Mary Cook

Useful info, Zeth, thank you. I note that all those elements are things my soil is rich in, according to tests--the only things it tested low in were sodium and sulfur, not on your list. So maybe I shouldn't much dump it in my gardens, although one thing you didn't mention is its way of raising pH.

What worked well for all our garden fences, made of chickenwire over cattle panels, with a gate of the same, is a bungee cord. Hook one end to the gate and the other to a wall of the enclosure, and the gate stays firmly closed. When I'm inside it's not tightly fastened, but I don't think rabbits and such are getting in when I'm in there working; they get in when I walk away without latching it, just to go to the house for a tool or sunglasses or whatever, and then get distracted and forget I left the gate partly open...Mostly I can latch and unlatch with one hand, except for one garden that takes a firm stretch of the bungee cord which I find takes two hands.
Gotta mention--my husband once got locked in the chicken coop, just as someone mentioned here, and was wondering whether he'd have to try to escape through the chicken door, which would likely require shedding all his clothes, by the time I heard him yelling and let him out. I then had an image in my mind of him crawling through that hatch and down the ramp naked, and I gotta admit, I was thinking what a lovely video clip that would make...

A couple of cubic feet a day is pretty different from several cubic meters. But still useful for someone building soil; but you still need something higher in carbon that you can get, at least occasionally, in greater bulk like leaves or hay or wood chips. But your mention of the handcart made me think of this: I spent the summer of 2003 in Ecuador, the last month in Banos. I lived in a tourist house at the top of a hill above the town, near the hot springs that gave the town its name, on the flanks of Tungaroa, which was erupting at the time. I would sometimes see an old woman going up and down the road with a small pull-behind cart with a tank that would hold a couple of gallons. Someone told me that this woman made the trip daily, despite arthritis, because collecting compostables was a way she could contribute to her family, which had a restaurant I think.

It's so easy to say "add tons of organic matter" and so hard to find tons, and sometimes hard to transport it. I saw an article about the best way to compost that suggest using two meters square of kitchen scraps...even most industrial kitchens don't generate that much at once!

It worked for me too. But I think I read that in the Southwest there is type of clay it doesn't work with (caliche?) and also you should use coarse sand not fine sand.

All of these, chopped:
10 C tomatoes
5 C green peppers
5 C onions,
2 1/2 C hot peppers
1 1/4C vinegar
3 C tomato sauce
1 C sweet fruit
6 cloves garlic
1 T salt   boil for about 45 minutes, till the liquid content looks right, add in some chili powder, and put in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. I need 24 pints of this for a year's supply...we have it on our omelet every morning and put a spoonful in a taco or burrito...

Likely the UK ones are filberts, which are related to hazelnuts but not the same species. The Arbor Foundation had a project to cross the two, because filberts are much bigger--both the plant and the nut--than American hazelnuts, but are susceptible to Eastern Hazelnut Blight when grown in the US. Most production in the US is in the Pacific Northwest, and they're growing filberts. My neighbor coordinated orders for 40 of the crosses which were supposed to have the size of the filberts but with the blight resistance of the natives--perhaps they were released too soon, because few of them even survived, I have one of the survivors, a Jefferson, many years later and it's like 12' tall, many trunked, but has yet to produce a nut. I once planted a native next to it in hopes of cross pollination but it sickened and died just like the other crosses that were originally supposed to be the Jefferson's companions.

Lavender is one of the ingredients I use in a tea mix I call Hangover Helper, good for unhappy guts from any cause. The other three ingredients are mint, fennel seeds, and chamomile. I try to grow all four of these myself, but the fennel I planted this spring, which did quite well for awhile, dried up and died (as did the parsley) in midsummer. The chamomile bed kept getting invaded by weeds so I eradicated it all and started again, but I'm not sure it's going to come back this fall as it has been so dry and hot. I think I have peppermint and spearmint going well again in planters. I have a nice lavender plant--not that much harvest but this is the least important ingredient, I mostly add it because an old herbal said it was good for "a simmering braine" and I've used the tea for migraines. Sometimes I cut off a thin slice of ginger root and put that in the cup too.

Several general points rather than a suggestion. One, I would think twice about a job that requires major commuting. I think that is likely to, and should, become a thing of the past. Cheap gasoline has a sale date. And rejecting the "trades" because you had a couple of bad experiences might be a mistake. One of my neighbors moved here with some electrical experience, left his name and number in the local hardware stores and started getting work; he has now expanded to other renovation work, sometimes has an assistant, and makes a living. Which leads to my main point: I don't know what area you're looking at, but if you'd consider West Virginia, we have cheap land, low property taxes, no hassles about building codes in the rural parts, low cost of living (also low wages), and it's one of the oldest states...so able-bodied young people willing to work can get work. Another general point is that it's a good idea to consider a sheaf of small income streams rather than one well-paid job that could be lost.

Snarl. Can you tell I have a chip on my shoulder? I just want to say that if it ever happens that my three peach trees all bear heavily, and I have to COPE WITH an overabundance of peaches, I will manage somehow. I will can peaches till I run out of quart jars, can peach jam till I run out of pint jars, and then put peach halves in my dehydrator. Not to mention pigging out on peach pie and peach cobbler and giving away more of that mountain of imaginary peaches. For most of us, a year when you have an overabundance of any crop is a good time to preserve that crop if at all possible, because leaner times are coming. When late frosts kill your peach crop the next two years, you'll be glad you spent all those sweaty hours canning. And even the ones you gave away tend to return in some other form, as people like to reciprocate.