The soil testing kits sold in garden centers are not very reliable and often do not really supply you with the information you need. I would find a good soil testing lab that was not very expensive and then use these simple soil tests for other information. Soil test for organic matter. From that soil sample put enough of the rest to make a 4 inch level in a clear 1 quart jar, with a tight fitting lid. Fill that jar with water and replace the lid, tightly. Shake the jar vigorously and then let it stand for 24 hours. Your soil will settle out according to soil particle size and weight. For example, a good loam will have about 1-3/4 inch (about 45%) of sand on the bottom. about 1 inch (about 25%) of silt next, about 1 inch (25%) of clay above that, and about 1/4 inch (about 5%) of organic matter on the top. 2) Drainage. Dig a hole 1 foot square and 1 foot deep and fill that with water. After that water drains away refill the hole with more water and time how long it takes that to drain away. Anything less than 2 hours and your soil drainsâ too quickly and needs more organic matter to slow that drainage down. Anything over 6 hours and the soil drains too slowly and needs lots of organic matter to speed it up. 3) Tilth. Take a handful of your slightly damp soil and squeeze it tightly. When the pressure is released the soil should hold together in that clump, but when poked with a finger that clump should fall apart. 4) Smell. What does your soil smell like? A pleasant, rich earthy odor? Putrid, offensive, repugnant odor? The more organic matter in your soil the more active the soil bacteria will be and the nicer your soil will smell. 5) Life. How many earthworms per shovel full were there? 5 or more indicates a pretty healthy soil. Fewer than 5, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, indicates a soil that is not healthy.

Oh, Kippy! You are SO generous! Thank you (NOT)! LOL! You're very welcome to collect the ones which have grown since the last rain several months ago from just down from the house here. They should make marvelous holiday decorations with sufficient gold spray paint! I'm glad you're more relaxed, Ingrid. I know the feeling, except for watching for the little green shoots starting to creep from under the soil... If you have that nasty invader in the shadier areas of your garden, that means there is water there. It grows where there is water, from Mexico to Canada. It CAN be eradicated,but it does demand herbicides. If you dig the tubers and leave them in the direct sun, they shrivel and die (vampires!), and I have done that with literally several hundred over the years. I've unearthed quite a few the size of a V-8 American automobile engine and they shriveled and dried up once exposed to the elements. Others have been "dispatched" with buckets of "the devil's brew" herbicide we won't mention, with the tendrils wrapped around inside them so they sucked it up like wicks. It didn't take long and they NEVER reemerged! Kim

Persian Ruby is really a great daylily, nice big velvety blooms. Really impressive how well it withstood the storm. I didn't realize Janice Brown has so much substance, lots of my daylilies are soggy shredded mess. Classic Caper may be one of those daylilies people call muddy, it is as close as any I have to that, but I am fond of it. It is never splotchy, opens nicely, big flower, & plenty of blooms. I think I would like a pond back there Rita. Our neighbor dug a pond in his backyard about 10 years ago though. Apparently one has to dig deep to get below the topsoil so it will hold water. He has a deep pond, but never got it that deep. It wouldn't hold water, he finally put in a liner, but we're talking something of the size of what is in my backyard now. That is one big liner, I don't know where he got it. This had gone down a lot now, about 1/4 the size it was this morning. Normally it would have been completely gone within a couple of hours. Crackingtheconcrete-see that tree in the middle of the water? That is a curly willow :) All I need is the rowboat I guess. We did have some ducks drop in once after a storm, I wish I had taken pictures of that. I wish I could get some of this rain to those who need it. I know I could be in a drought, & yes, that would be hard too. I certainly don't have it as bad as some people who live here. I'm on a small hill & don't have water in my living room like some. Even that is better than having it up to the roof like other areas of the country. Crazy weather this year, but it seems like I say that every year :)

Game bird, This is the first year any of us have tried Candy Apple Red since it is the first year Dixondale has offered them, so I am curious to see how they do. Mine are about the same size as yours, but I haven't harvested yet, so they might get a bit larger. Of course, nothing in my garden is a good indicator this year because the 12" of rain that fell in one day at the end of April absolutely halted all apparent growth for 4 weeks or longer, so my entire garden is stunted compared to last year. Still, as long they they taste good, that's what matters. I intend to try them again next year and will hope for a more typical spring growing season so I'll know how they perform under "average" conditions. When Ruth Stout was trying to interest people in mulch gardening, she was sort of out there on her own. I sort of thought of her as "a lone voice crying in the wilderness". Now, of course, she looks positively phophetic During her time, the gardening fad was all the chemicals developed after WWII---chemical pesticides, chemical fertilizers, etc. She persevered and stuck to her guns about soil improvement and mulching, and she was right. I think Jay must have fantastic soil too, plus he works very, very hard. I cannot imagine trying to grow everything he grows in his semi-desert conditions. We are in our 11th year here and the areas that I've been improving and mulching for that time frame do not even look like the soil I started with, and that is despite repeated droughts that have baked the ground to a concrete-hard consistency over and over and over again. Except for the first 2 or 3 years when I amended heavily, all I've done is mulch, mulch, mulch. The difference in the soil is amazing. The formerly red clay that was so hard and sticky that you couldn't even break it up with a fork or mattock is now a milk chocolate brown colored sandy loam and has improved beyond my wildest dreams. Even in the pathways where I routinely mulch, the soil is so different from what we started with. Nowadays, I only improve soil by adding amendments the first year that I break up new ground. After that, it is all just stuff that's layered on top of the ground as mulch and time, Mother Nature and the earthworms do the rest. When we moved here, we had a tremendous issue with Cotton Root Rot, a soil-borne disease that affects thousands of different plants and folks who live here told me I'd never be able to overcome it and grow what I wanted to grow. After the first three years of soil amending, though, the CRR has never reared its ugly head again and I plant what I want in that soil, including many plants that you "cannot" grow if you have CRR. So, I think well-amended and well-enriched soil can overcome almost anything. Like you with the wood chips, I find that no matter how much mulch I put out, pile up and spread around, it is never enough and I always want more. We have to remember that "heat eats compost" and here in OK, it gobbles it up and breaks it down almost more quickly than we can add it. So, mulching is just a great way to keep replenishing what is being used up, and it keeps the soil so much cooler underneath the mulch which helps the plants too. Wheelbarrow time will build muscles and help give you a tan! Of course, the front end loaded was a mulch more efficient way to do it. Jay, I can relate! When the drought of 2005-2006 finally broke and we had a simply luscious summertime late afternoon thunderstorm, Tim and I sat out on the covered patio for 2 or 3 hours and watching it rain and listened to the thunder and watching the lightning. We also watched the frogs come out of "hiding" and play all over the yard and in the puddles. Later on, we spoke to several different neighbors and discovered they all were doing pretty much the same thing....watching the rain and the frogs. We all joked that it doesn't take much to entertain us here in Love County, but I'm telling you, we were so starved for rain at that point that nothing was more important than seeing that rain fall. I hope you get to enjoy every minute of the rain and hope it is falling at your mom's place too. I'm looking forward to hearing about your onion results. Except for being too dry, you've probably had the most "typical" or "average" weather of all of us. I don't know what the rain has done to everyone else's onions, but it almost killed mine. I was just looking at the garden earlier this week and marveling at how good it looks, considering that I thought the flooding rains might kill everything in it. I hope you're out playing or working in the rain, or at least spent some time sitting on the porch with a cup of coffee enjoying that strange phenomenon of liquid falling from the sky! Dawn