might be some politics of business involved eg.,. trying to discredit the opposing product? why they test this brand and maybe never any of the other myriad of brands one might well wonder, and testing is expensive and needs to be paid for by someone, so it comes back to who pays wins. ok there are residues in product, i use sugar cane mulch it is easiest and cheapest to get, it will be full of residue, as growing cane is a high end user of chemicals,even if i could get spoilt lucerne hay, what residues might it have? if not direct fall out from a nearby agriculture application or coal fired power station?? me not going to get paranoid about it i won't have anything to use even the mushroom compost we use. very doubtful if residues will be made soluble for the plants so the plants can't take it up, yes the gardener can end up with it on their hands and fingers remedy wash after using products or even gardening. as for recalling it the maker has a huge bill now for no gain for gardeners. maybe the epa should do independent costly testing of residues in at least fresh fruit & vege's instead? now that does effect our health. len Here is a link that might be useful: lens straw bale garden

Today I've been playing the good customer and going through the paces to address this issue with the LG Washing Machine I purchased via BestBuy in January 2012. In the fall of 2013 I received a notice in the mail that my unit needed to be upgraded (you know the story). At that time we would get an occasional unbalance code. I wasn't aware of all the back-story on this washer. I called LG Recall (1-855-400-4639) and they had a local service provider come out and "upgrade" the software in October 2013. Very soon afterwards the machine consistently gave a uE code and often as not able to finish a single wash cycle, even after attempting to re-balance several times, and finally giving a UE code. We put up with this through the holidays and spring time of 2014 by running the washer and always choosing the "no spin" option. Then when the cycle finished (sometimes with a UE and sometimes not) we would then run a 13 minutes "spin only" cycle which we would have to monitor throughout the entire 13 minutes to stop the machine and attempt to re-balance the load if a uE code was given again. Most often this DID give a uE code meaning that we'd have to start the 13 minute spin only cycle again. In most cases we usually get to a point where we think most of the water had been removed, still very wet by normal standards, and just give up and throw the clothes in the dryer where they go through an extra long drying cycle since there is more water in the clothes than there should be anyway. Today I called LG Recall again and told them that the "upgrade" made the situation worse. They sent me through to the "special diagnosis" team who had me put the phone next to the washer, listen for fax-like tones and discovered that, yes, I was telling the truth. There are uE and UE codes being alerted. They then scheduled a visit from a local contractor and told me that I should expect a confirmation call from the contractor. The contractor called and said they would be charging me $89 for a diagnosis. I was not told this by LG, so I refused the service and called LG back. The recall line (who had set up the appointment) told me that they couldn't help me any further and I needed to speak with Customer Service. I called customer service (1-800-243-0000) who told me they could get the "A&E Service" to come out for a "one-time repair" at not cost. They gave me a case number and the phone number for A&E Service (888-433-3892) to schedule this visit. A&E said they couldn't accept a call from me, and could only schedule the visit if Customer Service was on the line. I called Customer Service again. (for today that is already 2 calls, and another two calls to LG Recall, and one call to A&E). This time Customer Service told me that they would cancel the previous service call request, and set up a new request for a local service to come out on Monday to service the washer, at no charge. I will come back to continue to record the events, as a means of reference for my own purposes, but also in hopes that it is useful to others. I haven't seen that anyone has had this problem resolved through these local contractor service visits, but at least I'm going through the paces and will be able to convince LG that I've been cooperative and done everything I can on my side in case I have to insist on a buy-back or replacement. I see that some others have had some success in that regard and I'm trying to follow the model.

Hi Everyone, Longtime forum lurker, first time poster. I've been following this post and a couple others regarding CC's. Gill (or anyone else who might know), how much of the stalk do you leave on your CC's when you separate and repot them? I received a CC recently and there was a 3.5 inch stem. Should I trim it or leave the length as is? How much of the stem do you "bury" into the "soil" mix? Thank you for any direction - Lily

Several years ago I bought a wastebasket frame that attached to the inside of my kitchen sink cabinet that used the plastic grocery bags with handles that we brought home with our groceries. I loved it. But of course, now you can't get them at grocery stores in our area anymore. Can't even pay for them. You either buy a paper bag or a durable bag, or bring your own. I can buy bags made for that frame, but they are a bit expensive, so I took it down. I now use a 2 gallon round wastebasket under the sink and in both bathrooms. If I stretch them a bit, I can use the plastic bags we put produce in at the store. I also have purchased bags that I use when I'm out of produce bags. When I have to use the purchased bags, I am reminded that we don't eat enough roughage, LOL. The only other thing I use trash bags for is the Litter Robot. I have purchased special bags for it, but they're about 50 cents each! I now use cheap 13-gallon bags for the Robot. We have 6 cats and that's a lot of doo-dee. We would be spending a good portion of the day scooping were it not for the Robot. It was expensive, but well worth the cost in my opinion. Another opinion: Bruno is our most intelligent cat. I've trained him to jump through a hoop and I've thought it might be worth training him to use the toilet. Then he could teach the others, LOL.