I took over the yard care for my dad's yard last year.It was really bad, no matter how much I watered,it just looked bad. I then dug a section up and saw the water was only getting the top inch or so wet.I then used a thatch rake on it, and the change was amazing.But only lasted for about a month.This yard is 30x40 it has 2 chinese elms (wont die) 1 poplar 2 cottonwoods a palm tree all next to each other in a row. With a catalpa tree in the center.The entire yard has never been tilled in the 20 yrs he's lived there,with the exception of a 10x15 section.It has huge tree roots surfacing everywhere.The 10x15 section was tilled with multitude of roots that kept choking the blades.It has been seeded two times all seed planted grows well for about a month then dies.I did check for grass grubs but found no more.It only gets about 2 hr of sun. It did have grass grubs really bad, but was treated last yr for them.The same section is just riddled with all sizes of tree roots too.I have used scotts lawn products and ammonia sulfate. Is it possible for a yard to have 20 yrs of thatch build up? I have even had to dig up all the flowers and put them in pots,because they don't live long or are stunted in growth.Am at the point where the only thing keeping me from blowing it up is my dad's home. :(

Uhh, well, if you eat hot dogs, chances are you've eaten most of the things on that list, LOL! But seriously, I'd definitely draw the line at some of those things...assuming I knew what they were before I tried them. If they were being served to me, as a guest, I guess I'd buck up and eat them! Or at least try.... Looking at it objectively, if he finds all of those foods "weird and disgusting", Ray must have been raised at McDonald's! However, I suppose many of the things listed are probably weird to people (or generations, maybe?) who don't really know anymore where food comes from, or how to eat well! I'm sure poverty, and simple "use it up" philosophy made for lots of "interesting" recipes in every culture, too. I have tried many of the more "westerly" foods mentioned. Blood pudding is just blood sausage - you can buy it at any supermarket (though the more commercial varieties are usually way oversalted, I find). I admit, probably a pretty hard sell to generations raised on fast food and products from M&M Meats! A lot depends on what you were exposed to as a kid, and how adventuresome you are in later life. (We haven't travelled extensively, but it's sure depressing to hear about tourists in Milan asking for directions to the nearest McDonald's, LOL!) Crisps are just potato chips. Right here at home, Hostess used to produce some pretty bizarre "flavored crisps" - ketchup, dill pickle, bacon... There was some especially odd combination I can't recall right now, too. Tongue, cooked for sandwiches, and ox-tail soup are both delicious. Anyone of middle European extraction is probably familiar wiht head cheese; I never ate it as a kid, though my mom made it for my dad and sister, and they ate it with vinegar...which made me cringe at the time. Escargot, truffles, borsht, seafood - delicious! "Boudin" is just a generic term for sausage. Schmaltz is just chicken fat, used for flavorful cooking, in the same way that some people might use bacon grease. My brother-in-law, from Kansas, eats some of the odd things on that list - rattlesnake, frogs' legs (from huge bullfrogs), scrapple, Krispy Kreme doughnuts...ooops, maybe the last one's not on that list! Scrapple is pretty much like head cheese but with oat meal added - again, I declined to try it when my mom made a batch for him years ago! He ate it fried, which would make it a little more palatable, I think. Well, all cheese is based on mold, so blue cheese and roquefort are only a little weirder and more disgusting than the norm. Actually, what I find weird and disgusting is that tasteless stuff from the supermarket! Yeah, I guess there's no visible mold on it, or a funky crust that someone may find nasty, but it tastes of...absolutely nothing. Of course on the topic of strange foods, one always has to consider where eggs come from, LOL! Have you heard of the live food restaurants in the far east? DH's brother is an executive whose company markets products to the far east. Anyway, back before he became the president (and could get subordinates to do this kind of thing!), he used to have to do a lot of dinners with clients. Apparently, Korea is/was a very macho sort of culture for doing business, so he'd be taken to restaurants that featured live food - live fish or snakes in the soup, for example. And to get a sale, I guess you had to make a good "manly" impression....gulp. I don't know how popular this sort of thing was in the general culture, but it does exist.

hostasformez4 - Reasonable fear is things that actually hurt you. I have several of those. I am leery around hornets beause they have a harsh sting and I been stung. I fear heights. Falling can kill you and I have fallen from moderate heights a few times. Some snakes are poisonous, etc. Worms can't hurt you. They don't even have hard mouths. I routinely pick them up from the driveway after a rain and toss them into the wet damp soil around plantings and from soil when I have been digging into the bases of neighboring plants. They not only don't bite, they cannot bite. You could hold a worm in your hand for an hour and the only thing you might get is a damp hand. I know that may not help your wormophobia, but they really can't too anything remotely harmful to you.

Dee No worries about your review of the URI article. I was a bit put off by the lawn/imidocloprid thing myself. Usually the URI entomology articles are quite good, but that one wasn't. I did however, find a link through that article to Arbico Organics that sells a variety of different kinds of beneficial nematodes. I've been looking for Steinernema Carpocapse for some time. Not only does this nematode control grubs, it also is the only beneficial nem that will control foliar nematodes. Foliar nems are a real problem in Hostas and are hard to control. The link is below. Thanks for the Prarie Sun ID. Lost the tag on that one. H. Cracker Crumbs is a mini. I little bright gold thing. Bella Anna is always pink, regardess of pH. The only drawback is that it flops like Annabelle does. I need to get some Peony supports for it. I bought that one for $5 at Weston Nurseries in November after the pallet sale broke up. It's grown well. Enjoy the weekend. It's going to get hot next week. Remember, nothing lasts in the garden. Steve Here is a link that might be useful: Arbico Organics