Ye gads! I wonder why some of this stuff stays around. There is a difference between corn gluten (not gluton) meal and cornmeal; the corn gluten meal is the (somewhat effective) proteins plus other materials milled off whole cornmeal, and which actually contains no gluten. It does work as a pre-emergent herbicide in some situations. Do your research to find how, and rather than doing it the lazy way on most organic gardening forums, read abstracts from university research papers and university horticulture forums (I suggest the WSU Extension forum from Puyallup, WA). You can also find whole grain cornmeal at some better grocery stores. It has the corn gluten intact, if you want it. Corn meal is good food for snails, some rodents and insects. Cornmeal and corn gluten meal are both good substrates for growing some kinds of fungi for research purposes. Just get some moist, perhaps on a pot of wet soil, leave in the shade, keep it moist and/or covered, and see what grows. As a pre-emergent herbicide, cornmeal is not so effective, and under just the right conditions (look up elsewhere how to do it right) corn gluten meal is a good pre-emergent herbicide, even if a bit $$. There is not much guarantee that your corn gluten meal would be OMRI certifiable, for most of it is made from GMO field corn. After all, since most of it goes into animal feed, and the feed producers care mostly about the bottom line, why ask for non-GMO corn sources? net-net: do better research in finding the papers and abstracts, and read critically. Then you won't be panicking about where to find cornmeal or corn gluten meal for your garden. As for tomato spot disease, just try to find supporting studies on cornmeal for preventing that...you'll likely only find anecdotal reports from some home gardeners who have been successful one season, and attribute that success to the cornmeal, but have no control against which to compare.

We can often have so many problems on the internet. We all make our own statements, reply, then suddenly there are problems. Person "A" said something that I did not pay much attention to. Person "B" said something that I can really comment on. There is nothing wrong with my response to Person "B", but suddenly Person "A" who I have long forgotten about is as angry as can be. What I have said in my response to Person "B" has been considered an insult by Person "A". Everything is twisted and distorted, and a disagreement begins. If you stayed with my logic above, my solution has been to try to pay more attention to those who post even when those posts don't concern me, and then to mention names when I specifically respond. I also try to explain myself a little better to keep from accidentally flaming a person. One more thing is that I need to be very clear when I don't want criticism. Sometimes when I ask for suggestions, I only want suggestions for one thing. If I don't make that clear, I can get really offended if I think that someone is trying to tell me how to live or how to feel. Vickie, I doubt if you have ever been a troll. Trolls intend to be disruptive. What you have described is just an internet problem. Sammy

Hi, Here is my kitchen. I never put hot things directly on my marble. But that has nothing to do with the acid washing or the sealer. Its just not a good idea, as almost any stone could crack from thermal shock, especially if it has a fissure or weak vein. The cutting board next to my stove stays there always to act as a landing pad for hot pots. Plus it adds warmth to the white on white color scheme, acts as a work surface, and looks pretty with the floor! BTW-Another reason to have some handy boards is that carrara marble "bruises" if you knock it with a pot or even put a coffee mug down too hard. It'll get a little white fleck that will never go away, caused by the crystals in the stone getting crushed. Hence the round board near the coffee maker! The marks are usually not very noticeable but I dont want to tempt fate. Again, these marks will happen in any carrara, regardless of how its finished or sealed. I hope this info helps. i'm happy to try and answer any other questions.

Thank you for the kind words. Oladon, I think I mentioned somewhere before that I managed to catch the Townsend guys while they were trimming trees along the power lines and asked them to dump the mulch by my garden. They were happy to do so. 3 years of mulch for free, if it doesn't all rot before then. I can't say what it will do to the pH of my soil, but I have more clay than I'd like so I'm willing to make some pH amendments if it will help it break up the clay once I till it in after the garden has run its course this year. And I suspect that my garden is quite high in nitrogen because while I do have tons of veggies coming, the tomatoes are a little leafier than expected. But I'd attribute that to the truckload of goat manure I shoveled onto the garden before I planted. This is my first year growing in that area so I'm trying to build up the soil with mulch and manure, even if it means that soil conditions aren't yet ideal. I'll have it where I want it in another year or so. Also, the main idea was to not have to till the garden for the whole summer, as I don't own a tiller and have to borrow one. The mulch has been doing a great job of keeping most of the weeds down. I adopted an 'as much as I can' approach for application, meaning there are spots around certain plants where I do have to pull weeds, but at least they aren't out of control and hey, no tilling. As for the fill crops, I didn't do radishes but I do have basil, carrots and onions. I ended up planting them in short, compact rows near the center of the garden and mulched around the rows. weeds have overtaken my onions but I'm to blame for that, as I should have been more proactive in pulling them. I would highly recommend mulching the garden if you can manage it. It's kept things neater and more manageable so far. Just do some research beforehand to find out if it will throw you pH out of whack later on. And this is off-topic, but Leila, one of the figs you sent me is currently planted on the South side of my house and is doing great. A few weeks ago it started to put more branches off of the main stem so I will be taking cuttings from it later this year. If you remember, you also sent me a half dozen wild strawberries. I currently have them in a corner of my herb bed and they're putting out runners and spreading exponentially. They have produced quite a few tiny berries. Not enough to be considered a crop but wow are they ever delicious.