anney - I'm trying to come up with a good way to feed my tomatoes this year, so I have questions similar to yours. But most of what I think is just speculation right now. Keeping that in mind... I think I understand what you're saying. And I don't know if plants can self-regulate. But if they can, those self-regulating mechanisms may break down under extreme conditions. So I think you'd want to at least maintain a "reasonable" balance. And giving them a "balanced diet" sounds reasonable to me. My thoughts on soil testing are, maybe they can tell you if you have a glaring deficiency in something. But you could probably get the same soil sample tested by 3 different labs, and get 3 different answers. At least that's what Eliot Coleman seems to be saying in his book "The New Organic Grower". I think it was published in 1995, so maybe things have changed since then? But you'd hope they'd at least all agree on whether or not a serious problem existed. So even if you knew what "optimal" was, you may not know if you have it with any certainty. Soil testing is good for the people who do soil testing for a living. And for companies that sell the soil test kits. So regardless of whether or not it's helpful for a gardener, you'll probably always hear someone recommending it. I've read that one of the most common mistakes gardeners make with tomatoes is overfertilizing. But I've never overfertilized, so I can't say from experience. I'm probably going to use a "balanced diet" approach this year, and see how that works. But that still leaves questions about what to use to provide that balanced diet. It can be mind boggling:) I'm trying to keep things as close to "natural" as possible. I don't think I could successfully micromanage individual nutrients, without causing some other problem that I'd also have to micromanage.

The bark needs to be slipping very well for T budding which means the rootstock in particular needs to be rapidly growing. Chip budding, which I've never done, can be done even without slipping bark. I usually have 90% or higher success with T budding in May and June. It can also be done late summer and bud not forced until spring. But for some reason my buds often die in winter.

To borrow (and probably mangle) snidely's analogy: using a seperate tool for every job is like driving a model A. You have to shift the gears, adjust the spark, back up the steepest hills. (No fuel pump) A more modern car has cruise control, automatic transmission, heated seats, GPS that'll pick your route, maybe even adjust based on traffic. You feel a little less in control, but you don't have to think about all that. I personally like AVG Free antivirus, ZoneAlarm firewall, and Malwarebytes anti-malware. But sometimes I have to tinker a bit to make 'em play nice together. AVG now wants to be the firewall too. ZoneAlarm offers an antivirus. If you want to just be secure, without spending all your time at it, they should be pretty good all in one tools. Also, don't be afraid to download stuff, if you're willing to take responsibility for your security. If you aren't familiar with a program, google it. What experiences have others had? If possible, download from the author's site. You'll get the latest version, with less chance of it having been tampered with. If you must download elsewhere, find trustworthy sources and use them if possible. My favorite is majorgeeks.com. Above all else, after the download is complete, VIRUS SCAN BEFORE OPENING! Such practices have always kept me virus free. Of course downloading nothing is even safer.

We used to see systems last 25-35 years and now some say a system is old in 10-14 years. To me the savings is in a long lasting system that keeps it's efficiency throughout it's life that should be 15-20 years. A complicated subject. It's practical to say the less bells and whistles, the fewer repairs and failures, because a failure in some components shortens the systems life and repairs can be very costly with those whistles. It is easy to see I prefer the single stage systems in the 14-15 seer range for there durability. In a dual compressor dual stage system, if one compressor fails due to a short or ground- both compressors must be replaced as well as some controls. After the ten year extended warranty is up, so is the system if an expensive repair must be done. One must calculate the extra money paid for the higher efficient system compared to the yearly savings in energy, verses the repair costs and life average. I'm a "keep it simple stupid" (KISS) person.