Hum, It really is a matter of personal choice..Usually anything will grow in just about any type of soil mix if it is just for a couple of months..But then you have to decide how long you want your soil mix to hold up, and how will it affect your plants, and your growing area. For me, no matter where I lived and what I plant, and for how long,I would still use the 5.1.1 mix and use Foliage Pro.... I like to get the best growth out of all my plants, even if they are growing for one season..Big roots, massive growth, large yields, and very happy plants.. That is my idea.. But if you decide to go another route, I can't believe that I am saying this, I would buy some bagged soilless mix,and depending on how long you want your mix to hold up, add perlite or some other sort of ingredient to make your mix drain well. I use to use everything from cow manure, to fish, and compost in my containers for vegetables, with tons of perlite, and they seemed to grow ok, that is the ones that out grew their pots and died before the first frost. You can pretty much use any type soil, depending on what results you want.. My father shovels dirt out of the ground and uses this..He gets about a month or two out of his plants, and they are pretty much stunted compared to mine, always turning yellow before summers end,with less yield.. So, I would decide just how vibrant and healthy do you want them to be..I would question just how much yield do I want? How long do I want them to stay wet? Do I want healthy roots that breathe to create huge plants? How long do I want to soil to hold up in structure? From there, you will pretty much decide what will be best for you. You might get a hundred different recipes and mixes suggested, which will only confuse you. So ask yourself what is expected from your plants, and realize the best thing you can do for them is to provide a good porous, well draining soilless mix, that will hold up over time. A mix that will not compact around the roots, and that will stay evenly moist while allowing the roots to take up the nutrients needed with no problems because of the good gas exchange you will want your mix to provide, every time you water.. The 5.1.1 mix does all that and more,while the Foliage Pro provides all the nutrients that plants need, that most fertilizers do not.. Good luck Mike..:-)

If the fine bark mulch packs the water doesn't penetrate. You might try poking a few aeration holes with a garden fork or mixing in something chunkier, but that sounds like a lot of work. I don't know of an easy solution. We have places at our camp where years of bark mulch + plant roots have made it nearly impossible to dig a hole to plant bulbs in the fall or spring bedding plants yet the weeds will sprout & grow on top. We're improving one bed at a time with compost, used coffee grounds, shredded leaves, topped with the arborist chips like what we've done around our home. You might try raking it out further away from stems of plants so they get more moisture from the falling rain. Piling it up a bit thicker around plants that don't mind thick mulch. Be careful around rhodies who don't. I don't know if it helps to describe our gardens as we have a similar climate since I'm in western WA. That dry spell a few weeks ago was unusual and I did water more than usual because I had seedlings and transplants that needed our usual May drizzle. I keep about 2-4" of mulch either composted manures + animal bedding (usually sawdust or wood shavings) + aged arborist wood chips. I stopped using bark after reading about the packing problem or hearing Ciscoe Morris talk about it. I can't remember which. I liked the uniform look of the orange bark, but got used to my new methods and after a few weeks of growth in spring I no longer see the mulch no matter what I use. My gardens have matured and I also grow plants closer, so less mulch is needed. I have to really look closely to see the soil on the beds this time of year if that helps describe how closely. I can only mulch after November or before April or I can't get in the beds to walk or apply it. I do a poke test with my finger before watering and as long as we have some rain every week I can skip it. During July & August I will put on the sprinkler over the grass & let it go beyond to the rhodies, hostas, & daylilies, but not much else gets watered except for edibles. It sounds like you will figure out what to do about the bark & poking the soil is always the best way to tell if the soil needs water. This year we've laid out some sprinkler hoses for some of the strawberries, rhubarb, potatoes, & apple trees so I won't have to hand water them and since we ran out of soaker hoses as well as water pressure. I alternate what gets watered on what days come our summer drought. I was thankful we had them handy when we had those 2 weeks of dry warm weather a few weeks ago just as the berries were growing larger. Hope that helps & happy gardening to you, Corrine

Hi - I'm thinking the 'snap' may be due more to ambient temperature than anything inherent in the chocolate - do you store it in the fridge as the recipe directs? Or maybe...2 pounds spread on 11X17 baking sheet sounds rather thick - maybe use 2 sheets & spread thinner? I make almond bark w/ Sunspire organic choc. chips & a bit of fresh vanilla bean seeds(split bean & scrape out) &/or a few drops orange oil plus toasted almonds - spreading the melted mess onto parchment paper as thinly as possible. It comes out quite hard. Perhaps it's the white chocolate in the above recipes - doesn't that have a higher cocoa butter content? FWIW, HTH

I made it for a dinner party for eight on Saturday. Instead of using unsalted peanuts, we used extra-large Virginia peanuts--very crunchy--and broke the whole nuts into halves, Did not chop the nuts. We didn't tell anyone that the chocolate chunks we offered them after dinner contained bacon until after they had tasted it. No one said "bacon!" They just liked it. After we told them, some said they tasted and liked the bacon, others (I among them) thought that the bacon flavor should be stronger, maybe increasing the amount by 50%. We served it with small bowls of good vanilla ice cream to give a milder flavor for balance. Also had some nice vintage port in small glasses. I'll make this again, but not soon. It's super-easy to make. Robert