Don't know if your crazy mylonite. But food production will be a very important part of survival as our world moves towrds a psot carbon direction. Edible landscaping will be most important to feeding what is left of us when TEOTWAK arrives. I got a late start as I knew nothing about food production before 2/11/08 and by the time my garden was ready to accept some seeds the summer was about a quarter over. But, as the saying goes...better late than never. My lot is only 2/3 acre and I have to use the intensive method of planting. My main garden is about 750 SF but it has rock paths. I also have 6 smaller beds that are from 20 SF to 80 SF each. Also have 26 fruit tress. Here is main garden. [IMG]http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk187/fookisan/reargardenvuew.jpg[/IMG] Next year will put in another bed on side about 30 SF and a few more fruit trees. if things get tougher, l'll put in squash bed about 359 SF Here are 3 good books for those interested in developing an urban homestead. [url]http://www.amazon.com/Food-Not-Lawns-Neighborhood-Community/dp/193339207X[/url] [url]http://www.amazon.com/Gardening-When-Counts-Growing-Mother/dp/086571553X[/url] [url]http://www.amazon.com/Self-Sufficient-Suburban-Gardener-Jeff-Ball/dp/0878574573[/url] I think we have a real food crisis brewing for the world. Not enough young farmers replacing the old, we will run low of fertilizer as the NG dries up and that food which is grown is devoid of nutrition and not healthy. And to make matter worse, fewer people can even afford to buy produce. With the recent food shortages in the news I have to wonder as Richard Heinberg brought up "Who will be growing our food 20 years from now?" "The average American farmer is 55 to 60 years old. The proportion of full time farmers younger than 35 years of age has dropped from 15.9% in 1982 to 5.8% in 2002. Who will be growing our food 20 years from now?" from "Peak Everything" by Richard Heinberg "Amish farmers can't compete in conventual agriculture farming. 40 years ago 90% to 95% of the Amish were farmers. Today less than 10% are farmers." from: "How the Amish Survive" DVD And even if the farmers keep up with production, many people cannot afford the high prices of produce. At Krogers a butternut squash was $7, a large apple was $1.85, a rutabaga was $3, an artichoke near $5 and a lemon was $1.35, a bag of cherries was $14.75, ONE organic yam was $8.25. And these high priced produce are being offered when times are still relatively good What will this stuff sell for when gas is $10 or $15 a gallon? Peak oil, peak NG, peak water and food as well as peak uranium will fuel mass starvation as our artificial and unsustainable world decomposes around us. As people buy less produce due to affordability issues and the produce stops selling and rots on the shelves, the farmers will grow less produce that just rots unsold and less potential farmers will be entering that field. Book and DVD list. All available from your local library. Beyond Oil: the view from Hubbert's Peak by Deffeyes, Kenneth S. [url]http://www.princeton.edu/hubbert/[/url] The Coming Economic Collapse - how you can thrive when oil costs $200 a barrel by Leeb, Stephen A Crude Awakening - the oil crash Lava Productions AG, Switzerland DVD [url]http://www.oilcrashmovie.com/[/url] The End of Suburbia - oil depletion and the collapse of the American dream by Greene, Gregory DVD [url]http://www.endofsuburbia.com/[/url] Fed Up [url]http://www.amazon.com/Fed-Up-Angelo-Sacerdote/dp/B000CNGC6G[/url] High Noon for Natural Gas: the new energy crisis by Darley, Julian [url]http://www.highnoon.ws/[/url] The Long Emergency: surviving the converging catastrophes of the twenty-first century by Kunstler, James Howard Oil Apocalypse History channel DVD Peak Oil Survival: preparation for life after gridcrash by McBay, Aric Powerdown: options and actions for a post-carbon world by Heinberg, Richard Resource Wars: the new landscape of global conflict by Klare, Michael T [url]http://www.amazon.com/Resource-Wars-Landscape-Conflict-Introduction/dp/0805055762[/url] A Thousand Barrels a Second: the coming oil break point and the challenges facing an energy dependent world by Tertzakian, Peter Twilight in the Desert: the coming Saudi oil shock and the world economy by Simmons, Matthew R. Well written book examining 12 of the key Saudi oil fields. Who Killed the Electric Car? Sony Pictures Classics release [url]http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/[/url] Zoom:the global race to fuel the car of the future by Iain Carson and Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran. [IMG]http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk187/fookisan/victorygarden.jpg[/IMG]

Well, I hesitate to share this because it is un proved and purely my own idea: Ever since I began my rose garden and introduced a large number of roses I began to have a significant problem with thrips to the point of never getting bloom on some and on others deformed growth and small damaged blooms.( there are several other factors but thrips are definately part of it) anyway after doing alot of reading about it I found that an old cure was to use nicotine( Iknow I know) Anyway, I grew my own Nicotiana sylvestris and began to mulch some of the worst roses with the large leaves. The roses growing next to and mulched with it have improved to a great degree. the ones not mulched with it and having problems are still having problems. Just a thought. roseberri

> For sheer volume and total weight of peppers I had a Red Rocoto last year... A 2nd year Red Rocoto (from Reimer's!! & not a PI# from USDA) is my best ever single year (by weight) producer. Maybe a total of 70-80 pods. Doesn't sound like much compared to 15 gal of similar sized pods, but pretty darned awesome when compared to the total weight of any other species of capsicum. I've grown some baccatums that were very heavy producers the 2nd year too, but nowhere near the total weight of the rocotos. > Sure wish I knew what PI number it was as it's one tough pepper. Ditto! Second year rocotos can supposedly survive temps that kill everything above ground and still regenerate from the roots. Two days in a row of 25°F temps have always killed mine. One night of upper 20s & have had plants lose their leaves, but still survive. Mr Dutchman, you have grown the most awesome rocotos of anyone I have ever known. (a pod of 150 grams!) jt

Mary, That's a long time for a water heater to last! I doubt they make them that well any more. One reason we're not getting new appliances to go with the new cabinets is because all of ours work so well. For a long time, I pondered getting new stainless steel appliances to go with the new gray cabinets, but the more I researched online and read endless reviews, the more I decided there was a good chance that new appliances wouldn't work as well as what we have or last nearly as long, so I hated to take the chance with new ones, even though I think stainless steel would be beautiful with the new cabinets. From all the research I've done, it seems like maybe they just don't make them like they used to. For every positive review of any brand/any model, there's plenty of negative ones. So, I guess we'll hang on to what we have until the day they die, and then we'll hope we luck out and find decent replacements. My Bosch range has ruined me for any other brand, and it is well worth every cent you spend on a good one when it lasts and lasts and lasts. It's never given us any trouble. I cleaned out about half the pantry and 5 or 6 more cabinets today. If I work as hard tomorrow as I did today, I'll have everything emptied out by the end of the day tomorrow, and we can spend the weekend taking down the old cabinets (or most of them, we will keep the sink base/sink in place anothe week probably) and hopefully get started on ripping up the tile floor, which is going to be a beast of a job. It is too hot to work outside anyway, so I might as well be working indoors. The garden looks hot and wilty today. It isn't liking the fact that the heat came back any more than I'm liking it. Amy, When we moved to OK in 1999, Tim dragged along some clothes of his from high school. High school! (We graduated in 1977.) Can you say "pack rat"? It wasn't like he wore them (or even could wear them), but he just couldn't let them go. After we'd been here about 5 years, I told him that I was going to clean out the closet in the guest bedroom and that his high school clothes were leaving this house one way or another. He didn't argue with me. I just don't see the point in hanging on to random bits of clothing that doesn't fit you for at least 25 years. We don't have an abundance of closet space, and I was glad to get rid of that junk. He never gets rid of anything---even when he says he will, he just puts off doing it. So, by cleaning out the kitchen cabinets and pantry I am insuring this project gets off the ground because, with the best of intentions, he'd talk about it but just not get around to starting it. It is my job to make sure we both start it and finish it. I do have his love of home-cooking on my side though, so that will help. There are things I wanted to do to the house after we moved here in 1999, and half of them aren't done yet. So, it isn't like we are good at completing little projects. We are pretty good at getting them done once we start, but finding time to get started seems to be the issue. I'm tired of having a long To Do list that never gets done, so we're starting with the kitchen and laundry room and, once that's done, we'll repaint the breakfast room and living room to match and just keep going from there. Our house is stuck in about 2005 and I am ready to bring it a little further into the current century. Lisa, I am pretty stuck on white subway tile (a timeless classic) and dark gray or black grout. I'd like to be more adventurous, but I think I'll be adventurous with accessories that are easily changed out. There's a lime green subway tile I'd love to have, but I think I'd be tired of it in three or four years. Maybe I'll buy a handful of the lime green tile and tile a wood tray with it or something. My favorite part of the kitchen is going to be the apron-front farmhouse sink. That's how the kitchen remodeling quest started. I just wanted a new sink. We bought it. It sat in the garage for 6 or 7 months and I kept nagging my husband to install it. When all was said and done, we decided the new sink merited new cabinets, and so, while the new sink is still in the box in the garage, by this time next week, the new cabinets should be out there sitting with it. I'm not optimistic enough to think we'll have the kitchen ready for the cabinets before they arrive, but I think that once they do arrive, Tim will be motivated to get the kitchen done because the cabinets will be sitting where he normally parks the pickup. I've been the chief procurement officer---ordering things for the remodel. Once it all starts arriving, he has to help me install everything, or we'll be buried under a pile of kitchen and laundry room stuff. We're going to install everything ourselves. We're good at DIY stuff once we actually get around to doing it. Dawn