The commercial hydroponic product "Floralicious" promoted as "enhances flavor" & boosts "complex secondary aromatic compounds" is not available everywhere ( I worked in Asia 2 years). It includes 2% humic acid, which has a cation exchange capacity (CEC) +/- 10 times greater than normally found; chelated multiple (++) charged trace mineral ions get more uptake with improved membrane permiability. If you take the leachate (distinct from aerobic brewed worm casting "tea") from worm bins' drainage run off this has humic acid (as would the tea). The leachate pH can be 7+ ; make sure bin conditions have not gone anaerobic. Alternately, if you have soft shale (or soft lignite/leonardite) you can bring up the pH to 6.5 - 8.0 (say 25% sodium bicarbonate, or less if use lye/sodium hdroxide) to soak it crushed for 2 days agitated in water (say 50%) to get humic acid into solution & then precipitate the unwanted elements. In N. Thailand (Chiang Mai was sleepy in mid-1980s) you might only have decaying fresh water drift wood to chop up & work with; the guideline is if that old tree carbon's soak water stains yellow you've got humic acid. When working with hard water it will require more source substrate & soft water dissolves the humic acid more readily. (The carbonates affect the process & alkaline/hard water classification is not the same as a solution's pH reading.) Always highly dilute humic acid, because an excess of the plant growth hormones it carries can diminish N,P,K uptake. Another ingredient of the de-" licious" product is a soil organism to regulate root microbial population & keep the undesireables away; it is bacterial innoculation with Bacillus subtilis. Bacillus subtilis encompases a wide choice of varieties. Apart from the beneficial human medical implications of different strains, it is commonly living in one form or another in the soil. The USDA maintains a culture bank of freeze dried strains in vials for the public & many universities around the world will be experimenting it. (Scientific supply companies sell cultures of it to secondary school classes for students to learn how to culture benign bacteria in a petri dish with soy broth nutrient.) As for the other components: hydrolysed protein is meals of blood (say 50%) , fish bone (say 50%) & poultry feather (say 20%) individually dissolved in enough citric acid ( say 50% each extraction) to lower the pH to free their nitrogen (not as nitrate); seaweed (washed) is the multiple trace minerals source; & mannitol (a long chain carbohydrate, such as those found in mushrooms) is a "sugar" for the bacterial growth that acts acidic to help balance the pH.

My tomato plants get huge, and I barely ever water them. One inch per week or so in rain means I do not water them. And they taste very good. I read about planting basil and carrots around tomatoes, basil for taste and carrots cause tomatoes supposedly suck the nutrients out of them. Could be an old tale, but I can see how it was started... tomatoes stun carrot growth, so the opposite must be true ;). Anyway, I got a couple basil plants near my tomatoes and craploads of carrots covering the ground below :P Thankfully my dog appears to be half rabbit or something... loves them carrots. Google companion planting... not something I would swear by, just a case of "if it doesn't hurt, try it incase it helps :P" Carrot seeds are like $.80 per packet.

I am in florida gulf coast pinellas zone 10, looking for mandarin or tangerine trees for my yard. I want the absolute most potent, strongly flavored type of mandarins/tangerines that exist. Im NOT looking for mild or weak flavored mandarins. For example, valencia orange is weak and mild, I want the opposite of that. Im looking for the for the varieties of mandarin that burst with so much flavor and aroma, it will fill your whole house up with the smell of tangy, pungent, orangy citrus. There are so many varieties to choose from, and I cant taste them all myself, so its almost overwhelming to try to decide on a specific cultivar. I have heard good things about Kishu, gold nugget, ponkan, and owari satsuma. What about lee, page, dancy, murcott, and all the others I cant think of because there are so many... I just want the mandarins that are the most fully concentrated with flavor. And doesnt necessarilly have to be the sweetest, but sweet is always good. Im not worried about ease of peeling or number of seeds, just strictly flavor strength. (I already have meiwa kumquat, and it is pretty potent and zesty, I love it) Thanks for your advice.

Lula avocado was on my short list to plant, but was told by a knowledgeable nurseryman that while it yas a creamy texture it has an "overly sweet" flavor that he didn't care for and others might not either. Can anyone confirm or elaborate on this? Thanks.