"The reason Miracle Gro is thought to be bad for the soil is that it is not food for soil microbes." This isnÂt true. Microbes might not use the elements specifically for fuel, but they use them to carry out biological functions just like every other plant or animal. "The salty chemicals in Miracle Gro are not in any of the food groups (protein, vitamins, minerals, or carbohydrates)." This isnÂt true either. The minerals in fertilizers are minerals and are used by plants to make proteins, vitamins, and carbohydrates. As I said above, microbes use them as well. The deleterious effects of chemical fertilizers are way way overblown. Yes, if you inject anhydrous ammonia into the plow layer of your soil you are going to wipe out the microbe population and essentially sterilize the soil for a couple of weeks. If on the other hand you spray your yard with miracle grow in solution you are only going to stimulate microbes that will use the available nitrogen to burn carbon (organic matter) for fuel. " "Salts" defined in simplest terms, simply means that it dissolves in water." That is not a good definition. Many salts are considered insoluble such as phosphate rocks. A better definition is that a salt is a cation (positive charge because it is missing an electron) and an anion (negative charge because it has an extra electron) joined together (the positive and negative charges being drawn together). Table salt for example is a sodium cation bound with a chloride anion. Potassium sulfate, ammonium nitrate, etc are soluble salts that are used for fertilizers because they are composed of elements that plants use as nutrients.

Marineguy: Diesel fuel (#2 Fuel oil) and the genre (including the range of JPs) are "light oils" and as such do not break down or "destabilize" as quickly as Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC). The temperature of the storage vessel, whether the storage vessel has freedom of exchange with outside atmoshere (simple venting), or if the vessel has controlled head pressure (non vented) has much to do with the "shelf life" of these fuels. I would suppose that if the proper storage method were employed, light fuel oils could remain viable for decades on end. But then questions like, "Why store this stuff when we can just make some more?" might arise. As an active member of USMC (Thank you Sir!) you might be able to put out some "feelers" about long term storage of fuels as addressed by our U.S. military. I have heard that our military has (or did have) ships loaded with all types of gear, equipment and vehicles docked at Diego Garcia in "very long term storage" conditions. I don't know if fuel for the vehicles is/was stored as well. You might be able to find out something about "fuel storage" if you can throw some questions in that direction. Just a rambling series of thoughts.

"Have heard that unsold eggs in stores are sent back and reboxed with new dates. Not sure if this is still happening." Hmmm, this reminds me of a story a friend tells, of when he was putting himself through law school working in the butcher dept of a supermarket (back in the stone age when all supermarkets had real butcher depts). At the beginning of each day, the packaged ground meat that didn't sell the day before was re-opened and re-ground with the new day's meat. How's that for a recipe for cross-contamination??? I notice my supermarket has fairly recently begun to discount a lot of fresh meat/fish/poultry items that are really close to their "best by" dates. I wonder what they used to do with them? (That's a rhetorical question - I'm not sure I want to know.)

Let me put it this way-- I've used sealer before that was WELL beyond its shelf life and had no adverse effects. That was before I knew better. Not sure that I'd do it now, just for safety's sake.