Hi - the Fukien (Fujian) is very tropical and needs to live indoors (apart from having to deal with insects aquired outside!) under warm, humid and extremely bright conditions - so cold weather should have no bearing on training the trunk (clip 'n grow works well with them), and in fact on any tree really... apples and oranges. Anyhow, if you post your relative location, I can see if there's a club around for you. HH is very good, though based in the UK, where conditions are different, even if he knows about yours. There are tons of books around, many very inexpensive - go to Amazon.com and look under bonsai, then under 'Used' (they even tell you the condition of each one... 'flyleaf missing' (which wouldn't matter for instance), and how to order. Definitely look for more recent pubs. Also go to www.bonsaisite.com and under 'General Discussions' there's a subforum with lists of good books and comments. Paul Lesniewicz is good for books on indoor bonsai (as are sites www.bonsaihunk.us/cultural.html) and www.evergreengardenworks.com and www.bonsai4me.com for others. Bonsaisite.com has a chat forum more active than this one (any are more so!). Also check into www.BonsaiTalk.com.

Westy - welcome to a hobby that will consume you. haha.. not really, but it will consume a lot of what other people consider garbage. kimmsr is right, the smaller the parts you put in, generally the faster the bacteria will break it down for you. I don't get overly concerned about it because I'm not in a race with anyone for finished compost. I do my best to break things down, but I don't stress if larger pieces go in too. Actually, in my mom's smaller bin, I added some larger prunings from a butterfly bush on purpose and didn't chop them at all. I try to put these on the bottom and in the middle to allow more air to get in and keep it from packing down in between turnings. I got a great book as a gift, it's called "Let it Rot". Most of what the book covers I had already read on this forum, but it's still a great book to have and it makes me happy to have it on my coffee table. bpgreen has the right idea. Don't stress too much about how small your pumpkin fragments are, they are going to break down fairly quickly anyway. I just like them broken up so I can spread the goodness around. Chopping with a shovel works well. Newspaper isn't worthless. I shred it up and add it in. I add in junk mail too after I remove the plastic windows. I feel that it's the most secure way to dispose of "garbage" because while someone interested in identity theft might be willing to go through a trash bag, it is very unlikely that they'd come into your yard, rumble through your compost, try to put the damp and decomposing pieces that they find back together and decipher personal information from it. So for me, there's a huge difference in tossing junk mail in the trash can vs shredding it up and composting it. Just another reason to love composting. Old checks and other documents with personal information will compost just fine too. You get the idea. If your compost is "muddy" then it might be too wet. It really should only be damp. They always say like a wrung out sponge, and to me that means really only slightly moist because a wrung out sponge doesn't drip and if you touch it you can barely tell that it is even wet other than the fact that it's soft. So add some leaves and mix to dry it out some, maybe that will help. One thing that people on this forum use as a bin, and that I will also be using soon is a 12.5 foot length of hardware cloth connected into a circle. I have something kind of similar to this at my mom's, but it is smaller and was a commercial composter thing.. Anyway, with this type of setup you have it open on both top and bottom, so what you do is when it's time to turn, you lift the bin off and put it beside where it was. Then you shovel the compost back in. So simple and easy. Aside from my piles and windrow, I don't think there is anything more practical and easy, as well as cost effective. There are so many ways to compost and none of them are wrong as long as you're creating compost, but I like cheap and easy. I have a tumbler that I quite like, but it was over $500. I won't have another tumbler unless I'm able to fashion a homemade one - and with my track record with tools, that is unlikely. Not sure what you do in the event of snow. Others can likely help you there though. Unless your compost needs the moisture, I'd say put the cover on if you're expecting snow. Otherwise, just keep on doing what you're doing the same way, year-round. I could be wrong though. I'm in South Carolina and we don't get too much cold weather here. I am dreading the winter months though, because there is a slowdown after all of the leaves have fallen. Less materials will mean less composting for me, but I still have my piles to play with. I'm glad you're finally getting to compost and glad you joined us here. Whew.. sorry to be so long winded. There you go, a compost book. haha..

To give you some encouragement, I was fairly successful DESPITE my methods. I didn't even use a seed tray! I usually buy peppers every single year from the farmer's market. I saved some seed, thinking I will give it a shot in the spring 'just for fun'. I totally forgot about the seeds until around March, and then proceeded to start 50 seeds in a single dixie cup sitting on top of my fridge, assuming that 'if I am lucky, I will get 1 or two to sprout up". Well, I got basically all 50 shooting up. I was busy, and didn't even move them into individual cups until they were already a month old and strangling one another. I used no lights - just my south facing windowsill - and I stacked my cups on top of one another like a pyramid to try and maximize how many I could fit. They toppled down twice, but I just put them back up. By the time the last frost hit, most of them were flowering. I moved them outside in what I thought would be a great spot to harden them off (started researching by this time!) and I severely damaged half of them in one day. Anyways, by the time September came (I get frost in September) I picked 2 grocery bags full of peppers. I can't imagine doing things more wrong. It was about as 'ghetto' and low-tech as you can get. I still don't use a heat mat - I don't even use seed starting trays. I just use empty styrofoam egg containers with a bit of soil in each cell, and I set that on top of my fridge (haven't taken a temperature reading) and I got about 90% germination. Anything you have - a computer, DVD player, etc., - that puts out a bit of heat you can use. You CAN get it to sprout even without heat, but the germination rates will be lower, and they will take longer to sprout. I use lights now, simply because I am growing way more varieties this year, but still have a few that I couldn't fit under the lights sitting on my windowsill. I can definitely see the advantage of lights now, but I am still expecting to be picking some nice peppers at the end of the season even from the ones sitting on the windowsill (after the frost and I get them in-ground, that is). So, don't worry. Your germination and growth rates may not be optimal, but you will experience some success. Besides, this way is the 'green way', right? :D Good luck!!

Joanna, you may want to ask the butcher about those bones... Years ago my Mother would buy soup bones from a local butcher who bought whole animals from the local stock yards... On one visit to the butchers shop she noticed a sign for Free dog bones and asked for a few pounds of beef dog bones... The man behind the counter told her they were NOT for human consumption for various reasons, most weren't properly refrigerated, they were all dumped in one container ( beef, pork, lamb, veal... ) some had fallen on the floor or fished out of the trash... Granted most stores today wouldn't take the chance of selling contaminated bones but... Better safe than sorry, ask if they ARE fit for human consumption. Rita