Forum discussions frequently center on the question of adding dilute coffee/tea or grounds to plants as a 'tonic', but Arabica (coffee) and Camellia (tea) are known for their toxic alkaloid (caffeine) content and their allelopathic affect on plants as well as autotoxic (poison to their own seedlings) effects on future generations. Caffeine interferes with root development by impairing protein metabolism. This affects activity of an important bio-compound (PPO) and lignification (the process of becoming woody), crucial steps for root formation. We also know that the tannins in both coffee and tea are known allelopaths (growth inhibitors). There are ongoing experiments to develop herbicides using extracts from both coffee and tea that cause me to want to say they might serve better as a nonselective herbicide than as a tonic. I would not use either (stale coffee or tea) by applying directly to my plants - especially containerized plants; nor would I add tea bags/coffee grounds to my container soils. I look at nutrition methodically. I prefer to use the least number of nutrient mixtures that will ensure my plants are getting all the essential nutrients they normally take from the soil and in the right proportions. The reason is, supplying more of any one element than a plant can use can be as limiting as supplying too little. 'How did he get THERE?' you might ask. What is in water left over from cooking vegetables - anyone know? So - you use it ..... then what? Obviously, it is going to be entirely inadequate in supplying the major elements, N P K Ca Mg S. So what do you do .... you fertilize anyway - because you have no idea what you supplied with the fish emulsion and you still need to be sure all the bases are covered. The point is, if you're using fertilizers that only cover a few of the elements required for growth, additional fertilizers are required to fill in the gaps, Almost always, there will be overlaps, where you are supplying the same element in both products, or the same element will be missing from both products - gaps. Why not choose a fertilizer that supplies ALL the elements required for normal growth, and in a ratio to each other that is favorable, thereby eliminating gaps, overlaps, and potential antagonisms? (Antagonistic deficiencies occur when an excess of one element in the soil solution prevents adequate uptake of 1 or more other elements. Common antagonisms exist between Fe/Mn, P/Fe and Mn, Ca/Mg, others.) I'm not saying the veggie water is particularly harmful, only that if you're employing a fertilizer like Foliage-Pro 9-3-6, it's probably redundant. This question in another form often comes up when discussing the use of aquarium water as a nutrient source. We know the aquarium water is not a complete fertilizer, and since you have no idea what you DID supply when you used it, you will certainly need to fertilize anyway - thus making the aquarium water (or manure) of little or no value. The easiest and most efficient way to supply nutrients to your plants is with a soluble synthetic fertilizer that supplies nutrients in a ratio the same as the ratio at which the plants actually USE the nutrients. The only reliable way to do that is by using a fertilizer like I just described. When you depart from that plan, there can be no potential for benefits - only limitations that arise from either to much or too little of one or more elements essential for growth. Even if the residual veggie water supplied a nutrient necessary for growth, it would not help with growth unless it was supplying the single nutrient most deficient. Al

Greetings! I've been browsing the net for tips on just this subject and your thread has answered a lot of questions - thank you! I just have one more inquiry - do you know of a way to make the end product of one-part self curing silicones (after curing) softer and stretchier (lets say more like human skin, goal hardness is 10-30 shore A)? The reason I'm asking: I am a resident in heart surgery and I'm trying to make practice models of parts of the human heart and tissue to use for training outside the operating room. As you said the platinum cure silicones are used for this purpose but the price difference is tenfold and they're a bit too expensive for us.

Getting about 1 or 2 parts an evening done. Darn rain will not stop around here. Anyway, I keep thinking there must be some way to 'bond' the sand from Oscar's sandbox. Some of these gaps are no bigger than an 1/8" of an inch. Force the sand into the openings and then pour something liquid (maybe wood glue that is really watered down?) into the sand and hope it seeps? If Marlene gives me the go-ahead, I just might be willing to post a picture. All I can tell you is that as was the deck, this is a bigger project than I anticipated but one hell of a lot of fun! Calamity, I thought about concrete or plaster-of-paris, but I think the freeze-thaw cycles will turn either into dust in just a few months, and I don't know how I could clean them off the already sealed pieces. Oh, meant to include this is the last post - anyone ever work with decomposed granite?

I bought mineral spirits to clean the ball. The tube says to use liquid nails remover or mineral spirits. I haven't cleaned the ball yet, but I poured some over the penies in a can and the dried stuff is softening up and seems to be coming off. When I'm reay to glove up and go clean the ball, I'll scrap them too. Sounds like a good time to retire a toothbrush. I think I like the 2 layers of pennies and decided after I started that I would like to try one with the bottom layer tails up and the top layer heads up. Has that ball been outdoors? I can't decide whether I like the bright copper or the verde patina better. I may need more BBs! The GEII holds the pennies to the first layer of penies as well? The liquid nails would definitely hold the pennies together (can't budge the two I tested, no how, no way) and what I got is clear. We have band UIL cotests this afternoon and tonight until 11 or so, and I got a whole 4 hours of sleep last night. A sane person would go take a nap now that the kids are at school, but I really want to get a start on this BB, and I need to do laundry, and there's this puppy we found on the street I have to keep an eye on. Yeah, a sane person might not have been so easily suckered.