I see you're new and probably unfamiliar with how the forum works. Usually, it's better to start a new thread, than to try to get your questions answered on a thread that isn't related to your questions. You would do that by going to the appropriate forum and scrolling down the list of topics (threads) to the box at the bottom, where you can create your own topic/thread and ask your question. You're pushing the zone very hard by even planting 'Tonto' in your zone. Listed as a zone 7 plant at the coldest, it's likely it wouldn't make it through a hard winter in your location, though mulching heavily can offer some help in protecting roots. The plant needs a cold rest period (dormancy) to perform well in the subsequent growth cycle, so over-wintering indoors is decidedly less than a good choice. If you decide to go ahead and plant, I would probably keep it outdoors until it goes dormant. Bring it into an unheated garage or bury the entire container against the north side of a heated building until danger of hard freezes has passed, then plant out in a protected spot, if possible. Make sure you monitor its water needs and take steps to prevent the soil from drying completely over winter. Al

Hi reptile girl: Let me say that I understand your feelings of being critizied and your question ignored. I read your original post then everyone thereafter, then back to yours. I'm hoping I can help you feel less attacked and perhaps give you a better understanding of how this site works. I also had an experience of feeling attacked and I barked back, then several people jumped on me etc. This is what I hear in your original posting: you are very proud of the hard work you have put into your garden of choice, SYG. You continue to give info about your efforts to provide the best growing mixture and fertilizers that have worked for you. You were not looking for any additional information about soil structure, how you should change the way you garden, etc. you are a happy camper with what you have accomplished and should be. The one question that you asked was what organic fertilizer could you add to your garden to insure the best possible crops. Instead you got bombarded with advice, corrections, suggestions, critisims etc. These are my thoughts that I hope help you; first it is helpful to understand that the people who hang out on the Garden Web are extremely knowledgable gardening people either through university or years of experience or both. These people can help you with virtually any question or problem that you may have. Also just by reading in several different areas you will learn so much more than you can imagine. Now all these experts are great resources but just like a professor, they are quite willing to share their ideas, thoughts, tried experiments and so on. And just as professors in the same subject area, they do not all agree with each others view point or practices. Often many of the postings are the experts discussing between themselves the positive & negatives of what has been written. One thing can be said about this site, there are many generous people who are willing to share their views and that's great. What you probably should do in the future is ask your question, that's it. By putting down so much info, everyone got on board with their ideas, stuff went back and forth and you ultimately felt attacked. They really are not attacking, they are very eager to share their knowledge to be a benefit to you. If you visit again and have a concern or question, I'd suggest giving only pertainent info that would help the other readers to give you exactly what your looking for, no more, no less. Those of us who reply to a post should probably take an extra minute to understand exactly what info is needed and offer only that unless the poster comes back to ask for more info. Efforts to help all who post are truly generous with their time and talent but I can see the flip side, so much response with so much advice and/or critiques can be overwhelming to the newbies. I hate to see & read the sniping back and forth that escalates to a point where some really nasty things are said. I think that before we offer so much advice, we may need to realize that not everyone wants or needs all of the knowledge that we are so eager to share and are then offended "after all we've done" when the writer says "enough." I hope reptile girl that you can see this site in a new positive way. My one big piece of advice comes from a Russian grandma that lived next door years ago. She had several potted rose bushes that produced gorgeous roses and all she did was throw left over vegetables, fruit skins, virtually anything into a pot, covered it with water and left it heat for many hours. What was left she poured on the roses. It sure worked. Last year I had quite a science experiment in my frig. plus stuff to go out to the compost pile. I gathered it all together and decided to put some of the scraps into my blender w/some water and spin for awhile. When I was done I had two big bowls of gunk that I poured on my two Deodor cedars. Within days those trees were sprouting all kinds of new growth on all the branches and both trees became substantially fuller and taller. I thought it was hilarious. Maybe I should repeat that routine and try it diluted much more in several other areas of the garden. I may be on to something. Good luck with your crops, it is fun and rewarding when you can actually feed yourself from your own garden, plus I'm sure the nutrition levels are so much greater than the average found in stores.

Hi Mike: Glad to hear from you, I'm too lazy to spray. Fifteen years ago, a neighbor saw me spraying roses with chemicals and told me, "why do you even bother growing roses with all these spraying?" Roses become unpopular when people associate roses with spraying. It's already a nuisance to spray my moldy shower stall with bleach/water solution. The pics I posted are FRESHLY dusted roses BEFORE another 20+ hours of rain. Today the rain washed most of the corn meal away, and the leaves are 100% green and healthy. My 10 Austins keep ALL their leaves green. I went and check the neighbors' disease-resitant roses, like Living Easy, and some single-petal species. They look horrible with yellow leaves after 5 days of constant rain, and no sun. It looks better dusting roses with corn meal using a flour sifter, and much faster than messy spray. My pics look bad because I threw corn meal by hand. The best thing about dusting with corn meal is the prevention of pathogenic fungi from germinating through the winter and inflicting more damage in the spring. It takes 10 days for the beneficial Trichoderma fungi to germinate from corn meal, and to suppress pathogenic fungi. I dusted August 1, September 1, September 17 (after 25+ hours of rain), and when I took the above posted pictures (Wed, Sept.28), after 3 days of rain. I finally see the sun this morning, Friday, Sept.30, after 5 days of constant rain.

Dan, That site looks amazing, looks like I could spend hours there. Thank's a ton! Erin