HI! I got a lovely email that this thread had been retrieved so I'm here to give an update! Actually, I've been so consumed with this project that I haven't even been to the forum. The store is going to open October 1!!!!! It's called "Southern Seasons" and it's in Shelbyville, TX. I actually got my LLC with Moo's Garden & Market but I found that I had to spell and explain too much with this name. Plus I kept getting mail addressed to Moose Gardens (?) I found Southern Seasons explained that concept much better. If someone will post the "code" on how to paste a picture I'll be happy to show you the progress. It's quite a transformation! It has been my passion to make this store THE store that I would want to shop at. It must have everything that I find enjoyable in a store. I think I might have done it, for the most part. First of all, we are all about the seasons. When we open in October I'm having a half a semi load of pumpkins delivered for sale and display. Their premium pumpkins from West Texas in all sizes shapes and colors. These bear NO resemblance to your Wal Mart or grocery store pumpkins. There is big and tiny, red and white and blue and orange, tall and fat and even some with warts! My husband and I bundled up corn shocks from our garden for decoration, I'm going to Louisiana for a load of barley and wheat straw bales. We'll have mums and snapdraggons, panseys, and fall garden veggie plants. The day after Thanksgiving, all the Fall stuff goes to the cows to enjoy and in comes the Fraser Firs from North Carolina. I'm getting table top sizes for my older customers who find large trees too much to deal with. Then comes spring with hanging baskets and beddding plants, fountains and bird baths, feeders, wind chimes, sun catchers etc. Back to October- Inside the store is seperated into two sections which I lovingly call womans world/man's world. The theme of the whole store is based on entertaining at home. Whether it's a formal dinner party, backyard cookout, or a cozy evening at home alone, I have what you need! - Let me explain! The ladies side will greet you when you walk in with a huge centerpiece of fresh cut flowers (which are for sale) and often times a fruit and vegetable centerpiece like a pomegranate and lemon topiary or such. I also carry Colonial Candles, and sachets and poporri from Sentations, candle sticks & georgeous table runners. Wine, iced tea, rocks, shot, martini glasses, pitchers, stirrers, decanters, swizzle sticks both silly and classic. Trays to carry your cup and saucer, the BEST music CD's ranging from jazz to love songs, books from Southern Lady publishing on entertaining and tabletops and flowers. Magazines also like Southern Lady, Taste of the South (Not taste of home) Victoria and Tea Time. On the counter you will find fresh muffins, cookies, croissants, cupcakes, fruitcakes, pies and bagles. Fresh hot coffee (perhaps cappaccino, I'm working on that) and you can take your coffee and muffin and go out on the back deck (20x24) and enjoy your coffee looking at the gardens and reading a magazine or newspaper. There will be a nice fountain and seasonal decor, of course. I want people to LOVE to be here! Man's world has Salty snacks like Real Virginia peanuts both in a can and in the shell, fresh fruits and vegetables grown localy and in from the Texas Rio Grand Valley, glass bottled cokes, the real can sugar Dr. Pepper from Dublin, TX. Deer corn and fall plot mixes. A meat counter with actual USDA PRIME BEEF! Yes, it's pricey but it's so difficult to find that I decided we MUST carry it for those who want something special. We'll have delicious smoked link sausage by the pound, and other food items that I'm still working on. I'm sure there's so much that I'm forgetting! It's a lot especially when you see that the store is so tiny but it will be loaded to the rafters which is what I wanted! Also, different yes, but I will NOT decorate for Christmas until the day after Thanksgiving! This gives you a reason to come back often to see what is new with the decor and centerpieces and foods. Thank you all for your interest and please come and see me when we get open! It's going to be nothing if not interesting. I've got to go paint....again! Love, Moo!

The consumer must educate themselves. Obviously there exists widely varying opinions and deep emotions on the subject of GM foods as well as sources of information on the subject. Let there be a broad, bright source of light whose source is rooted in science rather than emotion and opinion shining out across the world. What precious little research on GMOs in food I've seen in refereed journals doesn't make a good case for consuming GMOs but I haven't seen nearly enough to conclude that they are a threat to my diet. Much more work needs to be done for me to make a rational, knowledge based decision. In the meantime, this country needs to get it's feces congregated and institute COOL, Country of Origin Labeling at the very least, if we can't get that done there is no hope for trying to get GM labeling. The thought of eating produce from China is both sickening and a tad frightening considering their environmental laws and regs..

Figs: You'll be much further ahead of the game if you forget about fertilizing and give them a long cold rest for the winter, placed directly on the floor of an unheated garage or buried against the foundation of a heated building on its north side, away from sun and wind. They'll wake in spring with almost all of their stored energy, rather than showing you a weak spring push because their reserves steadily declined over winter due to unfavorable indoor conditions. If you DO decide to overwinter indoors, you'll find compost to be a woefully inadequate NPK source. If you're looking for best results for container culture, any commonly found soluble fertilizer in a 3:1:2 ratio (24-8-16, 12-4-8, 9-3-6 are all 3:1:2 ratios) will efficiently deliver most or all of the elements essential to normal growth (depending on what you choose) and allow you to keep TDS/EC at the lowest levels possible without deficiencies - which would be a significant plus in dry indoor conditions because the low TDS/EC will facilitate water uptake; but again, the best course for the figs would be to give them the rest they want. Al

Jim, here on the Pacific Coast we use the Sunset Magazine's garden zone system, which divides the western states into something like 24 zones, and then AK and HI each get 3 zones I think - never plan on gardening in either so haven't paid much attention! Anyway they use much more information than just average winter lows. They include summer highs, duration of summers, duration of winters, marine influence, banana belts, cold pockets, seasonal winds, latitude, elevation ... And, not just to brag about this, but I know I've seen them branch out to a gardening encyclopedia for the eastern half of the country, and I recall seeing zones numbered well into the 40s. Way more than the USDA's 11 zone system for the whole country. Once again, I don't plan on ever living east of the Rockies so didn't pay much attention. But I know it's out there. How accurate and how precise it is I could not tell you. But look around for it and see if it tells you anything useful about your area that you don't already know. It is nice to have the more detail. For instance the USDA system, which is fine as far as it goes, no complaints from me, puts Seattle WA, San Antonio TX, and Charleston SC in the same zone, but gardening in those same areas is not the same at all! Now when I'm talking about testing your soil to find out what type it is I am not looking at nutrient status. I am looking at particle composition, which determines water holding and drainage, and will also determine nutrient status in turn. If you could not see any gradations in your mason jar test, you may be my age!!!! and need extra light and magnification to see these things. Getting old sucks. Try using a bigger jar, and taking a larger sample, so everything's bigger; and make sure you check it in STRONG light at exactly 1 minute and at 2 hours. Keep in mind you may have layers that are only 1/4" deep. I've also found that when I let the whole thing sit for at least 2 days, completely still, the layers become thinner but easier to see. It was enlightening to me to see exactly how much sand, and how little clay (as in no measurable amount), my current garden soil has. It's like gardening in aquarium gravel. So even though we have a very short dry season in summer, in gravelly soil, it's long enough to kill plants by drought where they'd be fine in clay soil.