I don't use it ( although I have a bag) because of the importance of re-applying as it is washed off and I can only get to the orchard on weekends and the weather does not co-operate with my schedule. If it rains on Monday and the stuff is washed off it does me no good to reapply it on Saturday next. I use a low spray regimen. Look up "harvestman" or "low level spray program " here and you should find it. I use "chemicals" but sparingly. Keep in mind that cobra venom is also organic. I don't worship at the organic temple. I prefer the "Temple of Reason". Mike

You use the newspaper between the blotter paper for pressing flowers. The order is corregated cardboard, blotter paper, newspaper, the plant, newspaper, blotter paper, corregated cardboard, etc....The blotter paper is not meant to touch the plants but to provide a smooth surface between the layers of corregated cardboard. The cardboard probvides the airflow needed to dry the contents of the press. If your press did not come with cardboard then get some boxes and cut some to size. I do not use paper towels next to any plant pressing. They can and do leave imprints on pressings. Newspaper ink is now a soy based product and does not smear as easily as it used to and have never had ink rub off on any plant pressing. I buy additional blotter paper at the art supply store-just take a blotter with you and they can get something close that is suitable. The sheets are very large (30" x 40"?) so I cut them myself. You can also buy traditional blotters for plant presses at places like Forestry Suppliers or Carolina Biological supply.

Clones can be used to great effect when hybridizing or breeding stable OP varieties, and tomatoes are super easy to clone. I know with human cells, telomere length is a limiting factor on immortality. But cancer cells can achieve immortality in a petri dish, see link below. I am not sure if there is such a limit on plants. Considering 2000+ year old trees here and there perhaps there is not a fundamental limit, and plant clones could be kept alive forever. As for OP vs. hybrid, I'll gladly take the adaptability, resilience and independence from seed co's that OP offers, over whatever gains might be obtained by buying hybrid seed. I want seeds that are adapted to my climate, my garden, my pests and my habits as a gardener. My plan is to just keep chucking tomato seeds out there to see what thrives and produces. My aims are different than a lot of gardeners, for me it's more about resilient gardening than gourmet gardening. I'm happier with the 'wild arugula' that reseeds itself perpetually than with some named variety of arugula that I would have to resow every year. I am a member of a local seed library, $10 lifetime membership, and I have access to way more veggie seeds than I could ever grow, with the caveat that I return extra saved seed when possible. With those seeds, I follow stricter seed saving protocols, because there is an obligation to keep the varieties true. Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.npr.org/2011/03/18/134622044/tracing-the-immortal-cells-of-henrietta-lacks This post was edited by yukkuri_kame on Mon, Aug 12, 13 at 17:18

The tabs really do a great job (there are some older threads with loads of posts singing their praises!). We used Cascade Complete initially, but Miele came out with the tabs sometime around when we first started using our DW. A bunch of GW'ers tried them and kept raving about them so we decided to give them a try. The CC worked perfectly fine and everything came out spotless. However, the tabs seem to give the loads an extra level of clean and sparkle. Also, the air in the DW just had a fresher quality (odor) after running a load with the tab vs CC. The DW after a CC cleaned load isn't bad, just less fresh smelling. FWIW, some on this forum use 1/2 a tab (and possibly even 1/4 tab?) to clean most loads. Again, my stuff comes out fine with a 1/2 tab, but a full tab just seems to raise that sparkle and clean to another level. It's not overly noticeable, in fact, I thought it was my mind playing tricks on me, but some others here have said the same thing. We don't usually run our DW every day, so I like the sense of security (that everything will get clean) that using a full tab gives. Last night I had a pretty empty DW, but one of those few items was a stinky plastic food container that would have been quite foul smelling by morning let alone this evening, so I ran the DW before bed instead of waiting, with a 1/2 tab and everything came out great. PS there were some posters who had trouble with grit (undisolved soap powder) build up in their rack glides from using Ecover so you might want to do a search for those threads discussing that.