Although what kimmsr said about the carbon nitrogen ratio is true, it cannot be looked at as a set in stone rule for every situation. For example coal is mostly carbon, if you add some nitrogen making a more favorable C:N ratio the coal is not going to compost. Soil humus is another carbon compound that resists breaking down. Conversely, sugar is a carbon compound that microbes can easily utilize with very little available nitrogen. The malting process converts starches to sugars. I donÂt actually know, but it seems feasible that brewers grains would therefore act more like a "green" (low C:N ratio) than the actual C:N ratio would indicate. I built a 15 foot tripod this spring for my hop plant to grow up. The other day one leg broke and the whole thing came crashing down (into my bed of Peruvian daffodils). So I set it back up and there was a storm the other night and blew it over again (into my historic Italian open pollinated flint corn this time). Yesterday evening I set it back up, and although everything else in the vicinity is looking pretty beat up, the hop plant still looks pretty good. So yeah, they are tough.

It occurs to me that if you plant another invasive herb to 'fight' the mint, alabamanicole, you would still end up outcompeting the other plants, and as you say, you want to see what else grows up there. I understand that you don't want to use Roundup, but maybe you could containerise those plants you want to keep temporarily (making sure there are no trailing bits of mint root mixed up with their roots) and then use roundup on the mint and leave it a while before replanting. I don't usually bother with weedkiller but I found it effective to vastly reduce the amount of bindweed in my garden, which used to be highly problematic when I first bought this property, and for any bits I missed I now just dig up the roots. If you have to leave any plants in situ, I used a paint-on type of glysophate instead of a spray and then tied plastic bags temporarily over the leaves I'd painted if they were in danger of brushing against other plants. I don't know if that version would be available or not in your country. Flame-weeding might be an alternative to using Roundup but not having tried it myself, I don't know.

Record grain prices? Have you looked over at the natural gas boards? If you are comparing prices, you have to compare all the prices. What is happening to the cost of synthetic fertilizers? Urea is made from natural gas. While corn has doubled in price, natural gas has quadrupled. If anything I would be looking for people to move from the expensive chemical programs to the less expensive organic. When I first learned about doing organics with grains, I learned that organic does not have to be expensive. The costly mistake is to use compost. Compost costs me $40 per cubic yard plus another $40 for delivery. That is $80 per 1,000 square feet. I can apply corn meal for more like $2.00 per 1,000 square feet. If you do not use compost, simply buying grains is cost comparable to synthetic chemicals. If you rely on Starbucks for fertilizer, then your organic program is free. When you add in the fact that you can fertilize regularly with corn meal and not have to buy separate chemical fungicides, then organic can be pretty inexpensive. I was in a feed store in California last week to check the prices. Corn meal was $8.50 for 50 pounds. I paid $6.50 for my last bag here in San Antonio. Given that prices for everything are higher in CA, I don't see a substantial price increase.

Just finished round 2 of Chemo. It was less harder hitting than round 1 in general,so far. Things seem to be easier on me than I expected - so far. 1/3rd done ,4 more chemo's to go. Lost about 80 lbs. ,I was about 100 lbs.overweight... A salt and fat free diet sucks! Better than the alternatives I guess... Thanks for the good thoughts and prayers. It means a lot. Garden died so I'm sprouting new stuff,good thing we don't have a winter here. Mostly going to be Manzanos and a few wilds and Annuums I think. Did anyone figure out if the Mag. in Dolomite lime dissolves in the vinegar to make something the plant can still use or? Does it combine with the Ca. to make a compound of some sort or do the Ca. and Mag. disolve to make 2 separate things? It might make a difference since the same receptors in plants can take up either Ca. or Mag. So if they make a compound in whatever ratio of Ca. to Mag. it would be interesting if said ratio matched the average ratio plants use. No more hassle with possible Ca. or Mag. lock out due to overdosing a plant with either or... A possible reason to use Dolomite Lime rather than pure Ca. This post was edited by smokemaster_2007 on Sun, Aug 10, 14 at 13:37