Looks like I haven't answered some of the questions... >>May I ask where you get those food grade containers - I so could use some rather then buying an extra crock for my cabbage - or should I take up wine making.<< Got it from wine store. Done the juice extracting today..about 65 Liters, filled a 50 L. keg without any sugar added this time, the rest in 2L. pop bottles not filled all the way, can open better under pressure, [sparkling wine]. Brix/sugar content is a little over 12%, not bad for a wet year I think. From a leftover stainless steel piece after milling I made a better mixer, [welded/added in the center piece] to rip the cherries apart after thawing out in that container.

Thank you intotheark for letting us know on this Lutowka cherry. I'd be interested to test it for myself. As the Evans, [my bench mark standard]..can you please tell us the size difference, do you have picture side by side? Also production overall in %. As you and me said, Evans cant be beat in it's vigor and production, another nice darker flesh cherry, reliable, is nice to have around. Got this from a friend, ..after all, this cherry didn't originate out of Poland, ..link translated from Polish.... It is very old of unknown origin, possibly French or Dutch Here is a link that might be useful: Åutówka

Its interesting, the "Studio" pieces seemed to have leveled off a bit pricewise, while the production pieces for Directional continue to go up...there is probably more competition for the production pieces since they are not in the mid five figures into six figures. The Nakashima prices still seem to be pretty strong. I would imagine that some of these really expensive pieces are such that Rago and the other houses that get these pieces have a good idea who is going to be in the market for them. When the $8M Garvan Carver table sold, someone I knew who had two Garvan Carver pieces told me that the public auction for that particular piece was unnecesary and just amounted to good publicity for the auction house. He estimated that there were about a dozen people in the US who had both the means and the interest to pay several million dollars for that particular piece of furniture, and the auction company could have made some phone calls and gotten it sold. This particular piece was previously unknown which is why it went for such an astronomical price. But it did go to one of the dozen people (he remained anonymous because of the price), not a newbie. My acquaintance originally owned one piece, and it was known to have a mate, and when the owner of that one died, he called around and said "Listen, I own the other piece, and I would really like to have it, so if it comes up at auction,I am very motivated to get them together, and I think they should be together". I don't remember if he got it by auction or by private sale, but he did end up with the second piece. I guess though, by comparison, a $60K Evans or Nakashima piece could be bought by any random hedge funder or internet app inventor etc.

I would not go so far as to say MG products are no good; what I would say is that I am not a fan of any of the MG products. They are mostly one-size-fits-all, off the shelf products for people who do not want to learn the right way. Having said that, whether in ground or in container the "soil" is simply a medium to hold the roots and the tree; so in truth any "soil" will work; it just depends on how easy or how hard you must work to live with it. Hydroponic growing has no soil at all; but it requires specialized systems and specialized knowledge.