Hehe, as long as we're complaining, here are some of my complaints... - I too find it really annoying to look up someone's trade list, plow through this really long list, only to discover that 3/4 of what's on their list is OUT. Guess it's a status symbol to have a really long list, even if you don't currently have the seeds to trade. (????) - I enjoy sharing seeds and plan to do a SASBE offer again this winter. I am happy to share my time and seeds, that I have purchased, or collected and cleaned, and meticulously stored, but refuse to pay for postage or materials. (Which is only a couple of dollars, people.) - Dorisl, I haven't experienced any terrible trades or SASBEs here, but I hear ya on the negative feedback problem. Sounds like eBay! Nobody will post negative feedbacks over there for risk of retaliation and thus having negative feedback on THEIR rating. Also, if you buy some seeds, a toner cartridge, etc. it will be months or years before you know if you've gotten what you paid for. By that time, it's too late to leave negative feedback! - This is just my personal pet peeve, but being a private person, I do not use my real name on Gardenweb or other public websites. And I remember peoples' GW names only. There are too many posters here to keep track of, let alone TWO names for each. And in some cases, there is more than one 'Karen' or 'Sue' or 'Mary' or other very common name posting to the same thread.

Sherry and Floridarose exchange is quite amusing, thanks. Hi Bart: peatmoss is bad for clay since they are both fine particles that bind together. If the clay is alkaline like mine, pH of 7.7, it acts like a base to binds with acidic peat moss, pH of 4. If you mix acid and base together, it forms tight-bonds which result in cement. Hi Kate: I don't get Dr. Huey for Austins since they become monsters here. I like my roses small and compact. Plus my zone is 5a, own-roots die without leaving behind the Dr. Huey eye-sores seen in houses for sale. Dr. Huey is only hardy to zone 6b, can't even bloom in zone 5a. Own-roots are much hardier than Dr. Huey, like Kim Rupert's Lauren is hardy to zone 2a. Hi Kittymoonbeam: Per your question of "I just got bands of Excellenz Von Schubert and just found out that they don't like alkaline soil/water. What to do with them?" Excellenz Von Schubert has multiflora Crimson Rambler in its parentage, and would do BEST with acidic rain water at pH 5.6 like my Blue Mist. My Blue Mist has dark-green leaves in our wet seasons only. Even when I fix my tap water with used lemons, my water still has lime, which binds with phosphorus, and make Blue Mist bloom less. Since your Excellenz Von Schubert also has a hybrid perpetual, Merveille de Lyon, in its parentage .... it's best to use a SOLUBLE high phosphorus, but very low nitrogen. Hybrid perpetual has as bad habit of lanky growth, lots of foliage, and stingy blooms. Sherry posted a link to buy SOLUBLE Monopotassium Phosphate at 52% phosphorus and 34% potassium, with low-salt index of 8.4. Excellenz von Schubert has many petals, translates to more demand for phosphorus, essential for blooms and root growth. My Sonia Rykiel has lots of petals. Within 1 month of purchase as own-root, I counted 15 buds/blooms in a pot watered with SOLUBLE MiracleGro NPK of 10-24-16. Then I put Sonia R. into the ground, and used Lilly Miller acid fertilizer at NPK 10-5-4, it became stingy. This fertilizer worked for Ingrid since her soil is abundant in phosphorus, versus mine tested deficient. What I would do with Excellenz von Schubert? Use fluffy, acidic potting soil like MiracleGro green bag with pH of 6.5 - The used lemon water with vitamin C helps with rooting, then I would use SOLUBLE fertilizer high in phosphorus for maximum bloom. In the Blueberry forum, those with fluffy soil, amended with organic matter like pine and leaves, grow a good crop of blueberries despite their alkaline soil/water. Fluffy soil encourages maximum root-growth, and cluster-root becomes more eficient in acid phosphatase, or secreting acid to unlock phosphorus from soil.

Ye gads! I wonder why some of this stuff stays around. There is a difference between corn gluten (not gluton) meal and cornmeal; the corn gluten meal is the (somewhat effective) proteins plus other materials milled off whole cornmeal, and which actually contains no gluten. It does work as a pre-emergent herbicide in some situations. Do your research to find how, and rather than doing it the lazy way on most organic gardening forums, read abstracts from university research papers and university horticulture forums (I suggest the WSU Extension forum from Puyallup, WA). You can also find whole grain cornmeal at some better grocery stores. It has the corn gluten intact, if you want it. Corn meal is good food for snails, some rodents and insects. Cornmeal and corn gluten meal are both good substrates for growing some kinds of fungi for research purposes. Just get some moist, perhaps on a pot of wet soil, leave in the shade, keep it moist and/or covered, and see what grows. As a pre-emergent herbicide, cornmeal is not so effective, and under just the right conditions (look up elsewhere how to do it right) corn gluten meal is a good pre-emergent herbicide, even if a bit $$. There is not much guarantee that your corn gluten meal would be OMRI certifiable, for most of it is made from GMO field corn. After all, since most of it goes into animal feed, and the feed producers care mostly about the bottom line, why ask for non-GMO corn sources? net-net: do better research in finding the papers and abstracts, and read critically. Then you won't be panicking about where to find cornmeal or corn gluten meal for your garden. As for tomato spot disease, just try to find supporting studies on cornmeal for preventing that...you'll likely only find anecdotal reports from some home gardeners who have been successful one season, and attribute that success to the cornmeal, but have no control against which to compare.

I don't want to inadvertently give the pot worms reason to survive by adding cornmeal. I made that mistake when I added the small quantity of vegetables after withholding food for a week. I agree I don't think cornmeal on its own would cause pot worms to appear, but would cornmeal allow few straggling pot worms to survive? My bin is fortunately not too wet. I don't have holes on the bottom or sides of my bin, so I make sure that the conditions never get too wet. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of adding too much coffee grounds and then adding some vegetables to compensate for the coffee grounds. It made the environment acidic enough for the pot worms to appear. Fortunately, because my bin isn't too wet, the pot worm population is small, but I would prefer the pot worms to be gone for good. Spider mites - glad I don't have a problem with them. However pot worms are pretty tenacious.