Glad I checked Trex on internet before having my Taos, NM, south-facing deck replaced with it. But I'm totally confused about which way to go, not only for it but also for a full-sun-exposure observation deck on top of a carport that will be built next spring. I hate the feel of Pergo underfoot, so I'm thinking I might not like synthetic. Anyone have anything to say about TimberTech or Moisture Shield, which one blogger elsewhere recommends? Would ipe or ironwood really be better than cedar or redwood in a sometimes-snowy, sometimes-rainy low-humidity environment? We're kind of lackadaisical about maintenance, so what's a decent level that we can get away with and have the deck last 8-10 years?

Here' an end of the year update to my All Natural versus Synthetic container growing experiment. The pictures below were taken on Sept 20, 2011 The previous posts are at: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/contain/msg06185055362.html http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/contain/msg0518184613195.html Overall this proved quite instructive for me with the following conclusions: 1. Forest mix prevents transplant shock wilting. Totally unexpected result. 2. Compost mix wilted some when transplanted, but not as much as the gritty mix. 3. The gritty mix needed to be fertilized and watered much more frequently then the organic mixes. Ultimately I gave up on the gritty mix containers. Since I watered with a drip system, I could not easily adjust them to water one container more than another. And if I watered a lot more the organic mixes would have been too wet. 4. One gritty mix container I dumped out and put in a 50:50 mix of peat and bark. Then fertilized with FP. This one did well, but since it had such a late start the pepper planted didn't get big. 5. The compost mix and forest mix pepper containers, ended up producing about the same amount of peppers. They did quite well and produced a lot. Even though the compost mix peppers wilted at the start of the season and basically didn't start growing until 3 weeks after the forest mix peppers, the compost mix pepper plants ended up bigger. But the forest mix pepper plants were stocker and stronger. The leaves were much tougher than the compost mix pepper plants. And the forest mix peppers were easier to keep fertilzed, didn't have to add the HLF as often to keep the leaves green. But since it is easier to prepare the compost mix and it produced the same amount of fruit, I'll use this one in the future for all my peppers. 6. The eggplant in the gritty mix was doing horribly, so I dumped it and made it into another pepper container with 50:50 peat:bark mixture, fed it FP and it did fine, but due to late start didn't produce much. 7. The eggplant in the compost mix didn't do so well. Another surprise. Last year the eggplant in the organic mix did well. But last year I purposely put the drainage hole 4" up the side of the pot. This meant that after watering, the bottom of the pot was in 4" of sitting water (just the opposite of a good drainage system). The pot this year, it had normal good drainage. However whenever I stuck my fingers into the mix after a complete soaking with a hose for over a minute, the mix about 4" deep would be completely dry! And this is in just a compost mix which doesn't get hydrophobic. I believe that the extensive and thick eggplant root system allowed the water to flow down the pot without wetting the mix. Next year I'll add some clay soil to the mix to see if this helps. I'll post pictures of this problem in a different post. Overall I came to realize that the gritty mix can be useful, but it probably shines most in wet climates, not as much in dry hot ones. Unless as some posters have indicated, you water a lot and fertilize regularly. Because of the watering problems of trying to combine a gritty mix and compost mix containers in the same drip system, I couldn't get a good comparison between which fertilizer system did better. The organic fertilizer (ashes and HLF) buckets, 2 peppers, 1 basil did great. Next year I'll just add one bucket with 50:50 peat & bark mix and use FP for that one. So I can see what difference the fertilizer makes. End of year, 6 containers. Front row left to right: 1. peppers in gritty mix. What happens when you aren't willing to water and fertilizer regularly as gritty mix requires. 2. Eggplant in compost mix, did ok, but not so good. Mix would not wet below about 3-4" from top no matter how much watered. 3. Basil in compost, did great as usual. Mix did wet ok, much better than eggplant pot. Back row left to right: 1. Peppers in compost mix, did well, lots of peppers. 2. Was eggplant in gritty mix, but dumped half way through and replanted with peppers in peat:bark mix, fertilized with FP. Did good, but too late for good harvest. 3. Peppers in forest mix. Did great, no transplant shock. Plants stocky and tougher than compost mix pepper. Harvest about the same. Peppers in forest mix. Pepper in compost mix.

Junelynne, I tend to agree with Leigh here. Why take something when you are perfectly healthy now? I started having signs of perimenopause at 39, and when I started having extremely heavy periods for weeks on end, I went on the pill. I'm 44 now. I recently went off the pill (so far so good, no periods, no cramps, no sore boobs, for two months!)...my aim is to go through menopause without a single medication or supplement, unless there is a clear medical reason to do so. My husband is a doctor (radiologist, so he's fairly clueless about primary care) and was a little leery initially. Doctors are just conditioned to prescribe (or take themselves) "something" to "cure" a problem, or perceived problem. I am sure many doctors prescribe meds and procedures because its easy money. Also because many patients will go away feeling uncared for and dissatisfied if all the doctor tells them to do is let nature take its course, or lose weight, exercise & eat right. But many docs are simply inculcated in medical school. I see this with Mick, and his coworkers. (Funny, I am in much better health than him, and I barely ever even take a vitamin--he takes tons, and medicates himself for every little thing.) Anyway...I am also active and eat very well. My mother likewise. She went through meno at 44. She is now 68, does yoga and walk/runs five miles every day. She steadfastly refuses to take anything, and is healthy as a horse. She smoked for over 20 years, and I recently quit. If women are getting osteoporosis more than 50 years ago, its probably because so many people in this country are fat, eat junk, and don't get off their butts to exercise. And because advertising scares them, they take a pill. My .02.

The best way to handle menopause is to educate oneself about it and look at it as a natural step in a woman's life. We tend to over-medicalize everything from the menstrual cycle to childbirth to menopause. Yes I had hot flashes, yes I was a bit irritable and edgy for the first year but I knew these things were normal and they too would pass and they did. Took nothing. Tried to keep busy,eat healthy and take time for myself. On the other hand I know women who were put on HRT before they even had one side effect of menopause. It was to "prevent" all the bad stuff they were told they would get. Never bothered to wait to see if they would even have a need for the drug. Of course there are a relatively small number of women who may need chemical assistance. But most women would be just fine if they didn't buy into the everything a woman does is an illness carp. Anything "natural" that works is probably doing the same amount of harm that HRT drugs can. Unless it's some snake oil placebo so many are fond of taking. But if you're taking a natural product full of estrogen , it's still estrogen.