keepitlow, at first I thought the thing about keeping shoes in your fridge was a joke taken out of context or something like that, but there was a link to the full article and... oh my gosh! You know, when I was in college and lived in a 300 square foot apartment I STILL tried to cook in my tiny kitchen. I had lived in the dorm the year before and was so sick of other people cooking for me and not having that control over my own food. I can't imagine just unplugging your fridge and eating take out all the time. I mean, yes, I do get take out sometimes, and go to restaurants, but if I lived on it... it's so fattening and so expensive! *** macky77, "'My soil won't grow anything and I can't afford or don't have time to build raised beds and buy all the special ingredients you NEED to make super soil.' The most common situations they cite are either living in rental properties with neglected yards or new developments where the topsoil was not replaced after construction." Well, as other people have said, yes, new developments can have awful soil. Bermudagrass sod doesn't take much. I live in a rental house with a neglected yard (at least until I got here). Actually it's kind of interesting to see what's hanging on in a yard where nature has been allowed to take over. I used to have scarlet sage growing in the front (hummingbirds LOVE that stuff) until the Lawn Police ordered us to mow it down, and in the back I have pigeonberry, black-eyed susan, wild sunflowers, and rain lillies growing, along with some other wildflowers I have yet to identify. I betcha the land is actually better off for it rather than being maintained as a Bermudagrass monoculture soaked in herbicides. But anyway, back to having good soil, this goes back to my idea that maybe people think growing veggies is harder than it really is. I live in south-central Texas. The soil here is clay with limestone rocks, and I'm growing stuff right in it. Didn't build any raised beds (don't want to build any permanent structures at a rental house). Potatoes didn't seem to like it, but tomatoes, beans, peppers, squash, etc. don't seem to mind one bit. Digging in it is a big of hard work, but it's better than gonig to the gym. I wonder if the garden media has anything to do with this. You know, TV shows with perfect looking gardens, soil you can dig with your bare hands, etc. I wonder if people actually think that veggies NEED perfect soil to grow. Sure they might grow better in perfect soil, but they can make do with what they've got. You don't have to be Martha Stewart. I see gardening as a partnership between me, the plants, and Nature. That means that I don't have to do ALL the work. Lots of plants grow just fine with no human help at all. Veggie plants have evolved alongside us for a while and now need some help, but I still feel like I'm letting them and Nature do most of the work. When people say they can't grow plants here because it's too hot or dry or we have bad soil or something, I always think of the Hopi and related tribes that lived off their gardens with no modern technology in the DESERT. I don't live in the desert, and I do have modern technology, and I do have the farmer's market and grocery store as a backup, so I think I have it EASY. Actually, it reminds me of something from Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden where she talks about how white people don't know how to plant things right. I forgot specifically what it was she was talking about, but I only wonder what she'd think if she saw our gardens today.

Well no, flowergirl, it doesn't attract rabbits as far as I know. You want the horse kind of pellets, not the rabbit kind that has too much salt for roses. Think they use it for old horses that can no longer chew well, so I've been waiting for some old toothless horses to show up in my yard. I just throw some pellets around the drip line and let the rain take care of them. I'm not making, smelling nor hauling stinky tea. There are rabbits in the woods behind my house, but they haven't shown any interest, and there isn't a toothless horse in sight.

Valyn, do you have a lawn? Finished compost makes a great fertilizer for lawns. A thin layer is all that's needed and it will save on nitrogen fertilizer. For decades all we ever did was throw kitchen scraps in a bin and once a year harvest the bottom layer for rich black gold. I never layered or was concerned with browns or greens. Most of what went into the bin was greens but it decomposes nicely over time. Now I collect all winter (again mostly greens with a few paper towels) and will eventually mix it with wood shavings, pile it up for awhile, then use it as mulch. If I feel energetic I may turn it but I know it's not essential for slow composting. I also dig in my kitchen scraps over the summer as it's easier and works well. It's called sheet composting and it feeds the worms (along with all the other beneficial soil organisms) who quickly turn it into nutrition for my plants. There are many ways to 'compost' or save kitchen trimmings from the landfill and when you find what works for you it will be something that is easy and that you can do for a very long time. Don't let anyone tell you that their way is the only right way. Just isn't so. BTW where we live there is no garbage collection, never mind compostable collection. Even in the nearby towns there is no compostable collection altho there is weekly garbage collection. There are tens of thousands of people in this rural area that have no such collection and I'm sure that is true for many other areas, perhaps even MOST other areas.

Huge DIY overhaul around here 2002-05 or so. In April, 2004 I stripped wallpaper in upstairs bath. "My" bath. It was a bear of a job. Washed scrubbed, even palm sanded to get the residue off. Didn't get it all but got it back to a flat surface, so primed with oil-based primer, applied my smoky lt purple paint (PPG Heliotrope, think BM Wet Concrete). DH was replacing all flat doors with raised panel doors, flat interior baseboard & door trim with nice patterned wood. All of it sanded & painstakingly painted with Cab Coat. So I got the bathroom done, he hung new door, put up trim on hallway side of door, but did not put up door trim on inside of bathroom. I asked. I got perturbed every time I walked past the pile of finished trim stacked in the garage. I got mad at him and said "What's up with that???" He hedged. He mumbled & he grumbled, committed & procrastinated. I threatened to hire someone, the notion of which made him perturbed. Repeat that verbal cycle umpteen times. Didn't get it, he's good at this stuff. I still do not have interior trim around my bathroom door. Why? One day he finally answered: "Because you said you might repaint it. So I thought I'd wait till after that." (He overheard me tell someone ages ago that I might change it to a warm light gray 'next time'.) What a weasel.