thanks, everyone! I, too, wonder about soil and if it makes a difference. I would assume it does. in zone 9 in California I had very acidic soil and it was also very sandy soil. I had tons of trouble getting anything from Cherokee Purple, Big Rainbow and Black Krim there. The plants shot up fast and had tons of foliage, but didn't give me any fruit and then suddenly all were stricken with a disease and died very fast. I did have luck with Red Brandywine in California. Now, in Kentucky, everything did well last year except for cracking on many of my tomatoes and blossom end rot on many. We were in a drought, so it was tough to maintain a regular level of moisture. Luckily, I planted 30 tomato plants last year so I was still able to harvest enough for my family and friends and freeze 10 quarts of basic tomato sauce and about 20 quarts of blanched whole tomatoes. I think I will try canning this year for the first time. My mom is experienced at canning so I'll have her teach me. I wonder where I can find Kellogg's Breakfast in the Louisville/Frankfort area since it's too late to start with seeds. That one does interest me.

Texas, I love your apartment! What did you hang the pictures from? A curtain rod? We actually just moved from a very small one-bedroom apartment into a two-bedroom apartment. I don't know if you've encountered this, but everyone always asks us when we're going to buy a house now that we're married. While I'd love to buy, it just doesn't make sense for us right now, and I like the option of having the maintenance man fix up any of my mistakes for me. As for the decor, I think I solved the bathroom problem at least. I changed the white shower curtain to a black one and added hand towels to the back of the toilet. The bedroom, however, is still an issue. I grabbed a small shelf from the living room and placed it there to add some vertical space. We're thinking about adding a wall quote (JoAnn Fabrics has some decals for $20). My husband likes the idea of hanging fabric, but I have no idea how we'd go about that. We tried to pick up an artificial ficas tree from the craft store yesterday, but it wouldn't fit in our car, so that option is out. We also don't trust our cats not to attack it or attempt to climb it.

I've decided to transform the leaf mould bin into a compost bin sooner rather than later. Instead of emptying out all of the leaves, I've started incorporating grass clippings and kitchen/garden scraps into the bin, making sure it gets a good green/brown ratio. Over time, by turning the existing brown materials in with the new green materials, it should make good compost. The negative about this is that I won't be able to use this stuff for about two years, when I could have actually collected leaf mould in one year. The positive is that compost is more nutrient rich but can also be used the same way, as a top dressing or mulch, for water retention and weed suppression, but giving those plants a boost that leaf mould may not do. I'll work green materials in for about a year (or unless we get it so full that it absolutely can't hold any more) then setup another swimming pool composter up. On appx April 2018, the plan is to collect compost from the first bin. On appx April 2019, I'll collect compost from the 2nd bin. Then, April 2020, from the first bin, and on and on. Meanwhile, I'm slowly building up a small farm, with rabbits, cows, chickens, and eventually, ducks, possibly turkeys, etc. Rabbit poop = instant garden fertilizer + worm food, for vermicomposting, to collect worm castings for the garden, and the worms themselves could feed some fish, for a future aquaponics setup. Cow, chicken, duck, and turkey poop will be composted. As of right now, it's all about slowly moving forward, to try to obtain a balance, where everything works together.

Perfect example of science moving "two steps forward and one step back"... often times the choices in the design of experiments, methodologies, interpretations, etc. are affected by unconscious biases coming from preconceived notions, monetary incentives, lack of a key piece of knowledge, etc... the motivations are not necessarily all selfish evil but more often stem from hubris and ignorance than anything else... and then of course mix in the human condition of cognitive dissonance and thus the path of science regularly takes that one step back (think of it as science making a correction)... why does this happen? "Its because you don't know what you don't know"... Unfortunately too many people hail science as being totally unbiased and thusly safe to trust/follow with blind faith... I rather look at science as being just another human endeavor and thus fallible, so its safer to reserve a bit of healthy skepticism when it comes to cutting edge science pronouncements. Thus that quote from an earlier posting above "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." Both of those quotes are very profound if one will truly expend some time to ponder on the deeper meanings. I've seen quite a few examples running through this thread where people don't seem to understand what those two quotes are referring to. Oh, and Ryan... have you added the rock dust yet? Ryan? Ryan? Ryyyyaaaannn.... (spoken like in that movie... Wilson!... Willlsson!!... Wiiiillllllllssson!!!... I guess Ryan too must have just floated away....)