Viv - If you're worried about the roots cooking because the gritty mix doesn't hold enough water, you might be surprised - especially because you can adjust the water retention by increasing the amount of Turface in the mix while decreasing the amount of granite, all the while keeping the bark fraction at 1/3 or less. I'm not trying to twist your arm - just wanted to be clear about the fact the gritty mic can hold a lot of water w/o holding perched water. As far as temperatures go, the gritty mix is going to be quite a bit cooler than heavier soils because it is more porous & takes advantage of evaporative cooling. I have several friends in FL & TX that use it with excellent results. ;o) I don't think the key to successful figs in containers lies in providing a spare (not rich) or rocky soil. The key is even moisture (damp not wet) with good drainage & no soggy parts of the container, along with a favorable pH and good nutritional supplementation program .... and sun. Beyond that, figs don't ask for much. ;o) BC - Most fir bark comes prescreened & ends up being better suited to the gritty mix because of its lack of fine particles, which would clog up all the large pores & negate the reason for using it in the first place; that's why I like fir bark in the gritty mix. Pine bark that's screened to the right size is also fine for the gritty mix, but unscreened pine bark in the size range dust up to 1/2" works best in the 5:1:1 mix, which is very good for figs. I'd be using the 5:1:1 mix if I didn't like the gritty mix better. BTW - I would have chosen a more clamorous name for those soils, but other forum members started calling them 5:1:1 and gritty, so I just went along. ;o) I'm sort of reading your post & posting as I go along, so if I sound a little disjointed, it's because I'm replying to you on a paragraph by paragraph basis. That some trees are found in sandy or even clay soils doesn't mean that a clayey or sandy soil is a good choice for the same plant in a container. As I mentioned to someone who took me to task upthread, containers have their own set of rules that govern how water behaves in containers - quite different than it behaves in the earth. Container soils are all about structure and the ability to retain that structure. It's also nice if they're made from materials that hold enough water, but I make a convincing case that aeration and durability should be our focus when we decide on a soil for our containerized plants. Where cuttings are concerned, the 'durability' isn't quite so important because the cuttings are soon bumped to larger pots, but aeration is a very significant issue and has considerable influence on root initiation and development/growth. About the ash - it would contribute to the vitality of the plant only if it supplied something essential the plant was missing. We can be sure that it contributes nothing physically - nothing to the soils structure, so it's value would have to be chemical, and whatever it supplies would have to be in short supply in the soil solution. Rock dust isn't soluble, and mineralization takes a long, long time. Heck - even bone meal (an organic amendment) breaks down so slowly in containers that it is considered insoluble by commercial growers. You can put together a very effective nutritional supplementation program by reading labels & making sure that you're supplying all 12 essential elements plants take up from the soil solution, or by using a fertilizer KNOWN to have them. I use Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 because it has ALL 12 essentials in favorable NPK ratio AND in a favorable ratio to each other. This allows you to fertilize at the lowest rate possible w/o nutritional deficiencies - a decided advantage for you and your plants. If you're using a fertilizer that DOESN'T have everything, it's doubtful that the volcanic ash can be relied on to pick up the slack. It's more likely it will simply duplicate some of what's already in the soil. If you're worried that your fertilizer is short some nutrients, it's better to change fertilizers to one that supplies everything (except perhaps Ca/Mg) than to try to supplement with elements or compounds aimed at eliminating a deficiency of only 1 or 2 nutrients. That usually leads to a loss of potential in the long run. The KISS method is best when it comes to fertilizers. I don't really have a final mix. I use the gritty mix for all my woody plants, from the smallest seeds to the largest trees (4 hand bonsai take two good men to move about), so if it's woody, it's either IN the gritty mix or about to GO IN the gritty mix. ;o) Whew! Al

I'll echo the thoughts not to skimp on the range, but I do want to share with you...we were going to get a Dual Fuel Wolf (36"). One big savings (a few thousand) would have been to drop that down to a gas only. And then our ultimate savings was to skip Wolf all together and go with a Lacanche, which is basically the same thing, but made in France and it has color :) Ok we didn't save much...but we'd been toying with upgrading the 36" to a 48" wolf and instead got a 55 1/2" Lacanche for the same price as the 36" wolf. With in that space we also got a warming cabinet, which saved a couple grand on the warming drawer we didn't need anymore, so there was still savings and we got all we'd ever want in a stove. In our rental we have the same amount of space and wanted a nice looking range so we went with an Aga, which was much less in $$ but still had the look we were shooting for in a 36" range. Skip, a good friend of ours has the Kenmore Pro Series Range and he likes it quite a bit. He's a chef and uses it to it's utmost. His comments in discussing our choice were that he'd like that extra oomph he'd get with a Lacanche but considering that this range came in their home, he's very happy with it. They have had repairs though I think three or four times??? Issues with heat regularity on the oven were a repeated problem and I think one of the burners had a clicking issue if I remember right (this is a conversation from a couple of years). I have eaten at their home many times...he can cook like a saint on that range :) Saint Chef that is heh heh Oh now on the hand made subway tiles...I built the poorhouse that pecanpie is residing in out of the things. I'm not going to tell you how much I love them...I do...but I could have done other things with that money. I'm not sure it was the best use of our funds for an item that I actually want to have take backstage to the other bling in the kitchen. I know KNOW you can acheive a fabulous backsplash look without spending the thousands I did...and the rent on the poorhouse just ain't cutting it to recoup those costs...Pecanpie...rent's going UP UP UP!

A follow up to share what I learned. The Smart HDTV is now working and delivering streaming movies to our bedroom via the WiFi. The only wires to the HDTV (Vizio) is the house A/C electricity. 1) Don't change the WiFi password in a router using the WiFi interface, use a Ethernet interface. This is based on experience with 5 year old Netgear (low end) Router still 54 mb capable 802.11n? I tried and the Router ended up locked up. The password change may gone astray in any case the Router could not access the internet for connection to either the Ethernet or the WiFi. Lights on the Router showed both the Internet and WiFi okay. I replaced with a newer Netgear which supports 150 mb and has more Internet based features. 2) My Smart HDTV (all?) does provide for inputting all keyboard characters via an on-screen keyboard(s). I got in trouble because the number only input on the hand controller made me decide to change my Router password to all numbers, which I did on the new Router. Still better, much faster putting in numbers from the channel keypad than to use the "Hunt and Peck" on screen keyboard. The (my) HDTV does not have a touch screen so one has to click the pointer around the keyboard to pick out inputs. This into my view only after I entered the all numeric password and hit the "OK" - the next screen was the subject keyboard - which I no longer needed, but did need later when logging onto Netflix. The operation involves being in a data field, input any leading numbers (best) from the hand held keys then hit the "OK". An on screen keyboard then appears. If nothing more is needed, i.e., all numbers, click down to the "Enter". Side benefit: then new Router specifies Windows 8 compatibility - the old one was XP, maybe Vista qualified and some older Routers have problems with newer OS. The HDTV showing a Netflix movie had no detectible breaks (buffering?). I thought maybe that is because of the new Router, as my W8 computer had (and still has) some breaks in Netflix streaming, not sure about other services. The W8 laptop still exhibits this problem. One last start up issue on the HDTV. After logging on to my WiFi I pushed the Netflix button on my controller and Netflix started to load but failed. I started over again, it failed again. I then tried the Amazon application and it too failed. I then when into "chat" with Netflix technical support (they came on quickly) after the exchange of information on the situation on my end the support person typed, try youtube, so I did, and it come up/worked. I typed back the smart HDTV must be learning or youtube is more fault tolerant, No response, but I then tried Netflix and it worked and continues to work.

Geraldo,,,When you say it takes more fuel and chemicals to produce corn than what the corn is worth, obvously you are following the same investigative reporting procedures as your infamous TV counterpart. I grew up on a 160 acre dairy farm in Greenford,Ohio that was totally self sustaining. Currently I am hobby farming on a small 60 acres farm in Youngstown, Ohio. Lacking the initial startup capital to buy modern farm equipment, we opted to get some basics on the used machinery market, a 1960 Mineapolis Moline 36 drawbar horsepower tractor ($2000), a 1966 ford 20 drawbar horsepower tractor (2.7gal/hr), 3 bottom 16" moldboard plow ($300 new), a tandem 9 ft disc ($50) and a two row John Deere corn planter ($300). The large tractor burns 5gal/hr and plows 6 acres per hour( $.83/acre), discs 12 acres per hour ( $.41/acre). The small tractor plants the corn at 5 acres/hr ($.55/acre) We practice crop rotation by planting corn one year, then timothy and clover hay for two years. The legumes provide a very lucrative cash crop of hay, which we bale in small bales targeted to the individual horse owner market. Five acres of hay will provide enough cash income to provide all the fuel used by our equipment for the entire season. In addition, the legumes replace the nitrogen that is taken out of the soil by the corn thus we have no need of buying fertilizer. (Though the concept of crop rotation is almost abandoned in commercial large scale farming in exchange for no till planting, chemical fertilizers and herbicides, in truth George Washington Carver originated the idea of crop rotation for self sustaining farming before the civil war. While tinkering with my antiquated equipment and outdated farming techniques will in no wise rival the fuel efficiencies of our commermercial counterparts on the mega farms with 200 horsepower diesel tractors, I can still produce an average of 100 bushels to the acre. (100 bu x 56lbs/bu = 5600 pounds of corn.) I currently have contracts to supply corn for home heating fuel through a small co-op of 20 homeowner neighbors. Based upon this little experiment I am discussing with 4 or 5 local farmers who are interested in joining our co-op to have a market for what they do best, produce corn. As a sideline, we are now applying for a Federal Gasohol" permit, which will allow us to own and operate a "Still" to manufacture corn whiskey, which will be used as the primary fuel for all our current gas burning engines. Federal law requires that all the distilled alcohol must be labeled as automotive fuel only, but no doubt someone may get a bit fueled up on a saturday nite tooo.