Despite the original posters overly extensive post, with certain questionable content, the central point is still quite vaild. We as a nation spend more money on grass than on any other crop. That by itself should be reason enough. Read up on the history of lawns and you'll find that they were orginally created as a means of demonstrating wealth (aka, I have this big area and I can afford to do nothing with it except grow grass I can't eat) Regarding the comments of junegem13 and zachslc, you might want to read up on the legal history of this movement. As it turns out, most weed laws (ones based on hight, not on noxious weeds) are unconstitutional. Nonetheless, if you are in a city or subdivision and decide to do a wildflower meadow where there is not an reasonable ordinance, then you should notify your neighbors and the city about why you are doing and the legal preceedants. The EPA has all this information. Regarding property values, that was the original complaint neighbors made against one landowner when she converted her lawn into meadow. When they were unable to demonstrate an actual decrease in property values, the city ordinance was ruled unconstitutional. Afterwards, the neighbors decided if they couldn't beat her that they'd join her and replace their own yards with meadows. Property values in that one neighborhood are now some of the highest in the city (Specific names and places, are available if you want them). Time and time again, lawn alternatives done correctly have shown to raise values, not lower them. In Charlottesville, VA local government is working on an ammendment to exclude native meadows from our weed ordinance. Other cities are doing the same very quicky, especially since the weed ordinance as written by many localites constitutes a legal liability to local governments.

SINCE I AM BORED AND TO GET THOSE LATE SUMMER JUICES GOING..... (PLEASE FORGIVE ME!!!) AND .. I PLANTED MY TROPICAL FRUIT IN UPSTATE NY From Thursday's Daily Telegraph "On Friday the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change delivers its latest verdict on the state of man-made global warming. Though the details are a secret, one thing is clear: the version of events you will see and hear in much of the media, especially from partis pris organisations like the BBC, will be the opposite of what the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report actually says. Already we have had a taste of the nonsense to come: a pre-announcement to the effect that “climate scientists” are now “95 per cent certain” that humans are to blame for climate change; an evidence-free declaration by the economist who wrote the discredited Stern Report that the computer models cited by the IPCC “substantially underestimate” the scale of the problem; a statement by the panel’s chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, that “the scientific evidence of… climate change has strengthened year after year”. As an exercise in bravura spin, these claims are up there with Churchill’s attempts to reinvent the British Expeditionary Force’s humiliating retreat from Dunkirk as a victory. In truth, though, the new report offers scant consolation to those many alarmists whose careers depend on talking up the threat. It says not that they are winning the war to persuade the world of the case for catastrophic anthropogenic climate change ��" but that the battle is all but lost. At the heart of the problem lie the computer models which, for 25 years, have formed the basis for the IPCC’s scaremongering: they predicted runaway global warming, when the real rise in temperatures has been much more modest. So modest, indeed, that it has fallen outside the lowest parameters of the IPCC’s prediction range. The computer models, in short, are bunk. To a few distinguished scientists, this will hardly come as news. For years they have insisted that “sensitivity” the degree to which the climate responds to increases in atmospheric CO₂ " is far lower than the computer models imagined. In the past, their voices have been suppressed by the bluster and skulduggery we saw exposed in the Climategate emails. From grant-hungry science institutions and environmentalist pressure groups to carbon traders, EU commissars, and big businesses with their snouts in the subsidies trough, many vested interests have much to lose should the global warming gravy train be derailed. This is why the latest Assessment Report is proving such a headache to the IPCC. It’s the first in its history to admit what its critics have said for years: global warming did “pause” unexpectedly in 1998 and shows no sign of resuming. And, other than an ad hoc new theory about the missing heat having been absorbed by the deep ocean, it cannot come up with a convincing explanation why. Coming from a sceptical blog none of this would be surprising. But from the IPCC, it’s dynamite: the equivalent of the Soviet politburo announcing that command economies may not after all be the most efficient way of allocating resources. Which leaves the IPCC in a dilemma: does it ’fess up and effectively put itself out of business? Or does it brazen it out for a few more years, in the hope that a compliant media and an eco-brainwashed populace will be too stupid to notice? So far, it looks as if it prefers the second option ��" a high-risk strategy. Gone are the days when all anybody read of its Assessment Reports were the sexed-up “Summary for Policymakers”. Today, thanks to the internet, sceptical inquirers such as Donna Laframboise (who revealed that some 40 per cent of the IPCC’s papers came not from peer-reviewed journals but from Greenpeace and WWF propaganda) will be going through every chapter with a fine toothcomb. Al Gore’s “consensus” is about to be holed below the water-line ��" and those still aboard the SS Global Warming are adjusting their positions. Some, such as scientist Judith Curry of Georgia Tech, have abandoned ship. She describes the IPCC’s stance as “incomprehensible”. Others, such as the EU’s Climate Commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, steam on oblivious. Interviewed last week by the Telegraph’s Bruno Waterfield, she said: “Let’s say that science, some decades from now, said: 'We were wrong, it was not about climate’, would it not in any case have been good to do many of the things you have to do in order to combat climate change?” If she means needlessly driving up energy prices, carpeting the countryside with wind turbines and terrifying children about a problem that turns out to have been imaginary, then most of us would probably answer “No”." This post was edited by mes111 on Wed, Sep 25, 13 at 18:12

The recommended organic spray for late blight is copper. The prices for copper are astronomical on account of copper just costs a lot right now. Last year as usual I grew my tomatoes from seeds. Hearing about late blight, I tried an experiment with straw mulch for my big tomatoes, which is one recommended response. I had my cherries in pots. My neighbor bought his tomato plants. When the blight hit, his plants all dropped dead in a period of two days. My straw-mulched plants didn't do too well, since I was not used to using a straw mulch and didn't notice they needed water as often as I would have otherwise. They did get blight eventually, but it didn't matter much, since the lack of water seriously cut into their production. The plants in pots did okay. Eventually, they did get blight, no doubt from my neighbor's plants. The one that lived longest was Matt's Wild Cherry. I decided that this year I would not grow any tomatoes, that I would buy them from areas of the country that aren't getting late blight, because I just had a feeling that the late blight would be back. Sure enough, it is in PA (I'm 15 mi from PA in NY, so it's just a matter of time). A friend of mine who grows a lot of his own food is growing Matt's Wild Cherry for tomatoes this year and foregoing the copper. Good soil? My plants had very good soil. But it's soil, not a force field. When there is that much disease around, it doesn't matter how good the soil is.

After reading many of these recent comments, meandering here and there as extended threads almost always seem to do, I had to go back to the OP to see what in the world started this thread. It was: "...do you think solely working with a builder would suffice?...I feel like I would be telling an architect exactly what to do as far as design. But I can see where we might need a draftsman to translate our design into a blueprint? Or can the builder fill the role of a draftsman?" It's really the old, often repeated question, "do I really need or have to use an architect, or can I just I just build using my own sketch, which someone translates into dimensioned drawings?..." And the answer, in most U.S. jurisdictions, is yes you can build from your own sketch, assuming you can get design review approval (if required) and a building permit. You may even be able to get financing from your own sketch, or at least from dimensioned drawings of your sketch--depending on the lender and the loan sum to value. And one can usually find an experienced builder who will work with an owner's sketch, and offer to build from it using some sort of construction contract (favorable to the builder's risk, more often than not). There are a number of jurisdictions in the U.S. which do require architectural drawings (by a licensed architect) for design review and/or building permit, particularly for homes over a certain area or storeys, in certain site/soil conditions, or in areas designated for special historical or architectural control, but these are nowhere near the majority of jurisdictions. But at the end of the day, the answer, like so many answers, is really: it depends. It depends on answers to questions like: --Does the site and jurisdiction where you wish to build require documents and calculations from a licensed professional; --Is your budget so limited and critical that a 6%-10% architectural fee is simply impossible; is an initial design consultation of $1K +/- out of the question; --Do you see your house as primarily shelter from the elements and you have no other strong concerns or desires about it; --Do you or anyone in your family have special needs; --Are you a rugged and experienced DIY person who gets personal reward from doing everything yourself; have you ever designed and built a house before; --How concerned are you about a fixed or manageable construction budget, and the level/type of construction expertise and features you will actually receive for your project? There are other important and useful questions, but hopefully the point is clear: using your own sketches for construction of a home depends on the answers to these and other important questions. And since no two of us are alike or in the same circumstances, the answer to using one's own sketch for building is, wait for it...it depends. And like all decisions, there will be a series of consequences which occur based on the decision that each of us may make in this type of situation. PS: And I guess I have to say that CAD, the computer and all of our disruptive technology neither pose any important questions in a situation like this, nor do they provide any particularly useful answers. They are simply a tool, a means to an end, and certainly not the end.