Cool! I'm a changeling (I always suspected as much ;) http://onnachance.com/quiz/fae5.gif I tend to be more optimistic than depressed, but there are elements of me in there! Problem is, I'd probably answer questions differently at different times, as different whims hit. Your avitar is definitely sexier than mine...'cept you might want to address that little chin hair...and get some sun. Thanks for the fun!

michael, is working the scare monger field it seems, he has unrealistic phobia about what we need to do to help the planet, we do not live in those old time in england where hygiene was the issue and poor health due to poor food regime, the poor scavenged out of bins, the rich ate rotting meat heavily spiced. we had a composting loo and also a bucket system we buried the bucket contents weekly and grew food trees over it, the composting toilet went to gardens etc.,. we shared much food within our extended family and with friends and neighbours. no complaints ever no one got sick let alone deceased like is being suggested, yet you support sewerage being recycled and returned to you and others as drinking water, the humus from the sewerage farm (where all waste goes eg.,. hospital, industrial teh list could go on and on). the humus gets mixed into the composted stuff that people grab from refuse collection points, it gets added into potting mixes and garden supplements, in that stuff from the tip they pour in liquid waste from all sorts of medium industries. so move on hey you are beating a worn out drum, think of the planet that is being raped by gov' and wealthy manipulators do your bit. this fear factor thing has been going for at least 15 years, i have said these words way back then. and guess what we are still here as healthy as ever. and whilst we don't have a composting toilet(would love to have one) i wee in a bucket and we use all our second hand water. the genie is in your thoughts. old england is past history. we have a life.

Brad - if you thought what I said was, adding Mg is = to snake oil and will ruin soils in the long run, you don't really understand what I was trying to convey. Simply put, thinking that increasing the amount of Mg your plant is getting based on the assumption that more Mg is necessarily better, is far more likely to end in loss of potential rather than gain. Increasing the level of Mg to eliminate a known Mg deficiency is about the only scenario I can think of other than increasing the Mg supply beyond what would normally be reasonable to fix one of those unusual situations where an excess of Ca is blocking uptake of Mg. In addition, the color of hydrangea blooms is an entirely different topic and much more complicated than the discussion about adding Mg to soils in willy nilly fashion. From something I wrote a few years back on another thread: "Three different pigments - chlorophyll, flavonoids, and carotenoids - mixed in different proportions, give color to plants. By mixing and matching the three pigments, an endless variety of colors can be created. E.g. most reds are the result of mixing orange carotenoids with magenta flavonoids. Cellular pH (not to be confused with soil pH) has a profound effect on plant color. Even most experienced gardeners think that lowering soil pH produces blue blooms in hydrangea. Technically, it is only a part of the equation. Lowering soil pH makes aluminum ions more available for plant uptake. The aluminum is then available to bond with pigment compounds (anthocyanin, the colored component of flavonoids) changing the way color is reflected. Our perception is blooms changing from pink to blue. The anthocyanidin group is what makes apples, autumn leaves, roses, strawberries, and cranberries red. They make blueberries, cornflowers, and violets blue. They also make some grapes, blackberries, and red cabbage purple. One of the things that changes the color of anthocyanins is the level of acid or alkali (the pH) in the cell surrounding the pigment. As cellular pH increases, the pigment changes structure and reflects different wavelengths of light. The anthocyanin reflects bright pink in acid cell environments, reddish-purple in neutral and green in more alkaline cells. When I write things it's never from the perspective of one size fits all; and when I disagree, it's usually because I see someone offering a 'one size fits none' perspective that has the potential to diminish someone else's growing experience, either because it's simply wrong or not qualified to the degree it can simply be overlooked. Al

The commercial hydroponic product "Floralicious" promoted as "enhances flavor" & boosts "complex secondary aromatic compounds" is not available everywhere ( I worked in Asia 2 years). It includes 2% humic acid, which has a cation exchange capacity (CEC) +/- 10 times greater than normally found; chelated multiple (++) charged trace mineral ions get more uptake with improved membrane permiability. If you take the leachate (distinct from aerobic brewed worm casting "tea") from worm bins' drainage run off this has humic acid (as would the tea). The leachate pH can be 7+ ; make sure bin conditions have not gone anaerobic. Alternately, if you have soft shale (or soft lignite/leonardite) you can bring up the pH to 6.5 - 8.0 (say 25% sodium bicarbonate, or less if use lye/sodium hdroxide) to soak it crushed for 2 days agitated in water (say 50%) to get humic acid into solution & then precipitate the unwanted elements. In N. Thailand (Chiang Mai was sleepy in mid-1980s) you might only have decaying fresh water drift wood to chop up & work with; the guideline is if that old tree carbon's soak water stains yellow you've got humic acid. When working with hard water it will require more source substrate & soft water dissolves the humic acid more readily. (The carbonates affect the process & alkaline/hard water classification is not the same as a solution's pH reading.) Always highly dilute humic acid, because an excess of the plant growth hormones it carries can diminish N,P,K uptake. Another ingredient of the de-" licious" product is a soil organism to regulate root microbial population & keep the undesireables away; it is bacterial innoculation with Bacillus subtilis. Bacillus subtilis encompases a wide choice of varieties. Apart from the beneficial human medical implications of different strains, it is commonly living in one form or another in the soil. The USDA maintains a culture bank of freeze dried strains in vials for the public & many universities around the world will be experimenting it. (Scientific supply companies sell cultures of it to secondary school classes for students to learn how to culture benign bacteria in a petri dish with soy broth nutrient.) As for the other components: hydrolysed protein is meals of blood (say 50%) , fish bone (say 50%) & poultry feather (say 20%) individually dissolved in enough citric acid ( say 50% each extraction) to lower the pH to free their nitrogen (not as nitrate); seaweed (washed) is the multiple trace minerals source; & mannitol (a long chain carbohydrate, such as those found in mushrooms) is a "sugar" for the bacterial growth that acts acidic to help balance the pH.