Outsmarting the tree rats (squirrels) around my house is a full time job. This past spring I hit on a new idea. When I plant a container I invert an empty wire hanging basket over the container and the plant gets sun and can be watered but the squirrels can't dig in it. Another idea: I bring in a lot of plants to "over winter" under lights in my garage. I have so many that it is hard to reach my hand under the lights (4 shop lights) to the middle for watering. So I bought a pump sprayer with a long wand and it works great! In late winter I add a little liquid Dawn detergent, few drops, to each gallon of water and not only does the soil get wet easier but the worms that are waiting to hatch into distructive pets just don't hatch. Don't know what it costs me to run those four shop lights all winter but I don't care. It is a small price to pay to be able to "garden" every weekend in the garage. Many people have mentioned that they mark their outdoor plants with a "permanent Sharpie". In my experience there isn't a "permanent Sharpie", they all fade and quickly too. A grease pencil/china marker or expensive "no fade" garden center marker are the only markers I have found that won't disappoint you by fading. Eight years ago I decided to learn about gardening so I tapped into my local library. I checked out nearly every book they had on gardening and learned so much. The Gardenweb forums are also a wealth of information and entertainment. There is always something new to learn and I appreciate all of you who take the time to write in your ideas. One last idea from me...I keep a small notebook on my computer table and jot down any idea I find that's new and I will want to try. Little pieces of paper get lost but I always know where my notebook is and also use it when I order "on line" so I will remember the name of the company and the order date. Tina or Trowelgal

Found a fantastic link which explains the many forms of calcium: http://waltsorganic.com/ag-lime-dolomite-gypsum-oyster-shellwhat-kind-of-calcium-do-you-need/ Agricultural Lime: Calcium carbonate – CaC03 Pure calcium carbonate is used to help prevent the spread of various diseases, such as powdery mildew, black spot, and blossom end rot ... Adding Ag. Lime to your soil will also raise your PH making it more alkaline. Dolomite: Dolomitic Lime contains calcium carbonate, bringing benefits similar to Ag Lime, while also providing magnesium which is important for plants’ utilization of nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur. Having an excess of magnesium in your soil can cause a break down in soil structure, resulting in hard compact soils. Gypsum: Calcium sulfate, or Sulfate of Lime – CaS042H20, due to its sulfur content Gypsum does not raise the soil PH like lime, and there is some debate as to whether it lowers soil PH. Gypsum helps liberate potash for plant use. Gypsum can also help break up compact and clay filled soils by correcting excess amounts of magnesium in your soil. Oyster Shell Flour: in addition to a large percentage of calcium carbonate, Oyster shell flour contains about 1-% phosphoric acid, which makes oyster shell flour a source of both lime (calcium) and phosphorus. Oyster shell will also slightly raise your soils PH over time. **** From Straw: The horse stable nearby me uses oyster shell lime to deodorize their horse manure. I tested the horse manure pH, and it's over 8. When I applied to my roses, alkaline horse manure (high in calcium & magnesium & potassium & phosphorus) REVERSED blackspots on roses by pumping out new & clean leaves and neutralize the acidity of rain water. Shell lime is best for alkaline clay which needs more phosphorus, plus it raises the pH slowly. Agricultural lime is best to sprinkle on leaves of roses, it's calcium carbonate which is a fungicide, it kills fungus by raising the pH. Dolomitic lime is best for acidic sandy / loamy soil. It will raise the pH, plus supply calcium and magnesium. Magnesium is the "glue" that holds soil together, and is less available in sandy soil. Gypsum also release calcium fast, but doesn't result in pale roses due to 17% sulfur in gypsum. My preference for my alkaline clay: I use shell lime (in horse manure) for heavy-bloomers BEFORE RAIN, and gypsum for wimpy own-roots BEFORE RAIN. Below site sells organic stuff cheap with 5,000 items to choose: 50 lb. of alfalfa pellets for $25, alfalfa seeds, clover seeds (for nitrogen), $9 for 50 lb. of gypsum, $10 for 50lb. of oyster shell lime, $9 for 50 lb. of dolomite lime (best for sandy or loamy soil, since magnesium is the "glue" that retains nutrients). http://www.groworganic.com/search#q=alfalfa hay&p=1 If someone has sandy or loamy soil, the acidic rain will beat up on roots, cause leaching of calcium & magnesium & potassium ... thus leaves become thinner and break out in fungal diseases. I successfully reversed blackspots & mildew on roses just by topping with ALKALINE & HIGH MINERALS & SLOW-RELEASED mulch, such as alfalfa hay (less acidic than alfalfa meal), my dolomitic clay, or horse manure (with oyster shell for calcium & phosphorus for my alkaline clay). Below are some pics. of own-root Golden Celebration. The first one was 2012 pic. in the front of my house, late August 2012: Second pic. below is the base of Golden Celebration, which is 100% clean with horse manure, pic. taken late October 2012 after the 1st frost: Third pic. below is Golden Celebration bloom with horse manure. Golden Cel. got too big for my front walk-way .. when I moved it, there's at least 1 foot of fluffy horse manure, and the root was huge:

Oh yes, little critters are everywhere... but it doesn't mean I'd want to rub the ones that are still crawling around on my eyelids... *shudders* I know what carmine is and where it comes from, but the dye should be an extraction created from the crushed shells... and should NOT contain living buggies. If BE is going to continue using carmine in various products, perhaps they should find a better way to refine it... or at least have some better quality control over it. And no matter how you shake it, bugs are NOT minerals. You can't make a big deal about having 100% mineral makeup when you are using non-mineral ingredients in them. And if it's only the the foundations that are 100% minerals, then they should stop implying that ALL their makeup is 100% min. That's just my thought on the matter. Having worked in the cosmetic industry before (but no longer) I ran into many people who had sensitivity/allergic reactions to various ingredients. Other than perfumes, one of the biggest offenders causing skin sensitivites is COLOUR. A LOT of people have reactions to products that are in shades of pink, and to lesser degrees reds and some light purples. Not all shades of pink, mind you, but enough of them to make them wary of that whole section of the colour spectrum. And since they can use other colours of shadows and blushes, they've ruled the irritants down to one or more of the dyes. The problem with most beauty products is that there are so many ingredients listed on the labels that once you know that you react to a certain colour product, you can't usually tell which of the dyes you are sensitive to. Most people with this problem wind up avoiding the whole pink colour family just to be on the safe side. But if you know you react to a certain ingredient, like carmine, you can pass on anything that shows it on the ingredient list. I have not seen how the ingredients are labeled on the BE packaging/website/etc, so I'm just going off of what people have posted here. My issue with the whole thing is: How are the people who KNOW they are allergic to carmine (or have any other issues with it) going to know to avoid this product? Or at least that colour? If there's no ingredient list and the company is already implying that they are 100% mineral based, that further implies that they don't use carmine... which can be a problem for those people who need to avoid carmine for allergy or lifestyle reasons. And personally, I get a little peeved when something is sold to me under false prestenses, implied or otherwise. That's just my spin on it.

I simply do not understand the light-bulb issue. Unless all the lights were new when a tenant moved in, how is the tenant responsible for replacing the light bulbs? We are renting a large town-house, 3 floors with recessed ceiling lights. The ceilings are 12ft high. There are numerous ceiling lights throughout the house. Four bathrooms with both ceiling lights and vanity lights. Multiple driveway spots, some up on trees. When we moved in, we noticed some of the recessed lights had CFL's screwed in, which looked weird. After 2 weeks, half the main-floor ceiling lights started burning out. We learned CFL's should not be used with dimmers. That was the cause of them burning out. Were we responsible for that? We replaced only the lights we needed. We had lamps which we used in the living room. We have replaced the kitchen recessed lights 3x since living here. We have a large vent hood over the cooktop. There are 8 halogen lights. After one month, they all burned out within 3 days. I replaced those and they were expensive and difficult to install. If they burn out before we leave (3 months)I am not replacing those. They obviously were not new when we moved in. We have no intention of replacing all these lights. If they were new when we moved in, that's a different story although I think the landlord is required to provide light for his tenant. I would assume that would be built into the rent. We pay for the electricity. In a house this size and age, there were many things which needed repair but were not. I do not feel responsible for repairing things which broke due to age and use. How can a landlord charge for items which were 'on their last leg?' I have a list of things which broke over the year and half not due to anything we did. They were just old and well worn. The light-bulb issue seems ridiculous to me. Jane