You're welcome. Thanks again, for being so kind. Some thoughts I offered in another, older threads on this forum. They should pretty much answer your question, and may even be quoted in the text somewhere up this thread (if so, I apologize for the redundancy): In my estimation, the only case to be made for reusing container soils is one of economics, and you'll never find me argue against making that decision. If you can't afford, you can't afford it. That said and setting economics aside, you might decide to reuse soil for reasons other than economical. Perhaps the effort involved with acquiring (or making your own) soil is something you might not wish to go through or be bothered with. In any case, it would be difficult to show that soils in a more advanced state of structural collapse can somehow be preferred to a soil that can be counted on to maintain its structure for the entire growth cycle. So, if the economic aspect is set aside, at some point you must decide that "my used soil is good enough" and that you're willing to accept whatever the results of that decision are. All soils are not created equal. The soils I grow in are usually pine bark based & collapse structurally at a much slower rate that peat based soils, yet I usually choose to turn them into the garden or give them over to a compost pile where they serve a better purpose than as a container soil after a year of service. Some plantings (like woody materials and some perennials) do pretty well the second year in the same bark-based soil, and with careful watering, I'm usually able to get them through a third year w/o root issues. Watering habits are an extremely important part of container gardening. Well structured soils that drain well are much more forgiving and certainly favor success on the part of the more inexperienced gardeners. As soils age, water retention increases and growing becomes increasingly difficult. If your (anyone's) excellence in watering skills allows you to grow in an aging medium, or if your decision that "good enough" is good enough for you, then it's (your decision) is good enough for me, too. The phrases "it works for me" or "I've done it this way for years w/o problems" is often offered up as good reason to continue the status quo, but there's not much substance there. I'm being called away now, but I'll leave with something I offered in reply on a recent thread: "... First, plants really aren't particular about what soil is made of. As long as you're willing to stand over your plant & water every 10 minutes, you can grow most plants perfectly well in a bucket of marbles. Mix a little of the proper fertilizers in the water & you're good to go. The plant has all it needs - water, nutrients, air in the root zone, and something to hold it in place. So, if we can grow in marbles, how can a soil fail? Our growing skills fail us more often than our soils fail. We often lack the experience or knowledge to recognize the shortcomings of our soils and to adjust for them. The lower our experience/knowledge levels are, the more nearly perfect should be the soils we grow in, but this is a catch 22 situation because hidden in the inexperience is the inability to even recognize differences between good and bad soil(s). Container soils fail when their structure fails. When we select soils with components that break down quickly or that are so small they find their way into and clog macro-pores, we begin our growing attempts under a handicap. I see anecdotes about reusing soils, even recommendations to do it all over these forums. I don't argue with the practice, but I (very) rarely do it, even when growing flowery annuals, meant only for a single season. Soils don't break down at an even rate. If you assign a soil a life of two years and imagine that the soil goes from perfect to unusable in that time, it's likely it would be fine for the first year, lose about 25% of its suitability in the first half of the second year, and lose the other 75% in the last half of the second year. This is an approximation & is only meant to illustrate the exponential rate at which soils collapse. Soils that are suitable for only a growing season show a similar rate of decline, but at an accelerated rate. When a used soil is mixed with fresh soil after a growing season, the old soil particles are in or about to begin a period of accelerated decay. I choose to turn them into the garden or they find their way to a compost pile. Unless the reasons are economical, I find it difficult to imagine why anyone would add garden soils to container soils. It destroys aeration and usually causes soils to retain too much water for too long. Sand (unless approaching the size of BB's), has the same effect. I don't use compost in soils because of the negative effect on aeration/drainage. The small amount of micro-nutrients provided by compost can be more efficiently added, organically or inorganically, via other vehicles. To boil this all down, a container soil fails when the inverse relationship between aeration/drainage goes awry. When aeration is reduced, soggy soil is the result, and trouble is in the making. I've mentioned before that I don't post here to get people to convert to a particular mix or blend of soil. I post what I know will work very well for anyone who can get appropriate ingredients & modify the mix to suit their climate & other cultural conditions. If you use a mix that guarantees good aeration for the expected life of the planting - you're in good shape. Most peat based mixes will not work well in extended life plantings. Conifer bark based mixes, on the other hand, retain structure for much longer periods. If you still have questions, please don't hesitate .... Al

Well... to be honest, I haven't said anything but truly, what you're doing when you post in someone's message thread with all your photos again, and doing so multiple times is actually called "hijacking a thread". I think the suggestions that have been given to you are more in line with this forum - if you have a topic, start thread and use that thread to update your info, instead of hijacking everyone else's message threads with repeated postings of your photos and your "story". If you look back at the messages in this and other GW forums, you will not see folks doing this. Now, they might share a photo or two, for comparison or education, but to continually post ALL those photos over and over and over again, is getting a little exhausting. Frankly, I'm avoiding certain message threads because of this. Not really the forum etiquette. But, I'm glad you've asked for some feedback, as it will help you to understand better how the GW forums run, and what's considered appropriate and what is not. I'm glad your trees are doing well, and you've developed a system that is working for you. But maybe better to keep that to your personal thread, and update on occasion, so we can see the progress. Does that make sense? Patty S.

I am by NO means a tomato expert nor do I even eat them, lol.. However, My wife loves the Campari tomato's - We also raise box turtles and they love worms - we have a 1/2s wine barrel that we raise worms in - I feed the worms differnt types of food - one day late winter/very early spring - I had a few Campari tomatos that I had tried to feed the box turtles and they were not interested - I threw them in the wine barrel - mainly because I was too lazy to walk around the house to the garbage and maybe the worms would eat them as they rotted???? around the first of May or last of april - I saw two very small tomato plants spout in the wine barrel - paid very little attention but left them out of couristy.... We left for a 4 week road trip on May 17 and got home on June 12 - walk to the back yard and WOW - those two plants in the wine barrel were HUGE - yesterday I noticed several small tomatos and called the wife - the plants seem to be the Campari I threw in there - NO other tomatos were thrown in - the new tomatos look just like the ones she bought from Costco and the stock of the plant is very stout - agian, I am NOT an expert and these plants sprouted and grew with NO effort on my part - One thing I will say is that the dirt in the wine barrel is very fertile because of al the worm casting.. I can post a pic, IF I can figure it out here and if there is an interest. [IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/harley0711/T1.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/harley0711/T2.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/harley0711/T3.jpg[/IMG] harley0711@yahoo.com if you want a pic emailed Here is a link that might be useful:

is that a complete suite by trend micro? does it contain an antivirus program as well as a firewall and antispyware? I personally do not like the suites but that is personal preference. Trend micro is a good brand for antivirus. I would not get rid of superantispyware it is a manual scanner and I would continue to update it and do weekly scans. If it has the antivirus and the firewall you could get rid of avast and zone alarm. IF it is just the antivirus you could get rid of avast. Trend Micro offers about 4 different products. IF it is this one Internet Security 2008 it has an antivirus, 2 way firewall and an antispyware. I have no idea about their firewall, how good it is, or their antispyware. That one cost $49.99 a year for 3 computers.