The closest large seller of farm fertilizer is about 50 mi south of here, but I can arrange a stop there on my way to getting pastured meat in the Fall. There used to be one not 15 miles from here but no more. As some of you know, my pH=9.2 water coupled with pH=7.7 soil can be a handful. Only grapes need it in the orchard, and I give it to tomatoes and potatoes in the garden, and of course I add more organic matter than most (21% OM in the garden). Anyhow, IIRC in late 2011 one 50lb bag of sulfur was $20. I had to sign a declaration that it and the rest of the stuff was intended for food production not to pay the sales tax. If you have relatively large holdings, it pays to go to such a place. A single 50 lbs urea bag allows many years of fertilization between trips. The 2011 trip was concomitant to starting the orchard in horrible, lifeless, compacted P=7ppm soil, so I got 25lbs of superP, 100 lbs of sulfur, microminerals solution to be added in the sprayer, and 50lbs of urea which will take me to 2020 or so. I have now added over 30 tons of wood chips to the orchard, and the soil is less horrible, but to start it you have to do a first amending.

Hopefully I'll talk him into doing it right before the inspector even comes. He just wants to know why it is a problem which I didn't know how to explain besides the receptacle is designed for 120/240 and not 3 phase, plus it exceeds the amperage rating. He then said, "I bet these pins could carry 200 amps if they had to" Kind of has that bad attitude of "Well it's not code but it is still safe right?" He thought bootleging a ground on a receptacle was a safe solution which I explained the dangers and now he realizes the dangers of his actions and says he won't do it again. Maybe this is why our 2 states got rid of the experior exam and brought back the apprenticeship. Some people don't get that the code is there as a bare minimum for safety and not just a suggestion of what works best. I really think he has no intentions to do things dangerously, wants to be a great company. However skipping codes is infact dangerous. But think the electrical education is not completely there and it is silly that I the 19 year old college student am the one telling them what to do often. They should be the ones kicking my butt telling me what to do :) They call me "book wiz" cause of all the code citations I enforce on the job lol. This is also the 1st commercial job he has had besides service calls. We got 4 men putting in a 800 amp service, outdoor light poles, and an entire fast food restaurant's worth of wiring. I've been working 8 am to 9 pm very often :)

I think Ronnatalie is right - I'll wirenut my Hot to both X1/X2 wires and my Nuetral to wires labelled X3/X4. Found a square D site showing 3 different ways to wire the secondaries. X1/X2 --- X3/X4 gave just 120. X1-- X2/X3----X4 gave 240 between X1 and X4, but you could also get 120 between X1 and X2/X3 and 120 between X2/X3 and X4. A little confusing for the novice. Here is a link that might be useful: Square D site

Yeah ... lots of critical things to consider such as initial and changing pH effects*, buffering, multivalent cations, anionic and cationic micronutrients, and zeolite like ion exchange surfaces on soil particles, which make it a play day for chemistry discussions. Then the attack and breakdown of plant and animal litter to slow release nutrients brings up neat microbiology and biochemistry aspects. Material science then decides to manipulate the situation with osmotic release and diffusion of encapsulated nutrients. And hydroponic principles try to partially play nature taking over the hydrology and lighting it up. Physics kicks ideas in there on this last aspect. For instance did you know that fluorescent light indeed glow when struck by energy (as you know), but much of the light intensity flashes through a series of distinct colors at 60 times a second? * Plants cheat neatly by manipulating ion exchange release of cationic nutrients. They knock off ammonium, potassium, magnesium, calcium and other positively charged ions by producing acid(s) to knock it off. H+ alone can cause the exchange but if the acid is on a small organic base (anion) like oxalate this organic can diffuse around and pull at the cations on soil that the plant wants and help knock it off, helping in the "weathering" breakdown of soil too. Chelators made by plants and microbes make it really interesting too. They diffuse around and hold certain critical nutrients so tightly that the plant has the choice of finding more, having a deficiency (specific nutrient starving), making a stronger chelator to take it back, and/or breaking the chelator down to free the nutrient. Now the fun parts ... the plant one might be considering is not be alone. A group of similar or different roots might be working together AND competing in that patch of soil, with different players at different depths Trees cheat and certain non woody plants cheat and go low. Moles, gophers and field mice run through this soil zone toox playing their games. No soil contact then no nutrient uptake, no root then no nutrient collection there for the plant, loss of stored nutrients and need to spend energy replacing the root. And there are smaller life forms co-inhabating the soil with the roots that are also directly or indirectly effected by soil pH. Let's put them into three classes as those that (1) don't generally effect a plant much, (2) can hurt the plant, or (3) can help the plant. Let's see ... hurting a plant is bad, unless it hurts a seriously competitive plant more. Helping a plant is good, unless it's again that serious competitor. Plants are not stand alone organisms in naturem. They live in community with microorganisms. So what if the soil pH helps support the growth of a microbe that can grow all over your plants roots? Sounds bad I know, but there are those three classes mentioned above. If your microbe is a pathogen that is bad. If it doesn't attack the plant but runs out and breaks down nearby leaf litter, great free food. It it doesn't hurt your plant but by being on root surfaces can compete with and stop pathogenic microbes from getting a foothold, great a free natural inoculation for immunity. There was a company called Eden Bioscience a couple decades ago here in the PNW that made an interesting observation. In large scale evergreen seedling production for forestry sometimes there were large scale fungal blights. Sadly alot of the seedlings all died at once in mass. However, sometimes there were a few seedlings near each other that did not succumb! In fact they looked totally healthy! When isolating bacteria, yeast and filamentous fungi from the surfaces of these plants they found that certain kinds could be grown in the lab that protected seedlings from attack, when sprayed onto them. These microbes grew best in their optimal pH range. They indeed colonized the plants, in this case leaf surfaces. And their presence did protect the leaves from pathogen attack. Obviously similar things must be happening in nature in the leaf canopy and also soil root zone of plants. So when a plant likes acidic pH 5 - 6 soil, is this just because nutrients are more available it? When I went to school, in what now seems like the dark ages, most plant physiology books focused almost solely on this. Or is it because beneficial microbes helping feed or protect the plant need that pH? My firm assumption is that both chemical and microbial pH dependent effects interact to make an optimum environment for that plant. And that some plants in the natural environment survive best, rather than grow best, at their optimal pH range. Why do many fungi sour (strongly acidify) what they are busy rotting? Niether competive microbes nor does the dieing plant tissue like it. The fungus gets more. This is exactly why you want to check the pH in the soil that you might be soon preparing for your new vegetable or herb garden this spring. Too basic, your plants starve. Too acidic, the pathogenic fungi don't starve. Then like the heirloom story of The Three Bears ... there's one pH that's just right.