warmish area with not much more than 25" of rain and a fair (but not excessive) amount of clay, your soil will hold more nutrients than a rainy place. If you live in a wet climate, quite a few nutrients will be flushed out of the root zone by the excessive rain. If you live in a hot place like SoCal, TX, AZ or FL, the heat cooks the OM out of the (usually) sandy soil, but you might retain more minerals. What do your soil test results look like from your unfertilized soil? That's a major clue as to what you're going to have to keep up (or suppress), so find a spot that hasn?t been fertilized or mineralized if you have never gotten a soil test. And your soil pH is going to influence how much of the various nutrients are going to be available to the plants. Just because it?s sitting there in the soil doesn?t mean the nutrients are available. Here in the PNW, soil tests show how the heavy rainfall leaches out nitrogen, potassium, calcium, magnesium and boron -- IOW, all the main important stuff. We either have to keep adding it, or grow fall cover crops that will bind up some/most of those minerals and hold it until the cover crop is incorporated in spring. Some things, like boron, have to be added continually. What levels are ideal? It depends on what you're growing, as different food plants need different amounts of nutrients. Corn is the big nutrient hog. "Jolj" gave a basic list above. If your soil is nutritionally balanced, you can plant things closer together. If it isn?t quite up to par, space them further apart than recommended so their roots can search for nutrients. Here is what I?ve been able to glean from various sources, so far. Please chime in, folks, if you think my figures are off. Also, different labs use different methods, and those methods may produce different results. It?s not advisable to skip around from lab to lab. Find one you like and stay with them. Nitrogen: 5% good organic matter should have an estimated nitrogen release of 100 lbs of nitrogen per acre (100 ppm). Is that enough for the crop you have in mind? If you have too much nitrogen due to an overload of compost, the nitrogen will drive some calcium out of the soil, and your crop yields will suffer. If you add a LOT of OM and you have disease or insect problems, something else is off, probably due to the excessive nitrogen levels. Too much of anything will almost always cause trouble, including drinking excessive amounts of water. Moderation is the key. Phosphorus: 30 to 60 ppm. How much is available depends on your soil pH ? the closer to 6.5, the better. Phosphorus: 120-200 ppm, but it has to be available, not just sitting there inert. Calcium and Magnesium: The total combination of calcium and magnesium should total 80%. Normal soil should be near 68% calcium + 12% magnesium. But if your soil is sandy, 60 + 20 would be better. A heavier clay soil, 70 + 10. Keep in mind that although lime contains calcium, you have to know your soil pH and your calcium/magnesium percentages to be able to choose the right calcium-based minerals to use. Sulfur: 20-25 ppm, up to 50 ppm for high-yielding crops like woody plants and pasture. Sodium: Some of the areas of the country tend toward excess, above 3%. Other parts of the U.S. go the other way, and a deficiency is often less than 0.5%. Micronutrients only make a difference when all of the above primary and secondary nutrients are balanced. Boron: 0.8 ? 1.5 ppm. This is the least stable of the elements, your crops need a steady supply, it can?t be reused. Boron is one of the few elements that can?t be built up, so if it isn?t naturally in your soil, you may have to add it every year, and maybe even through the growing season. Chlorine is chloride: it normally isn?t deficient, esp if your calcium level is good; but excesses (usually much over 250 ppm) are known, esp in compacted soils, or known saline soils, and it isn?t easy to deal with. Molybdenum: 0.01-10 ppm. Copper: 2-10 ppm, but 5-10 is best. Most soils are deficient, but once you get your level up to par, copper is stable enough to stay there for quite a while. Copper and Molybedenum work together, so test and treat for it together properly. Iron: 200+ ppm. Check for it in chalky, high-calcium soils, where it is most likely to be deficient. Excess iron isn?t a problem. Iron works with manganese and sulfur, so check levels for all three. Lime added within 3 years will affect soil tests. Manganese: 40-250 ppm, but best results in 80-125 ppm range. Zinc: 6-12 ppm, 10 is excellent. Once the levels are up to par, it is easy to keep it up on clay and humus. Too much nitrogen will tie up zinc. Suggestion: for more info, get hold of Neal Kinsey?s book Hands-On Agronomy, available in the library system. Sue

wayne - the ultimate question is how much of any nutrient you're adding via any amendment or fertilizer, and where it ends up. If you add more than the plants take out, then the excess either accumulates or it is lost somewhere to the environment. The relative amounts lost vs. accumulating will certainly depend upon things like soil texture, soil pH, rainfall/irrigation amount and water quality. In my case our soils (alkaline calcerous clay) tend to accumulate P and hold onto to it. Any apparent losses over time are primarily to complexation with the calcium that is largely abundant (>5,000 ppm), and that is a very slow process -- 5-10 years to sequester ~ 100-150 ppm P. Just to put this into perspective, a typical finished compost spec is an NPK of 1.0 - 0.6 -0.3 with a bulk density of 1000 lbs per cubic yard. If that were to be applied at a coverage of 1", that would amount to 3 yards per 1,000 sq ft, or 3,000 lbs of compost per 1,000 sq ft. Assuming that 80% of the P and 90% of the K were available in the first year after application, then if I did the calc's on this right, that 3000 lbs of compost over 1,000 sq feet would contribute 312 ppm P as P2O5 and 178 ppm K as K2O to the soil. Is that too much? For me it is way, way too much. For others given their conditions and what they are growing it may be acceptable, but that's a lot of P to be adding. It's the equivalent of adding 140 lbs of an X-10-6 fertilizer over that 1,000 sq. ft in a year. tox - did I get the calc right, or did I loop it somewhere? pt03 - are you following this? Is that result reasonable or just plain looney? This post was edited by TXEB on Fri, Sep 6, 13 at 0:36

hi mudworm! here is live_wire's post, and the link to thread below. RE: lower cabinet molding question (Follow-Up #8) posted by: live_wire_oak on 02.21.2009 at 09:44 am in Kitchens Forum A skin is not a "decorative" end panel exactly, it is a thin veneered panel that takes up the 3/8" gap from the cabinet box to the face frame and makes the cabinet sides flush. Cabinet boxes, even if they color match, are usually finished with a vinyl or melamine finish rather than real wood veneered plywood, and the skin not only takes up that gap, but it provides a real wood surface that will age similarly to the actual wood of the face frame and doors. WIthout a skin, the sides will stay the same color, while the wood changes color over time. This is one reason that I usually offer a different option for customers who are DIYing an install. I suggest upgrading to "furniture finished plywood ends" in which the cabinet boxes are made of plywood with a wood veneered exterior that is flush with the face frame rather than having that gap that you're dealing with. Skins are what I order when a pro is doing the install, and he just brad nails them in place and putty fills the tiny holes. Skins are usually about 15% cheaper than flush finished sides, but flush finished sides are easier for DIYers to deal with. This is definately something that your KD should have gone over with you before you ordered. THe decorative end panels that you ordered should have been applied over skins as well. There is less chance of them shifting over time as when they are applied and have that 3/8" void underneath them. Here is a link that might be useful: thread: ''lower cabinet molding question''

You also need to consider what you want to do in retirement. If you ever wanted a good weekend to last forever...well, that's retirement (at least for us [smile]). But you need to be to AFFORD whatever extra activities you want to do. Hobbies? Travel? Go back to school (not necessarily for a degree; many who retire in college towns just enjoy sitting in on classes)? Retirement is best viewed in phases. You will have an active retirement phase, then as you age and start to slow down, you'll spend less on outside activities. Healthcare costs may start to rise as age-related ailments begin. Stress-test your plans thoroughly. You must feel confident you can survive not just if one or two things go wrong, but when three or four or half-a-dozen things go wrong in quick succession. As a couple, you want to approach retirement having already discussed not just your goals and hopes, but also alternatives for what one should do if something happens to the other spouse/partner.