Ljbrandt, Excellent experiment, and right on time! I'm about to start my fall/winter garden here in Houston, and need some advice. Been trying to catch up to Al, but, seems he's outta pocket. I used a modification of his 5:1:1 container mix for the first time last season, growing the best crop of healthy tomatoes and plants ever. On Al's recommendation, I used a 3:1:1 mix of PBFs:peat:perlite in 5-gallon, self-watering eBuckets. I used MG Potting mix as my peat component, and I mixed in 1 cup of powdered Dolomite lime + 1 cup of 10-10-10 per eBucket. Very healthy crop! Only concern I had was at the end of the season when I ripped the plants, I noticed the mix at the bottom 1/4 of the eBucket seemed to be holding a bit more water than throughout the top 3rd. Also, I stayed confused on the watering schedule, because I could never tell if I needed to water or not. I might try your dowel this go-round, and try to adapt that as a measuring system. Now, I'm prepping my eBuckets for my fall/winter garden. I'll be growing cabbages, cauliflowers, Brussels Sprouts, and broccoli in the 5-gallon eBuckets. These are high feeders (they like organic mediums), and they are water hogs! I'd like a recommendation, please, on how to reuse the 3:1:1 mix from last season, and in what proportion to fresh MG potting mix, fresh PBFs, and fresh perlite? After reading your experiment, I'm inclined to go forward to a 5:1:1 mix in at least some of the eBuckets (I'll have about 48) just to see what would happen. Also, I need a recommendation on incorporating Black Kow Composted manure into the mix, as the plants are heavy feeders. I've grown them quite successfully in eBuckets before, in a mix of 50/50 MG Potting mix/Black Kow Composted manure. I'm still trying to get a feel for Al's container mixes, and how the plants respond (last season was my first time). I loved the lightening fast drainage, and felt there was definite oxygenation going on in the mix, because the seedlings took off like a rocket when they were planted, and stayed so healthy through our Texas heat. They grew faster than I ever saw before. Please note that not all my containers were true eBuckets. I made 1/2 of them free draining with holes drilled in the bottoms and 1/4" up the sides. These were top-watered with MG Water Soluble Plant Food for Veggies. The remaining were enclosed with the built-in reservoirs. Early on, I experienced an anaerobic odor emitting from some of the self-enclosed eBuckets, and discovered the overturned colander soil platform had collapsed in them and the mix was sitting in the water. Once I rebuilt them, there was no further smells. One other observation was that the eBuckets didn't seem to wick the water high enough, which is why I started top watering them, before the season ended. I know I've offered a mouthful here. Hope to hear some feed back as soon as you can get it posted. Almost forgot. I've started sifting dead tomato root hairs from the old 3:1:1 container mix, and will be ready to re-purpose it for the cole crops by the end of this week, so a speedy reply would be appreciated. Thank you so much, Linda

Many of the things mentioned, are from previous safety failures in farm management. He considers his farm clean to process meat. Uninspected, unobserved, the animal and meat handling could be anything! I have seen home butchering done in the barn aisle, carcass dropped onto an old bloody sheet or canvas to cut up for packages. No washing of the butcher person, he is wearing his overalls, old muddy barn boots as he wrestles the half and other portions onto some boards across sawhorses to cut up. Open air, lots of flies on the meat, because it is a warm spring or fall day. Flies come on over from the paddocks of contained animals amd manure in them. Yep, I REALLY want to get my meat from him! Actually, I no longer accepted dinner invites from those folks after helping with some job or just visiting!! You would never know about that "handling method" as you buy those little meat packages. Whining writer could do as others do, sell the portions of animal. Then he will have animal processed at the butcher location, customers pick up the finished product from the Gov't. inspected, licensed facility. It is not going to cost him any more at all. Gov't. Inspected can mean a lot of things, they are not all equal. However the place and methods get looked at now and again, better than nothing. Hiring regulations are to protect the worker. If a farmer or his family members use tools that are elderly, questionable with no safety guards or bad wiring, that is a family choice. Hired help should not be forced to work under those conditions. Power tools, by their design, are not something you let small kids or younger kids use. They come with manuals of safety, handling instructions that no one reads, to protect the user. Do the farm employers take time to do safety training of these employees, to use the various tools? Not often, if at all. Everyone already "knows" how to do farm stuff!! Kids seldom will argue with an elder person if told to do a job. Kids do not have the experience to spot dangers or understand the problems that might occur in doing a job the wrong way. They don't often think, period! Kids want to earn money, are not going to worry about the dangers they place themselves in, while doing that job. Plus kids forget what you said, ignore the directions they were given before, THINK for themselves. Original thought by kids might add to the dangers!! Their "kid brains" just work that way! Part of growing up is brain development, which can't happen before brain is ready to grow that way. Actual body development may hinder kids in trying to do things, they have different visual fields, motor skills. They often can't help how they think and react, just an age thing. Each grows up at their own speed, should not be grouped by age in all cases. Big size or older age, is NOT mature in body or thinking!! Adult farm workers may not read well, or have used this kind of tool or machine before. They SHOULD be shown how to use it, have the guards and safeties in place to protect them. I can't believe how often the safety features are over-ridden or removed to make it easier to get hurt. Yet it happens ALL THE TIME. I guess you have to protect people from themselves because they will hurt and kill themselves if not supervised. I will agree there are many conflicting and peculiarly written laws in farming. Still were always written for a good, original reason. Farming is about the most dangerous occupation in the US. I think deep-sea fishing is number one. So many places and ways to get hurt in any farming operation. Even if just reading the laws makes you think about your lack of meeting the rules, you might CHANGE a couple things to be better/safer, for yourself. As we live in the setting, we lose our discerning eye for danger. No longer see the repaired cords, long extensions run to get power in a location, double plugs on an outlet, jury-rigging to keep a tractor running, instead of REALLY fixing it right. Just keep rounding up the loose animals, not fixing fence. Climbing the ladder with missing or cracked treads. Not turning off the tractor to unhitch the wagon by ourself, on the hill, with brakes we never repaired. Taking constant chances, which so far have not broken the odds of survival. Yet stuff like this IS a source of danger, we have become used to it or ignore the dangers. The Gov't. gets involved because this thinking is so prevailing, bad stuff never is fixed, endagers the hired help. Not acceptable as safety in Industry, or on the "old farm" either. People die with ignoring safety. The original writing is totally a rant, no one gets to do everything his own way, anyplace. Many nations are much more strict than the US. The food chain is very vulnerable anyplace in the length. It does need checking, to keep things somewhat safer than you would ever see with self-governing along the way.

I had a couple of pink flamingos in my yard for awhile. I named them 'Tongue' and 'Cheek'. They finally died. I think of,embarrassment.

Yo Ken, if your still around your up on this one. Far as Composites go I am with the Larry/whoever We are for the most part. Composites are really no longer using recycled material because there is just not enough of it so most of the raw stuff is virgin,the energy used to make composite is an enviro no no, when its time to remove the project composite is not real big on bio degrade its tricky to burn shreading it would be silly. Bottom line composites are not so enviro freindly. Info like that might suggest its not all that good to clean it either, with anything. I dont agree>> composites will out last Ipe, left to go silver/gray Ipe is as close to no maintance as a person can get. With the softer composites like Choice/MoistureShield even trex= tjunk I have found a coat or two of TWP 116 seals up the decking,locks in the color and keeps mold,mildew,stains from causing major problems. Of course not needing to do this is the reason the Wallet goes for composite in the first place. I my own self dont like composites at all for the reasons stated in several posts here and on other sites. Welcome aboard Larry!!! Sorry I dident understand your intent at the begining . John