G'day to all! A Chamber of Commerce day here in central Georgia. Been out in the workshop building a table for a farmer friend of mine and starting to get in the short rows with it. The same table on the internet sells for $549 with shipping. Just a token of appreciation for all the help that my life long friends do for me and my family. I am chomping at the bit to get started planting. Corn will probably be the first thing I plant as it can handle a frost and keep on ticking. Yall mentioned earlier about planting cowpeas in the corn. I tried it, but didn't care for it as corn loves nitrogen and peas don't need much of it or you get a lot of vines and not many peas. Plus, my favorite cowpea is Red Rippers and they make a heck of a bush with runners. It gets too 'snakey' to harvest either of them! I live near Eastman, Georgia (Home of Stuckey's candies) and buy my seed at a local home garden center (Chas Mar) as they have a good selection and are reasonably priced compared to ordering from the internet. Soon I will be taking my wife down there to choose the peas and beans she wants me to plant this season. My wife was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, but loves the country. It does my heart good to see her so pleased at looking at the different kinds and making choices. Getting all sloppy now... lol Mr. Brown, I have a friend that lives in Avon Park, Florida (below Orlando) that loves gardening too and wonder if your 'winter home' is near there? George, we should keep quiet about the country life... hee hee We might not be in the country long if the word gets out... Shot

Hi Mike: Glad to hear from you, I'm too lazy to spray. Fifteen years ago, a neighbor saw me spraying roses with chemicals and told me, "why do you even bother growing roses with all these spraying?" Roses become unpopular when people associate roses with spraying. It's already a nuisance to spray my moldy shower stall with bleach/water solution. The pics I posted are FRESHLY dusted roses BEFORE another 20+ hours of rain. Today the rain washed most of the corn meal away, and the leaves are 100% green and healthy. My 10 Austins keep ALL their leaves green. I went and check the neighbors' disease-resitant roses, like Living Easy, and some single-petal species. They look horrible with yellow leaves after 5 days of constant rain, and no sun. It looks better dusting roses with corn meal using a flour sifter, and much faster than messy spray. My pics look bad because I threw corn meal by hand. The best thing about dusting with corn meal is the prevention of pathogenic fungi from germinating through the winter and inflicting more damage in the spring. It takes 10 days for the beneficial Trichoderma fungi to germinate from corn meal, and to suppress pathogenic fungi. I dusted August 1, September 1, September 17 (after 25+ hours of rain), and when I took the above posted pictures (Wed, Sept.28), after 3 days of rain. I finally see the sun this morning, Friday, Sept.30, after 5 days of constant rain.

The brand of corn gluten I use is called "Safe 'n Simple", a BLUE SEAL product. Their website (www.blueseal.com) will undoubtedly have a retail locater - just enter your Zip Code and it will tell you all the stores in your area that carry their products. From past experience, I've learned it's best to CALL each location first, just to make sure they have that specific product you want. . .

Thanks for the response Cobalt Blue. I'm not in the South East myself, but reading the discussions here, and using the organic program on my lawn, got me thinking about the effects of Corn Gluten Meal, and whether it might help on some rose problems. Unfortunatley, rose growing practices in much of the country is even more chemicially reliant that lawn care. Peace, Bill