I'm bigger also. I lose some, gain some, the more I excersize, the more I eat, I haven't been an American Size 12 for years, I think your UK sizes run smaller, so you must be very tiny maybe about a size 8 American, but just guessing. I'm not very tall also, so the weight is all that much more on me. When I was a size 5, people called me Ethiopian, they don't like skinny women in America, most don't anyways. The meat here is fed hormones to make the animals eat more, fatten them up for market, but it is transferred to people as well, they eat more because of the hormones. I can't blame my weight on eating meat because it's my least favorite part of the meal. I like the sugar and don't drink water, big part of calorie intake. It's the eating, lying down afterwards, staying up all night confusing your daily routine, making you eat more thinking it's time for dinner for the next day. Not getting any sleep will throw you off and get you eating in the middle of the night. Once you become bigger, you eat to supply the normal calorie count you are used to, and then you keep gaining. People eat a lot, no doubt, and if they made a concious effort, they could save at least 1/3 of their grocery bill each week if not half. Considering the global economic and supply issues, I wonder why no on in America really cares to make an attempt. I was impressed that Obama, not my favorite or unfavorite person, grew a Whitehouse Garden, Queen Elizabeth II has had one out for the past few years, so even the big wigs are publicly making attempts to encourage Victory type gardens. It would be wise to take a hint, if it's one at all. I researched Victory Gardens and basically they reclaimed unused property, the owners had no say so, for temporary gardens and supplied water at half price to anyone willing to pay for the lot for the year, the price then was something like 5 dollars. It must have been a nice effor though. I've never noticed what size tables though, I'll have to take a look. My dad stands about 6 foot 4 inches, so I see the tables usefull for taller people. Several of my cousins stand 6 foot 5 or more. I'm the runt of my siblings at only near 5 foot 4 inches. We might find research on why the tables are like that somewhere, a restaurant would definitely prefer the hungrier bigger man to a little 110 pound woman. I would imagine someone from Europe would not like American food. An American would feel the same, you guys over there just started to carry cookies and your peanut butter is different. Your pizza parlors sell quiche, I've never had quiche and I love eggs, but I would definitely prefer pizza. America wouldn't know what to do with a supermarket that sold rabbit or goat meat.

Weedless lawn: Weeds are the result of cultural mis practices. They are not inevitable. The key to weedless lawn is to (1) stop the weed seeds from sprouting, and (2) prevent any sprouted weed seeds from getting enough sunlight to photosynthesize. Neither of these requires chemicals or corn gluten meal. You can stop weed seeds from sprouting by letting the soil surface dry out completely between watering. Seeds (both grass and weed) need nearly continual moisture in order to sprout. If you go onto a once-weekly watering plan, the soil will dry out enough that no seeds will sprout. In recognition of the fact that the rain doesn't care about your watering schedule, there will be accidents happen where weed seeds will sprout. That's where the second step comes in. If your grass is tall enough to provide pretty good shade to seedlings (like 3-4 inches high), then any weed seeds that do sprout should not get enough sunlight to form a viable root. Reset your mower to cut at the highest setting and your weeds should start to disappear by themselves. Insect problems, in my opinion, are the result of using chemicals on the lawn. When you use chemicals for fertilizing or insect control, you are discouraging insect predators (birds, toads, lizards, geckos, etc.). If you change over to an organic program, which is exactly the direction your government wants you to go, then you will see what I mean. Immediately you will have birds walking around on your lawn. They may be attracted by the fertilizer, but they are also going to control your insects for you. You can bring more birds to the garden with bird feeders, bird houses, and bird baths. You don't need insect control beyond what birds provide. All you have to do is stop chasing them away with chemicals. So, lets see what all this is going to cost you. Hmmm, we have $0.00 for the watering plus $0.00 for the mowing height, and $0.00 for not using chemicals. Oops! I almost forgot you're in Canada, so that comes to about 48 Canadian quid. If you buy a Weed Hound (great tool) that will run you $20 US which is about $0.46 Canadian. Hop on over to the Organic Gardening forum and check out the FAQs for the one on Organic Lawn care (near the bottom of the list). Maybe that will help you over the hump. The biggest problem with starting an organic program is forgetting everything you thought you knew to be true about gardening. With organics all you do is feed real food to the soil microbes and they take care of your plants for you. But for weeds, that part is totally dependent on your cultural practices.

My experience is that the progeny of organically grown plants are stronger and healthier--Last summer, my husband & I planted 3 types of potatoes from the supermarket--not recommended, but we did it anyway:). 2 were non-organic, the other was organic. The organically grown seed potato jumped out way ahead of the conventional seed potatoes. We used the same organic methods growing all of these. According to Camille Kingsolver (Barbara's daughter) in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, this is because plants that have to fend for themselves are genetically stronger than plants that are dependent on heavy loads of synthetic chemicals (fertilizers, pesticides) to do the work for them. Thus, the justification for the higher price is a naturally genetically stronger plant. But the choice is yours--couldn't say how many generations of seed saving it would take to build that strength back into the plant, but it's got to happen eventually. You may need to be more vigilant about selecting seed from the more vigorous plants if you decide to go the conventional seed route. I prefer organic seed when I can get it purely for results. Here is a link that might be useful: About Animal, Vegetable Miracle

This may be the study from CA referred to above. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03601238609372539 Chemical residues during screening, composting, and soil incorporation of cotton gin waste W. L. Winterlin Department of Environmental Toxicology , University of California , Davis, CA, 95616, M. M. McChesney Department of Environmental Toxicology , University of California , Davis, CA, 95616, S. R. Scnoen Department of Environmental Toxicology , University of California , Davis, CA, 95616 & J. N. Seiber Department of Environmental Toxicology , University of California , Davis, CA, 95616 Journal of Env. Science & Health, Nov 2008 Abstract The behaviour of residues of five chemicals was studied during aerobic and semi‐anaerobic Composting of both whole gin waste and the fines fraction. Propargite, methidathion, and chlorate residues declined significantly during both composting treatments while DEF and paraquat were stable to composting, when composted gin wastes were amended to field soil, residue levels were generally very low to undetectable in the soil, indicating little potential hazard for a composting‐amendment operation. *** This is the general assumption I usually make: residues may not be zero but with the exception of the known persistent herbicides (picloram and chlorpyrifos, IIRC), pesticides generally break down in the compost to the extent that the residue is either not detectable or low enough to have no observable effects after mixing the compost into soil. This goes for cotton waste or anything else.