Nanadina, thank you very much for your report. Great job! So your formula is: 6 tbsp rye flour + 2 tbsp molasses + 1 gallon water, sit 3 days. Yes, it seems to be the golden mean. Less than 4 tbsp rye flour may spoil, 8 is too much (not economical), 6 is best! It is possible to pour out the liquid in separate container to separate from sediment. Without airspace in the top and under the tap it may be kept long time, some months. Sediment may be used for next batch as starter to make fermentation faster. When I use sediment from previous batch I make sometimes fermentation during 1 day. It is also possible to add molasses after fermentation again in the same amount and during 1-3 days it doubles the amount of bacteria. Then it is possible add molasses again. And again. And again. But this is details. Well, good news! As for antioxidants, if green tea has antioxidants in it then its good idea to try it against pests. If it works then its more good idea do dissolve (ferment) green tea bags (or tea leaves) in kvas. It will give more antioxidants. It's just for making experiments. Tea is not cheap and thus not practical. Ordinary weeds works the same. Hope this topic will continue.

Hi..I'm writing this on behalf of sumala..I wanted to let everyone know that he passed away this past Wednesday April 25 at the Veteran's Hospital in WPB. He thought he had the flu but just couldn't seem to shake it. We went to the VA on Monday thinking we'd get some meds and he'd be coming back home but that wasn't the case. I suppose our Creator in Heaven needed an avid gardener up there because he passed away Wednesday from heart failure. None of us, including him, had any idea that he might not be coming home..He rode his bike daily and was super active especially in his garden! I know he really enjoyed 'chatting' and sharing gardening tips with you all! My thanks to Minderella who helped me to get onto the site so that I could let everyone know-as you can guess, he's already been truly missed. When we would come home he was either on the computer chatting with different ones about his garden or out in it-so it's still hard walking into the house & he's not here..I will probably be signing on using his name so that I can read some of his posts-I was just reading all of his posts here along with everyone else's and the info will help the family to keep his garden going. He was also really getting into 'putting up' the different things he was growing so this will also help to preserve waht is grown. Thank YOU ALL for being such wonderful friends of his-I know he respected & enjoyed all of you. I'm not sure where all he would gon in GardenWeb but I would appreciate if you spread the word..Anyone may also email me at tirtle1@aol.com if you'd like. Thanks again,keep your green thumbs up (and hopefully ours will turn green as well) Take care & God bless

Krista; Thanks for bringing this topic. I needed the responses. Dawn - I planted garlic.. a few weeks ago. I placed a control in a pot of loose potting soil. I'm noticing the clay to "somewhat" hinder the garlic growth when eye-balled with the control. The control is nice dark healthy green leaves and the bulbs are growing quicker. We've received a portion or all of the rainfall, recently. The ground is very wet with my amended clay. Those in ground are growing greens slowly and the "green" is not a rich dark healthy green like the control. (Note: I sent in for soil testing. Will get that back in about 10 days.) The roots are deep, right? You mention "tilling". So it's okay to sort of lift and scratch at the soil to let air in? If I find any that are too wet, what do you advise? Thank you for the details on the weeding. I'm going to be more aggressive. Really, how wide does the weed-free zone really need to be? I planted them in a way that a small portion of the bulb is showing and/or placed the bulb just beneath the soil. Luckily, I have timothy hay to use as a mulch. How deep do I need to place this mulch? I have some humus from an old wood compost. Would it help to put that on top or in the soil around them? Perhaps it'll be better to leave them alone lol We are unusually wet this year. Thanks everyone for the comments. I'm glad to know I don't need to fret too much over garlic and that I can plant some more. I really don't have enough planted. Bon

Jude, I just till the plot well and stick the cloves into the ground however far they go in. I just push them in with my index finger, so maybe an inch. I think none of them were probably the same, LOL. I planted mine the end of October, right around Halloween, September is way too early here. So, I plant in late October or early November and harvest in July. Other than that I don't do anything else except keep the weeds down and water it regularly if we don't get rain (like this year). My garden gets a good dose of cow manure every year, but other than that I don't fertilize it either. The red garlic is about the diameter of a quarter, I was disappointed. The "Music", though, grew like gangbusters, I'll definitely keep some and plant it this fall. Oh, and don't forget to trim the scapes, or you'll get small bulbs... Annie