Hi Harborrose: My rhododendrons are 9 years old. They are right in front of my door - look the same every year until now, the leaves have pink streaks when I put espresso grounds (we have lots of rain). I don't know what's in the espresso that put pink stripes to the leaves - I tasted the espresso, extremely bitter compared to my hubby's ground. For the past month all my roses are great - dark green leaves with hubby's coffee ground from Sam's club. Hi Michael: Thank you very much for your info. I tested the acidity of both espresso and coffee ground twice: with red cabbage boiled in alkaline hard water, the second time with red cabbage boiled in distilled water. What happened puzzled me until you clarified - many thanks: Red cabbage indicator boiled in alkaline tap water: espresso ground and coffee ground both turned pinkish (acidic) within 10 minutes. After 4 hours the reddish water changed to CLEAR in the coffee ground solution (you are right about its instability, I also read that coffee ground is a buffer, rather than acidic). The solution above the espresso ground retained its pink color. I repeated the experiment again today, with red cabbage boiled in distilled water. Both coffee ground and espresso turned reddish brown. After 1 hour, I was surprised to see a CLEAR SOLUTION above the coffee ground -the espresso ground solution was still pink. I also tested red cabbage boiled in distilled water with at least 10 other samples. Here are the results: Purple indicator turns BRIGHT pink with a few drops of vinegar (reported pH 2.4) - Espresso ground is next in pink (my estimate pH 3 to 4) - Coffee ground is slight pink but turned CLEAR after 1 hour. The control red cabbage color is the SAME as indicator solution in Epsom salt (pH is neutral as expected). Previous wrong alkaline result with Epsom salt was from boiling red cabbage in hard alkaline water. There is no change in color with calcium citrate (it's just more whitish with calcium dust). Baking soda is bluish-green (reported pH of 9). Magnesium supplement (magnesium oxide) is bright green, and the most alkaline. Peatmoss is the same color as alfalfa meal within the first 5 minutes - but after 1 hour settling down the peatmoss is clearly darker pink. Reported pH of peatmoss is 4, my estimate of alfalfa is 5. MiracleGro potting soil is slightly pink (reported pH of 6.5). My amended topsoil is slightly bluish-purple (reported pH of 7.7, tested professionally by EarthCo.) - The bottom yellow clay is more blue, my estimate pH of 8, same as tap water tested with fish-tank litmus paper. Here's my big disappointment with HomeDepo's EarthGro bagged topsoil (the white/red bag). It's greenish blue, at least 8.5 pH. Horse manure is alkaline as expected, my estimate at 8.7 (others report a higher value). The Moo Manure (sold at HomeDepo) is the most alkaline, the same color as the baking soda solution (reported pH of 9). The most prolific bloomer in my garden is Radio Times, planted in Scott's Premium topsoil with peatmoss - I did not test this, but expect it to be neutral, or slightly acidic with peatmoss. Other roses amended with HomeDepo's Earthgro topsoil or Moo-manure don't bloom as much, with more yellowish leaves. Now I know why.

hi regarding using spent coffee grounds as a growing medium. I have just done experiments using SCG mixed in with peat at different ratios namely 25%,50%,75% and 100% to grow tomato and geranium seedlings. It was not a success the tomatoes in the 100% were dead within a week and the seedlings in all the other mixes did not thrive.I thought that this was due to the fact that the SCG were to acidic but when i tested the ph of all the mediums it turned out that the higher the % of coffee the more alkaline it was I also had the problem of the leaves going a purple colour in the tomatoes and the geranium leaves went a yellow colour. I thought that it might be that the SCG are to high in nutrients which scorches the seedlings or it is a lack of some nutrients causing a deficiency. Two samples have been sent away to a lab for testing just waiting for results otherwise if anyone has any thoughts on why it did not work please advise. i would appreciate any information thanks !!!!

Tricia, I'm so sorry about the list that disappeared! I hate it when that happens! One of the things I love about Firefox is that those things are sometimes recoverable. (Either following the back arrow, or closing and reloading.) The MAGMA cookware is interesting. Same kind of thought as the Cristel that KitchenDetective mentioned. Seems to have good variety, too. So I've been trimming my list and I think I have it down all the way. I thought I'd share. No wok required, but it could hand half into the window, next to the dishwasher. :) It's still a really long list, but I think everything actually fits, and pretty easily. More so than the people! When four people sit down to dinner in my shipping container, the table and chairs are big enough for the people, but there's no real room to maneuver and everyone has to move if someone needs to get up. :) So, for cookware storage I have a set of 24" drawers, for the dishes I have a shelf, and between the studs storage for glasses and mugs. There's also a little storage above the fridge and oven, but I don't want to use it for cookware other than the 20" wood carving board. The "pantry" is three wire baskets in a moveable cart with drop leaves that tucks away between the side of the cooktop cabinet and the washer door. I kind of cheated and used my own 24" self imported induction cooktop. After reading Johnliu's list, I just couldn't deal with the single element Miele 15" or the other, wimpy dominoes. The paper towels would go in a basket in the cart, which pulls out and becomes an island with the drop leaves up. The foil, parchment and plastic bags can go in the between the studs storage, along with small bottles and jars, or in the cart drawer with the tea towels and pot holders. There's room for cleaning supplies, including: telescoping broom and mop compact mop bucket cleaning supply caddy with nesting bucket collapsible 13 gallon lidded trash can--a frame which holds the bag, then flattens to 2.6" Sponge holder suctions to sink side. Press-with-back-of-hand soap dispenser sits on counter. Clothes iron hides behind a sliding cover on the shelves folding Ironing board and Drying rack hang on bathroom door. Side of shelving case is reinforced and has hooks to hold the four chairs, when folded, 6" thick, total. Top drawer has a compact flatware organizer which can hold the four settings of seven pieces and five hostess pieces: tea spoons soup spoons salad forks dinner fork table knives appetizer spoons appetizer forks serving fork serving spoon slotted serving spoon sugar spoon butter knife Utensils: Infrared/themocouple thermometer Shun Classic Hollow-ground 8" chef's knife with edge guard Shun Classic honing steel (I decided the cook could take the knife out for proper sharpening rather than making room for a stone set) Normann Copenhagen nut cracker Rachael Ray peeler with attached vegetable brush Norpro stamped steel church key for...

Thank you again -- have been sharing these responses with DH who is just tickled to hear them. He is mighty tired at this point but all of your praise has energized him to start thinking about that island . . . Answers to questions Kaismom -- you're correct -- when we moved in to the house the lowers were too shallow to house contemporary appliances so we had a carpenter pull them out but we didn't rebuild them in any fundamental way. Inside they were just big empty cubes. Now we have pullouts and more useable storage in less space. Theresse, we totally dismantled the cabinets. We built the two class cupboards from scratch using old wood, and we reused the old leaded glass doors. You can see in the before photos that in the original uppers the cames did not align with the shelves. Just one of those little things that always bothered me. We fixed that! We used doors from above the old cooktop to make the new lower cabinet on the far left-- these had to be taken apart and resized. The sink wall, not visible in this photo, is new build using old wood. For example, DH made a panel for the integrated dishwasher using a center panel (cut to size and framed) from an old door we bought at salvage. The doors under the sink are original but had to be made smaller to fit under the apron sink. So, most of the time even what we repurposed had to be remade to fit the layout and the appliances. Only two of the cabinets on the other side of the room were left as-is, just refinished. We also took out an old doorway (door was long gone) and built an eyebrow arch that matches the contour of the arches in other rooms. We added crown molding and floor molding out of old gumwood as well. We kept the Lightolier tracks but replaced the old cans with new MR16 fixtures. We kept the built-in refrigerator (we put this in about 15 years ago, building an enclosure) but gave it new steel panels. We kept the pot rack! We kept some of the original hardware (latches and hinges) but added new pulls. Thanks again for all the comments! They are helping us gear up for the final spurt!