I tend to be very sceptical of 'miracle' products like Eleanor's fertilizer and Superthrive that use broad & vague rhetoric to tell you they do everything but cook a perfect 2-minute egg. If it worked like they want to believe it works, they would assuredly lay out the mechanism by which it works to satisfy the sceptics & even the cynics, thereby separating them from the ability to taint the manufacturers sweeping claims. It's sort of like the gritty mix or FP 9-3-6. I can recommend these products for container culture & make help you believe they will work because I can explain why and how they work in a way that leaves you feeling satisfied that your odds of seeing them as beneficial are very good. The many others adding their voices don't hurt, either. OTOH, we can see that it's difficult to sell heavy, peat-based soils when we look critically at them from the plant's perspective - or with the aim of optimizing growth and vitality. There will always be as few people who LOVE these heavy soils for whatever reason, but when it comes to convincing the masses that they truly ARE the best from the plant's perspective, the conversation usually finds them coming up short because of inherent issues that are very difficult to remedy. The same can be said of certain types of fertilizers. As a result, FloraNectar ensures optimal metabolic rates during the flowering and fruiting phase when nitrogen levels have been reduced. How can they make this claim? How can they 'ensure' anything optimal? FloraNectar fulfills the additional energy requirements of your plants throughout all phases of growth and during stressful times of transition. How? Plants' only source of energy comes from the sun & is stored in the sugars, starches, oils, and other bio-compounds they manufacture themselves .... When it comes to horticultural products, if it SEEMS too good to be true, there's a very strong likelihood it isn't. It doesn't bother me that some one else might be convinced of the product's value, but personally, I need a lot more convincing & something with a little more substance to sink my teeth into before I take the hook. ;-) AL

"It looks like you switched to the Dyna grow 9-3-6 last year. Do you still use CRF in your soil mix if you are still using this fert?" Actually, I rarely use the CRFs at all. I like the near complete control the soluble fertilizers give me in containers. I'm pretty diligent about fertilizer applications, so I really don't need the CRFs to cover the 'in case I forget' base, or for any minor elements they might supply. I included them in the soil recipes to make it easier for others. As long as you're faithful to your nutrient supplementation program, you can easily do w.o them. If you think you'll be lax at times, I'd include them. 109 ppm alkalinity is nothing to be overly concerned about with fast container soils. It would be interesting to learn how the Ca and Mg levels are though. Alkalinity is related to pH because alkalinity (practically speaking and for our applications) determines your water's resistance to pH changes. If you have water 'A' at a pH of 9.0 with an alkalinity of 75 mg/L CaCO3, and water 'B', with a pH of 8.0 (a full point lower to begin with) and alkalinity of 300 mg/L CaCO3, it will take about 4 times as much 35% H2SO4 (sulfuric acid) to bring the water with the lower pH down to That aside - your water is better than mine, so I really doubt you'll have Fe/Mn issues if you're using either the 9-3-6 or MG. I will say though, that bark/peat soils have a potentially high Fe:Mn ratio, so applying Fe w/o Mn could easily create a deficiency of Mn. If I were in your shoes, I would do nothing until I actually saw evidence of an Fe deficiency. Then, I would acidify. Oh - the other likely cause of an Fe deficiency is too much P, which combines with the Fe to form an insoluble precipitate, so avoid the high P fertilizers - they are useless unless you are using them to supply the exact amount of P needed while intentionally (severely) limiting N. I used this strategy last year: I fertilized with regular dosages of 9-3-6 until the plants were well established. I then cut way back on the dosage and added ProTeKt to the solution. I rather like to envision that I used the added K (and got the benefit of the added silicon) to change the fertilizer ratio to 3:1:3 from a 3:1:2. This allowed me to reduce the dosage of N (reducing vegetative growth) while still having adequate P and K. Take care. Al

I was in terrible, about $30 K spread through five credit cards. Pay off the store cards first, because they have the highest interest rates, 22% or more. Then try to combine the remaining cards (visa and master) onto one card,check into credit union loans for debt consolidation, as a last resort use cash advances. Once you have all the debt tramsferred onto one card, decide how long you want to allow to repay the total. I got my debt down to $7000, and I paid it off at $500 per month. It took almost two years, but I was able to slowly climb out of the hole on my own. And, yes, I also cut up all my credit cards. You absolutely cannot keep adding to your debt. This year I got brave and I checked my credit score. I was satisfied that it was decent. And I have promised myself never,never,never, fall into the debt habit. If I really need something, like a car repair, I pay cash. Other than that,credit and debit cards are off-limits for me. I am fortunate that during this time, I had a good-paying job. I have a 17-year old daughter in high school who had jobs only the last two summers. She gets lots of credit card offers in the mail. I throw them out before she ever sees them. I had a friend whose son went away to college, took ski trips and lavished his family with expensive Christmas gifts. No one knew where he got the money. He graduated college with a $20,000 credit card bill.

Thanks iggy's mommy. Actually, I was talking to her last night (about finding what DD asked Santa for), I asked her what game, she didn't know but said it was the 1st search result that came up. I still couldn't figure it out (had been looking all day), told her I had already bought something for her, so she said she'd just get it herself. So I'm off the hook. I think I will save the SD card for mother's Day, but I'll give her the pillows I bought last Xmas and the crystal I got a couple of months ago. I thought the pillows would look nice in her LR at Xmas, and I *know* she can use some new wineglasses since hers are cracked and chipped (must be close to 50 years old, nothing special, just glass not crystal).