Figs: You'll be much further ahead of the game if you forget about fertilizing and give them a long cold rest for the winter, placed directly on the floor of an unheated garage or buried against the foundation of a heated building on its north side, away from sun and wind. They'll wake in spring with almost all of their stored energy, rather than showing you a weak spring push because their reserves steadily declined over winter due to unfavorable indoor conditions. If you DO decide to overwinter indoors, you'll find compost to be a woefully inadequate NPK source. If you're looking for best results for container culture, any commonly found soluble fertilizer in a 3:1:2 ratio (24-8-16, 12-4-8, 9-3-6 are all 3:1:2 ratios) will efficiently deliver most or all of the elements essential to normal growth (depending on what you choose) and allow you to keep TDS/EC at the lowest levels possible without deficiencies - which would be a significant plus in dry indoor conditions because the low TDS/EC will facilitate water uptake; but again, the best course for the figs would be to give them the rest they want. Al

Around us we are best off sticking with common, basic veggies: red tomatoes varieties that can take alot of handling without turning to mush, not unusual colored, soft heirlooms (much as I might love them) slicing cucumbers, green peppers, red radishes, yellow or bicolor sweet corn Foods that have a long harvest window are good. You can leave them a week...or three, if the pantry doesn't have a big need at the time ie, carrots, onions, beets (roots and greens), potatoes (also can harvest any of these when you have enough time and help to clean them up) Small red fleshed watermelons that fit in small apartment refrigerators are popular. Veggies that don't take forever to harvest....we will do few if any beans or peas unless we have ALOT more volunteer harvesters, also not too many cherry tomatoes which can be overwhelming to harvest Find out what client mix is usual at the pantry. We had one pantry that was unable to give away the many hot peppers we had. A volunteer lived near another pantry that was thrilled to get them and was able to use 20 pounds or more in a week. Herbs were not taken much at our pantry. I imagine this would depend on the area and clients, also. I was actually asked not to bring anymore. Try not to be offended if they turn something down. You and I just will not always know what their clients can use. Talk with the pantry staff when you bring produce in, find someone who will honestly (and kindly) tell you if your donation is great for them or isn't really of use. I found some thanked me profusely even for produce that they were overloaded with at the time. There was a good chance my donation would not be used while it was still fresh. Once I started questioning more, I was able to split the harvest between two places and supply each with things more suited to their needs.(Took me awhile to get over the rather rude way one pantry volunteer turned away my beautiful chiles!) Bring good looking produce. Send the culls home with the gardeners. If you are trying to encourage people to eat healthy, you have to make it attractive. Don't give the pantry the rejects. Hope your project goes well. Many people will appreciate having fresh produce available to them.

Lynxe, this is getting really redundant. It's not a question of whether one can compensate for the deficiency. I suppose if one wanted to, they could live on nothing but supplements. Those on that very low calorie diet trying to hyper extend longevity essentially do that. But that is not to say it's optimal for good health or sustainable by the vast majority of people. As I said before, the issue is that the strict vegan diet, by itself is not complete. Meaning that it is not fundamentally consistent with the full nutritional requirements of the human body as it has evolved over the past tens of thousands of years. This, on its face says that it is not optimum. Further, as I said before, we know about the need for B-12, and the challenges of adequate protein, iron, zinc, iodine, DHA, calcium in following that diet. But it's what we don't know that's missing in that diet that could be harmful. We went for decades lauding a low to no fat diet and it wasn't until they looked deeper into the kinds of fats and the metabolism of those fats and things like essential fatty acids that they realized the low/no fat diet was not optimum. Not only for the required fats, but also for the sustainability of the diet as fats help keep one from feeling hungry. Further the replacement of fats with sugars, as many food cos. did to try to keep their food palatable, was very damaging to the waistline and blood sugar levels. Moreover, on a personal level, I never went vegetarian but approached that and found myself not doing well as I wasn't getting adequate protein (suffered hair loss and weak nails) and I was getting excess carbs which showed up as belly fat and cellulite. When I went back to eating a more balanced diet, all of that improved as well as my muscle tone and energy levels. I know quite a few other people who tried vegetarianism and went back. I know others who have tried veganism and went back to vegetarianism because they felt better and were doing better. You can argue that it was because they weren't doing it right, but the reality is, given how much time and effort they were willing to put into it, including some animal products in their diet was more effective and sustainable for them. If veganism works well for you, then that's wonderful. If you're willing to invest the time and effort to get sufficient variety/supplementation to keep your diet complete, that's great. I'm happy with whatever works for anyone that keeps them healthier. But given that only 2% of Americans are even self-described as vegan (and we don't know how many of those are long-term vs. dabblers) and given the nutritional risks/effort required to maintain health on that restrictive a diet, as well as the anecdotal experience of those who have tried it especially for the long term, I believe it is not the best diet for the vast majority of people. -------------------- This video discusses multigenerational veganism, or the lack thereof. The link below is a blog post by a doctor on her actual experience with patients who pursue veganism (vs. the theoretical) and how rare it is to find someone who will maintain the diligence required for long term health with veganism. If you do a search on "long-term veganism" you'll find lots more. Here is a link that might be useful: Dr. Clouthier on Veganism

My sympathies to the OP. We had a family stay with us for 2 weeks that included two children who are allergic to EVERYTHING. We are very close to them. The kids are allergic to milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, chocolate and don't like much of anything else. Cooking was very difficult. I had to buy soy milk for them according to their mother, and yet it was never opened. The youngest, 10 yrs. old, (allergic to milk) stuffed herself with bread lathered with butter, sometimes licking the butter off and adding gobs more. We took the children out to eat to give the parents some adult time at a nice restaurant. The mother had to look up the menu for the kids on the computer and tell us what they could order. No breaded chicken sandwich since it might have been dipped in egg. At home they eat Eggos for breakfast. The mother had to read every package list of ingredients at our home. On the other hand, the kids have never had a teacher they approved of (private school) so the parents are always storming off to the school over some infraction the children tattle about. They also have asthma. When we visited them she made the girls take a hit from an inhaler before leaving for swim lessons. We all know inhalers are not preventative medicine. My DH (retired teacher) very calmly told the mother that her children are special to her, but the teacher has over 20 students. Unfortunately the kids do think they are very special and should be catered to. A lot of this "I am special" has become pervasive in our society. Manners are no where to be found. Yes, it is a new generation. My parents would have been mortified by this behavior in children. I simply bite my tongue.