First, you didn't flunk Lawn 101. You got a B in 2006, a C in 2007 (for late seeding) and an A so far in 2008. Nothing you did was wrong, but the timing for seeding was off a bit. 1) Round Up. We hesitate to mention specific chemical names for companies. The generic glyphosate works just fine and it's essentially the same stuff. Also, so many of us are organic and the R word stuff isn't. 2) Compost and peat moss will both decay away in about five years, so the soil is going to settle. Certainly you can mix either lightly (say, an inch or so every ten inches of soil), or skip it and use organic feeding methods. If your soil is really bad, I'd mix it. You can usually get compost from your local garden store, big box store, or delivered bulk from a supplier. The other option is to use 1/4" as a topdress for your seeding. Over time, the decay products work into the soil and enrichen it, plus you kill two birds with one stone and don't need to otherwise mulch the seed. Plus, the worms like it. :-) 3) Go right ahead and use it. If it was stored in a cold garage, it's completely fine. If stored in a warm house, you lose some germination but it's not that significant over six months. You can't wait too much longer for a spring seeding (and might want to consider using Siduron or Tupersan as a pre-emergent when seeding). So you probably don't have time to wait for the soil results. That's OK, you can work on correcting those issues afterward. Right now, get it sprouted--the seed has all the resources it needs for the first few weeks of its life. Once you get that test back you'll know what to add.

I've gotten some surprises since I moved from Northern CA to OK. Plants that were invasive in CA are not here, and vice versa. My all-time hated plant for taking over the world is Hypericum, in any of it's varieties. I would never ever consider planting it unless erosion control was desperately needed on a hillside. The root system is very tough and can turn into a nearly solid mat, killing anything else in its path. Once it's really established, I think it would take a tractor and a lot of weed killer and several years to eradicate it. Lily of the Valley can spread out over a huge area and be all but impossible to control. Coreopsis in CA is like a weed. Start a plant or two and it spreads everywhere. Here in OK it doesn't seem to be nearly as much of a problem. In fact, I tried scattering seed in hopes that I'd get a crop of new ones, but nothing happened. However, I found that the spiderwort likes this climate and had a dozen babies the first year. The remaining ones are vinca major or minor, which can be really hard to control; sweet woodruff that was mentioned above, which has such tiny roots that it's easy to keep where it belongs; monarda, which began as 8 plants and is now over 8' wide; and evening primrose (oenothera) which spreads like crazy. I'm using it to fill in an ugly patch and it's doing a very good job of it, very fast. Six little starts last year turned into an area that's about 8'long and 5' wide. Also, honeysuckle in OK is an invasive weed, climbing over, under, around and through anything in its path. I'm growing Goldflame, which is well mannered, with an extremely long bloom period.

I think soy flour has a bitter edge to it too. I know a lot of people don't think it's prominent, but I always can tell when a dish has any kind of raw soy product. I wonder if there's a way to overcome that tendency? I found this online; I have no idea if it's valid, though: "Soy Flour, when not fully cooked will taste bitter. To avoid this toast it in a dry pan over medium heat until it's slightly darker and smells nutty. If you want to toast a large amount of flour to have on hand spread it in a cookie sheet with a lip and toast in a 250 degree oven for about an hour, stirring every fifteen minutes. As long as you have the oven going you can place a cookie sheet of soy flour on each rack." I also found this suggestion. Again, I'm not sure if this info is correct, but it is interesting: "Soy flour (ground uncooked soybeans) has a strong soy taste and will make nasty brownies. Soy POWDER, made from cooked soybeans, has little or no aftertaste."

ncrealestateguy, is the Due Deligence fee the same thing as the deposit? What percentage of the listing (or offer) price do you usually ask for? Here in my area the buyer makes two deposits, one when the offer is accepted, and the other about 2 weeks later. However, if the seller and the buyer cannot agree on inspection items, the buyer has the right to walk away and get his/her deposit back. In our case, we put 5% deposit towards purchasing the new house, and the buyer of our house only made 1.4% deposit. We thought the deposit amount wouldn't matter too much because if the two parties cannot agree on something and thus the contract gets cancelled, the seller wouldn't get any of the deposit money. Some buyers are really petty, and do whatever they can to get a price reduction. For example, our buyer wanted $4k from us for no good reason (there is nothing to repair), and their strategy was to not respond to our attorney, until the day before the scheduled closings. AND they refused to let us rent from them for two days. So we had to have everything lined up for the two closings (taking down lighting fixtures, patching holes, packing, arranging movers, arranging hotel stays, etc, etc), even though the closings may not even happen in the end. It's a big deal for everyone involved in the process, especially for us and the sellers of the house we are moving into. Thank you for letting me vent. This post was edited by ILoveCookie on Thu, Nov 28, 13 at 13:20