the op's orig question is "My tomato plants are starting to go one by one. Has anyone tried composting them? Are they good for the compost bin? " seems like a yes or no answer will do right? my executive summary there is this huge discussion about soil inoculation, disease supression and calls for documented scientific experiments. with links to here & there "A number of people that I correspond with in Ireland, France, New Zeland, Australia, Spain, Germany, all have solved plant disease problems in their soils by composting the diseased plants and putting that compost back into their soils." so one response is "As to the poster's original question I honestly don't know the proper answer." then in the same post goes on to say "I'm going to err on the side of not composting my tomato plants in a compost pile specifically intended for spreading in the veggie garden." in the very next sentence "I would not be surprised though if the composting process whether it be hot or cold does some how take care of diseases regardless." but you will not compost them? hmmm why not? is this lawyerese at its finest? or a run for politcal office? prob doesnt even realize just how contradicting these two statements really are so the people trying to help go away with hurt feelings but live ______ every after

Well, thanks, Elliot! I think Spring has been discontinued here around W. PA.! Did you see my answer to your earlier post, up above? I should have put it down here, but old age----! My pickup gets 35 mpg, so it does well in that section. I bought it as a wrecked vehicle, fixed it up, and it is my daily driver. I had worked as an auto body repairman/ painter, as my main occupation. Then there was the auto and lawn mower fixin, so that bcame my job when i retired. I joined the local Volunteer Fire Co. back in 1960. did it all-held several positions. Still a member! I got interested in Country and Bluegrass music, and learned the 5-string banjo, and am still playing it. In the summer, we have several Bluegrass weekends, at various locations. Some pay, some free, and Sundays, twice a month, there is an indoor music gig we attend. Also, an every Tuesday Bluegrass session at a Bar, in Blawnox, PA. near Pittsburgh. Good that somebody checks in here. I always liked to contact the members. I wonder if Jen is still around? Haven't seen anything from her in a while. Wasn't it Jen who was chasing the Jersey Devil?

Cheers RockPine! Great minds think alike. Just one clarification for those of you using a "sharpening" steel - your knives will cut better when you're done using it but it doesn't sharpen the blade, it realigns the cutting edge and makes it straight. It can't reshape a dull blade that's worn down. A dull blade requires a sharpener that can cut away metal and restore the 20-degree angle of each side of the edge. If all you're using is a steel, you're in for an epiphany if you actually sharpen your blades some day. My mother used to tell me "there's nothing more dangerous in a kitchen than a dull blade," and by that she wasn't referring to a dim chef :)

Happy Father's Day to me. My wife got me this E-GO leaf blower on sale a few weeks ago and somehow managed to hide it from me until today. This blower does ROCK as reeljake said up front. It is surprisingly quiet. It clearly was moving stuff around at the low setting, but I boosted it up to about 1/3 for a little better/quicker moving around. The Turbo setting is like the insane setting in a Tesla. When I pushed the Turbo button I could feel the intake sucking at my shorts trying to inhale them. The cars are in the driveway, but if they weren't, I could probably clear the entire driveway from one spot with the Turbo button pressed. I think I'm locked into the E-GO brand now. I have their chainsaw, although I've never used it. We bought that to help clean up after Hurricane Harvey last summer, but the neighbors got the yards cleaned up fast with heavy equipment. The E-GO 15-inch string trimmer looks very slick with the auto load feature for the two strings. My birthday is coming!!