Annabeth - if it were only that easy, but I don't believe thorns will avert Miss Belle. She chewed down the Knock out with no problem and she chews old blue spruce branches that I can't even bear to hold in my bare hands! Ouch! I hope your pups continue to leave your roses alone. Good dogs! Roseseek, I know just the sort of dog you have. My late Giant Schnauzer was the same way, only she had the size and muscle to try to herd me indoors when she had had enough of the outside world. ;-) Hoovb, I've lived through some awful indoor destruction by puppies and young dogs. I think the most insulting was the Bouvier I had back in the 70's who ate the dog training book from the coffee table. So much for "Walkees!" (I just love your two dogs, BTW and could see myself forgiving them almost anything, even that kitchen molding.) Jeri, your long haired Dalmatians are beautiful - elegant dogs. I wish I was home with my dogs more than not, but someone has to work to buy the dog food here. ;-) All the same, even if I were at home as on the weekends, I could not stand to spend hours outdoors. No, 20 minutes or so of winter weather at a time is plenty for me, thank you. Meanwhile Forrest, the Labradoodle seems NEVER to get cold!

Hi Everyone! I know I've been missing in action lately. Sorry about that but I am slowly coming back from a major surgery I had back in February. One more surgery to go this year and if that goes well I am good to go. Enough of that. I've missed you all but have peeked in here and there, to see what you are all up to. I haven't done much in the garden this year, but am finally able to get out and at least smell the roses, literally, so am happy about that. The sun has been shining on and off, but we are expecting some rain needed this coming weekend. Today I managed to make some fragrant Vanilla Chai tea this afternoon that is so good with sugar and a spot of cream--yum! Have any of you ladies tried it? It's made by Bigelow and is my new favorite tea!!! Also made some individual shortcakes using a package of Hostess shortcakes that I filled with fresh fruits and drizzled a little cassis over them........ so yummy!! Hugs to all my cottage garden friends. XX Becky

Chris, you are welcome to send me the complete reorganization you have in mind. If you are concerned it might give Board members a coronary, then send it to me by email. My email address is available on this site. I promise you I won't have a coronary, even though I am on the Board. As to the three year terms of Board members, elections are expensive and time consuming. Holding them more often than every three years would mean we were spending an inordinate amount of time and effort on elections and less time on the business of the organization. I have to tell you I think such an approach would be counterproductive. However, I do agree the Board is too large and think we should have more effective limits on the number of consecutive years someone can serve on the Board. I am in my second term on the Board and it will be my last. If I can't get things done in six years, it's time for someone else to work on them. I'm not sure which big businesses you have dealt with, but I can tell you Boards of big businesses do not ask stockholders or anyone else for input before conducting the business of the company. I have seen them in action in their business meetings and they are less open than the ARS Board. Anyway, lay your suggestions on me and I will let you know what I think. The ARS is not perfect by any means and any ideas that will help will be welcomed.

Ok so I owe everyone an apology. I am new to forums and chat sites and didn't have the follow ups sent to my email as I thought I had. I also didn't realize I would get a lot of responses and questions. I read all the stuff about forums and I don't specifically remember anything about length of responses. Anyway, yes, SoilSoup is made with the SoilSoup tea brewer. I bought only the bio-blender and use half of a 30 gallon food barrel to brew my soup in-paid $299.00 for the blender. And, yes, $299.00 is expensive but I have been so lazy about fertilizing and taking care of potted plants or recently purchased bareroot or plant starts that I was losing more money in plants than I care to admit. I shared/sold SoilSoup to many friends and neighbors, who garden organically, to pay off the cost. I also benefitted from exchanging rather than selling. I used other people's vermicompost to make a batch or trade for cuttings and unusual plants that could ethically be a fair trade. I also sprayed for people who didn't have the time to do it themselves. There were also possible tax deductions I could have taken if I had filed for a DBA (doing business as). Most people told me the articles I gave them and my enthusiasm/results were enough to interest them and have continued to request more due to their successes, especially with problem roses. I talked with a lot of organic nurseries and individual organic farmers about building our own apparatus. My husband loves to make gadgets and really wanted to find another less expensive way to make the system. He has owned several aquariums over the years and found that the aquarium pumps could get blocked to easily. I don't usually do anything with the bio-blender except wash it after I finish a batch. We (actually, my husband--I am not good with physics, etc) looked at the intake and outflow of air for the blender vs a good aquarium aerator and at the time the aquarium system would have been more than the bio-blender. The big difference from compost tea is that the aerator (bio-blender) begins to produce healthy biota exponentially after a few hours of blending. I use the nutrient solution sold by SoilSoup that my local nursery sells. It is made of bat guano, seabird guano, molasses and other stuff. No alfalfa, cornmeal,etc. Our local rose society does the alfalfa, alaskan fish fertilizer, etc in the the garbage for 3 days as a fertilizer for the various rose gardens we maintain. SoilSoup works on simpler level than a fertilizer. One nice thing about the soup is that it can be used year round unless under snowpack and doesn't require the ground soil to be at a certain tempurature recommended for most fertilizers. I don't know much about irragation hoses but since the blender runs 24 hours a day I suspect that an irrigation hose being used once a day would not produce the same level of biota. I do know if I turn off the blender that the soup goes anaerobic after approximately 10 hours so therefore if the stuff sits waiting for the irrigation hose a large percentage of the biota would have died off. The healthy or non-pathogenic biota requires constant aeration until it is introduced to the soil or absorbed into the plant leaf, flower, trunk, stem, etc. After the soup has been brewing a few hours and the healthy biota are reproducing at a faster and faster rate all of the anaerobic or pathogenic bacteria (biota) are eaten. Information from the brochures, articles, classes, etc that I have taken or read says that pathogenic biota do not have defences against healthy biota and therefore are just "eaten" (for lack of a better phrase). I also read and talked to a serious proponent of aerated compost tea (she has been studying for quite a few years before SoilSoup Inc ever got started) and there is a lot of serious documentation out there (most of it over my head until I get a friend to translate all the scientific terms). Various universities and agricultural programs/grants started testing all the different versions of compost tea--including the 3 day barrel and short term aeration, and other techiques and found quite a difference in the results. A lot of people began bringing in fresh samples of tea using whatever technique they preferred, non-aearated, different nutrient sources and many of them were very successful. There is a whole "world" of nutrient solutions out there used for all types of farming--many of which I would not wish to brew or use in my own yard but work very well for rooting plants to providing special soil culture for specific crops. SoilSoup Inc. was the first group to make it even close to affordable for a home gardener. Some of the orignal aerators cost about $1800.00 to purchase and a good deal of farm used them. Like I stated before most of this was very technical but can be found on the internet. BBC labs, "Worm Digest", Ann Lovejoy and many others have articles and sites that can be found on the web. Also the SoilSoup site has links to articles of all levels (simple to very scientific). The following text was borrowed from Ann Lovejoy's article on SoilSoup. One of the best known researchers is Dr. Elaine Ingham. She is the soil scientist from Corvallis who developed the brewing technology, she stated "if we can coat each leaf with 60% coverage (top and bottom), we can avoid all or nearly all of the foliage disorders our plants experience. Foliar spraying is best done in a light rain or when the leaves are damp from rain or being watered. The tea will migrate into the leaf surface, taking up residence and providing ongoing protection against pathogens." Dr. Ingham is not talking about the product specifically produced by the SoilSoup system. All this said I would be curious to know the biota level of a barrel standing for 3 days, the aquarium pump and airstone or compost tea aerated by an irrigation hose. Admittedly, I am definitely a SoilSoup advocate (or perhaps I should say groupie) but if there is a better, less expensive way to produce similar effects it would be nice to share with friends, the local garden clubs and those to which I donate tea whose funding wouldn't cover the small cost biweekly or monthly. Many interested nurseries have begun selling the SoilSoup by the gallon and I know that SoilSoup, Inc. has been making more of an effort to get to vendor and garden shows to spread awareness and, of course, make sales. If you do choose to buy a gallon from a nursery or other store make sure that the decanted soup has not been sitting in the sun and has only been decanted 5 or less hours before otherwise the biota could be dead or dying from heat without air. Many of the local nurseries who recently started brewing and selling didn't seem to be aware of the effects such conditions would have on their soup. If you are gardening completely organically you can use the soup at full strength the first time you buy it and then start diluting each time afterwards (the recommended amount is usually 1 part soup to 10 parts water-I rarely need more than a gallon or two a month except for tne problem areas such as my waterfront slope. Also I am now up to 20 roses OGR and English and have used the soup to get the roses through my indecision of where to plant.