Thanks for the suggestions, hooked. And thanks for sticking up for me hydroponica. Oh, and thanks to the people who said they got a laugh out of my post. I try. Let me extend my deepest and most ground-scrapingly prostrate apologies to the Dieties of Organic Gardening for not having been born with the knowledge of their peculiar rules of what is and is not organic. Silly me, I thought that "Organic" was defined by what it excluded. That would be things that don't have an organic origin, right? FFS, why can't people just be happy someone isn't spraying fossil fuel products on their lawn rather than whipping out the "oh you're not organic ENOUGH to play in my sandbox" yardstick. Geez, what a nice welcome. I'm trying to keep the backyard garden simple, okay? I don't want to get all mad scientist out there with soil testing and crazy mixtures of god knows what. Plants grow just fine in the soil already. I'm just looking for something to make sure they're as happy as I can make them without going to a lot of effort, okay? Does it really make me so evil if I just want to use an organic shotgun style fertilizer on my garden? You make it sound like I'm killing puppies or something because I'm not treating my soil like it's my kids or something.

I generally agree with Tripeak except if a plant just does ok, or is just forgiving and yield is on life-support, in hobby setups I have found it is simply too costly since I have a great quality veggie retailers nearby as long as they carry it, organic and conventional. Broccoli, for example has huge protein requirements, which will consume more nitrogen to grow with a high protein content, which happens to be my reason for wanting broccoli. If you can't tune somewhat, with the high hobby costs already stacked against us, I'm pretty negative. Trials are great to learn from, and have a learning value, but after the lessons are learned, I don't have spare space to put any plants on welfare ;-) I just did this analysis for combining strawberry varieties. I'll likely be paying about $8.50/pound all in with my labor being overlooked. If I don't syncronize somewhat my strawberries, I'll be paying $12-14.00 per pound. The moment I sharpen my pencil, I lose a lot of the motivation for mixing varieties that aren't optimal. After expensing the setup and growing my second year, it will be about $4.00 per pound and $6.00 per pound. I could select some of the commercial tasteless varieties and get that down to $2.00, but at these costs I really don't want to go through all this just to get the same quality that is $2 in season at any local supermarket chain. The numbers are ballpark; if I weren't dealing with less than 50 plant things would be different, but not too different with the higher investments involved.

@ PupillaCharites & happy_fl_gardener - fascinating thread, thanks! I was taken by surprise at a Spring Garden show where TG had a booth - I fell for it! But I'm not disappointed as I'm having fun with it. I come to realize that I really have a keen interest in growing plants, ones I can eat especially, and now have a complete fascination with hydroponics as a growing system, so I came here to learn. Its time I start thinking about buying more Tonic and like others, I'm looking for an alternative b/c Yes, the TG tonic seems expensive and I get the feeling I can find an alternative. My goal is to build some of my own designed hydroponic units just for fun. But the immediate goal is to find a alternative feed before I head out of town for a few weeks and have to leave my husband with the TG which is currently loaded with veggies. There's a LOT to look up here - many recommendations so I'm going to check them out today and determine whether or not I have time to get my hands on these and do what I need to over the next few days. If I don't, I'll have to resort to going back to TG for the tonic but I'm pretty sure it will be the last time. NOT at all slamming the system or the company - it was expensive but I am having fun with it. I bought it for fun and not as a way to make money. I'm a boring banker and certainly don't need to get involved in MLM. Tx again everyone. I'm going to enter my link here. I am NOT actively selling the TG and I can't say I disagree with what some of @ PupillaCharites describes as their marketing program. I agree with you and so what I did was start a blog to track my experience with the TG as well as other crazy challenges I'm having living on a lot full of clay. As an FYI - I am almost out of the complete hydroponic beginner category at the moment. But what a blast I'm having with all the ideas I'm getting from all the hydroponic literature I've been reading. If I had a HUGE aquarium I could use fish poop as a fertilizer like they do at Epcot! Tx again all for the great conversations and debate. Here is a link that might be useful: The Wonky Gardener

After trying for 2 and a half years to vegetable garden here in South Florida, I found out quite early that I was really at war with fire-ants instead. It didn't matter what vegetable it was, as all of the vegetable plants were covered over with these curious and nasty insects. What was insult over injury, was the fact that they would eat your vegetables, just before they ripened! You weren't even able to enjoy any of your hard earned efforts!! I had tried all of the above methods of control, with only having a small success with vinegar, but vinegar would also kill plants, so you had to be extra careful. I finally had to quit using vinegar. Finally I found my way to success..., when I read that using "ground cinnamon" straight out of my spice rack would work. By this time, I was a very wary in trying out new natural products, but it was inexpensive and on hand, so what did I have to loose? Well, was I ever so immediately surprised and stunned to see, that where ever I found ants, I would sprinkle a small amount of the spice "ground cinnamon," over them and it immediately repelled them!!! It was if they were afraid of it!! Well, I then began to sprinkle my head off with this spice, and the ants seemed to just run away and disappear!! It does repel the fire-ants! Fantastic! I am finally able to sprinkle some around each vegetable plant and the ants will stay away!! In potted plants, I lightly sprinkle directly into the pot. I would also recommend that you repeat your applications after a rain storm for best results!! :) Although this is still an experimental procedure, it really does seem to be working for me. My garden has now become enjoyable again! I sincerely hope that if you try this method, that you also reap such great rewards, as I have!!! I will continue to recheck the treated areas each day to see if the ants come back, but so far after eight (8) days I have no ants in those same areas, since applying the cinnamon! On the other hand, I just applied some cinnamon to an active fire-ant mound and will have to watch it to see the future results. But the vegetable garden seems to now be under control, at long last!