In article ,
"symplastless" wrote:

Food is a substance that provides and energy source, mostly. Nutrient is a
substance that provides an energy source, elements, and other substances
essential for life, in types and amounts that can provide a healthy life.
Fertilizer is a substance that provides elements, as salts mostly,
Chem ferts (salts) can, and will, kill soil organisms, especially if the
attitude of "if a little is good, then more must be better" is employed.
ALL available information indicates that a large, diverse population of
soil organisms is best for growing healthy produce, rich in phyto
nutrients. Healthy soils are created with the incorporation of manure
and organic material into the soil to support micro-organisms.
--------------

"In addition to all the living organisms you can see in garden soils
(for example, there are up to 50 earthworms in a square foot [0.09
square meters] of good soil), there is a whole world of soil organisms
that you cannot see unless you use sophisticated and expensive optics.
Only then do the tiny, microscopic organisms‹bacteria, fungi, protozoa,
nematodes‹appear, and in numbers that are nothing less than staggering.
A mere teaspoon of good garden soil, as measured by microbial
geneticists, contains a billion invisible bacteria, several yards of
equally invisible fungal hyphae, several thousand protozoa, and a few
dozen nematodes. The common denominator of all soil life is that every
organism needs energy to survive. While a few bacteria, known as
chemosynthesizers, derive energy from sulfur, nitrogen, or even iron
compounds, the rest have to eat something containing carbon in order to
get the energy they need to sustain life. Carbon may come from organic
material supplied by plants, waste products produced by other organisms,
or the bodies of other organisms. The first order of business of all
soil life is obtaining carbon to fuel metabolism . . ".
- Teaming w/Microbes, by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis, p.19.
---------

"baby lettuce is one crop that may well be easier to grow organically
than conventionally: Harsh chemicals can scorch young leaves, and
nitrogen fertilizers render lettuces more vulnerable to insects. It
seems the bugs are attracted to the' free nitrogen in their leaves, and
because of the more rapid growth of chemically nourished plants, insects
find their leaves easier to pierce. "

Omnivore's Dilemma,
by Michael Pollan, p.165
-----------


³The organic label is a marketing tool," Secretary Glickman said. ³It is
not a statement about food safety. Nor is 'organic' a value judgment
about nutrition or quality."

Some intriguing recent research suggests otherwise. A study by
University of California-Davis researchers published in the Journal of
Agriculture and Food Chemistry in 2003 described an experiment in which
identical varieties of corn, strawberries, and blackberries grown in
neighboring plots using different methods (including organically and
conventionally) were compared for levels of vitamins and polyphenols.
Polyphenols are a group of secondary metabolites manufactured by plants
that we've recently learned play an important role in human health and
nutrition. Many are potent antioxidants; some play a role in preventing
or fighting cancer; others exhibit antimicrobial properties. The Davis
researchers found that organic and otherwise sustainably grown fruits
and vegetables contained significantly higher levels of both ascorbic
acid (vitamin C) and a wide range of polyphenols.

The recent discovery of these secondary metabolites in plants has
brought our understanding of the biological and chemical complexity of
foods to a deeper level of refinement; history suggests we haven't
gotten anywhere near the bottom of this question, either. The first
level was reached early in the nineteenth century with the
identification of the macronutrients-protein, carbohydrate, and fat.
Having isolated these compounds, chemists thought they'd unlocked the
key to human nutrition. Yet some people (such as sailors) living on
diets rich in macronutrients nevertheless got sick. The mystery was
solved when scientists discovered the major vitamins-a second key to
human nutrition. Now it's the polyphenols in plants that we're learning
play a critical role in keeping us healthy. (And which might explain why
diets heavy in processed food fortified with vitamins still aren't as
nutritious as fresh foods.) You wonder what else is going on in these
plants, what other undiscovered qualities in them we've evolved to
depend on.

In many ways the mysteries of nutrition at the eating end of the food
chain closely mirror the mysteries of fertility at the growing end: The
two realms are like wildernesses that we keep convincing ourselves our
chemistry has mapped, at least until the next level of complexity comes
into view. Curiously, Justus von Liebig, the nineteenth-century
German chemist with the spectacularly ironic surname, bears
responsibility for science's overly reductive understanding of both ends
of the food chain. It was Liebig, you'll recall, who thought he had
found the chemical key to soil fertility with the discovery of NPK, and
it was the same Liebig who thought he had found the key to human
nutrition when identified the macronutrients in food. Liebig wasn't
wrong on either count, yet in both instances he made the fatal mistake
of thinking that what we knew about nourishing plants and people was all
we need to know to keep them healthy. It's a mistake we'll probably keep
repeating until we develop a deeper respect for the complexity of food a
soil and, perhaps, the links between the two.

But back to the polyphenols, which may him' at the nature of that link.
Why in the world should organically grown blackberries or corn contain
significantly more of these compounds? The authors of Davis study
haven't settled the question, but they offer two suggest theories. The
reason plants produce these compounds in the first place is to defend
themselves against pests and diseases; the more press from pathogens,
the more polyphenols a plant will produce. These compounds, then, are
the products of natural selection and, more specifically, the
coevolutionary relationship between plants and the species that prey on
them. Who would have guessed that humans evolved to profit from a diet
of these plant pesticides? Or that we would invent an agriculture that
then deprived us of them? The Davis authors hypothesize that plants
being defended by man-made pesticides don't need to work as hard to make
their own polyphenol pesticides. Coddled by us and our chemicals, the
plants see no reason to invest their sources in mounting a strong
defense. (Sort of like European nations during the cold war.)
A second explanation (one that subsequent research seems to suppport)
may be that the radically simplified soils in which chemically
fertilized plants grow don't supply all the raw ingredients needed to
synthesize these compounds, leaving the plants more vulnerable to
attack, as we know conventionally grown plants tend to be. NPK might
be sufficient for plant growth yet still might not give a plant
everything it needs to manufacture ascorbic acid or lycopene or
resveratrol in quantity. As it happens, many of the polyphenols (and
especially a sublet called the flavonols) contribute to the
characteristic taste of a fruit or vegetable. Qualities we can't yet
identify, in soil may contribute qualities we've only just begun to
identify in our foods and our bodies.

Reading the Davis study I couldn't help thinking about the early
proponents of organic agriculture, people like Sir Albert Howard and J.
I. Rodale, who would have been cheered, if unsurprised, by the findings.
Both men were ridiculed for their unscientific conviction that a
reductive approach to soil fertility-the NPK mentality-would diminish
the nutritional quality of the food grown in it and, in turn, the health
of the people who lived on that food. All carrots are not created equal,
they believed; how we grow it, the soil we grow it in, what we feed that
soil all contribute qualities to a carrot, qualities that may yet escape
the explanatory net of our chemistry. Sooner or later the soil
scientists and nutritionists will catch up to Sir Howard, heed his
admonition that we begin ³treating the whole problem of health in soil,
plant, animal and man as one great subject."

Omnivore's Dilemma
by Michael Pollan, p.179


or in bonded forms, that require microorganisms to alter to forms
that can be absorbed by plants.

It appears that we need to reinvent the wheel because there are so many
new posters in these groups.

Chem ferts kill the soil and leave you at the mercy of the
petro-chemical companies to feed your plants.

Spraying malathion on food crops must be the singularly stupidest and
worst idea I've heard this year, and there have been many contenders.

Joint compound would seem to be contra-indicated since it contains
triazine, which is used both in insecticides and herbicides.

I recommend in the strongest manner the two books above for anyone who
is thinking of growing food or who eats.
--
FB - FFF

Billy
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/

On Sat, 25 Aug 2007 09:43:25 -0700, Billy
wrote:

In article ,
"symplastless" wrote:

Food is a substance that provides and energy source, mostly. Nutrient is a
substance that provides an energy source, elements, and other substances
essential for life, in types and amounts that can provide a healthy life.
Fertilizer is a substance that provides elements, as salts mostly,
Chem ferts (salts) can, and will, kill soil organisms, especially if the
attitude of "if a little is good, then more must be better" is employed.
ALL available information indicates that a large, diverse population of
soil organisms is best for growing healthy produce, rich in phyto
nutrients. Healthy soils are created with the incorporation of manure
and organic material into the soil to support micro-organisms.
--------------

"In addition to all the living organisms you can see in garden soils
(for example, there are up to 50 earthworms in a square foot [0.09
square meters] of good soil), there is a whole world of soil organisms
that you cannot see unless you use sophisticated and expensive optics.
Only then do the tiny, microscopic organisms‹bacteria, fungi, protozoa,
nematodes‹appear, and in numbers that are nothing less than staggering.
A mere teaspoon of good garden soil, as measured by microbial
geneticists, contains a billion invisible bacteria, several yards of
equally invisible fungal hyphae, several thousand protozoa, and a few
dozen nematodes. The common denominator of all soil life is that every
organism needs energy to survive. While a few bacteria, known as
chemosynthesizers, derive energy from sulfur, nitrogen, or even iron
compounds, the rest have to eat something containing carbon in order to
get the energy they need to sustain life. Carbon may come from organic
material supplied by plants, waste products produced by other organisms,
or the bodies of other organisms. The first order of business of all
soil life is obtaining carbon to fuel metabolism . . ".
- Teaming w/Microbes, by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis, p.19.
---------

"baby lettuce is one crop that may well be easier to grow organically
than conventionally: Harsh chemicals can scorch young leaves, and
nitrogen fertilizers render lettuces more vulnerable to insects. It
seems the bugs are attracted to the' free nitrogen in their leaves, and
because of the more rapid growth of chemically nourished plants, insects
find their leaves easier to pierce. "

Omnivore's Dilemma,
by Michael Pollan, p.165
-----------


³The organic label is a marketing tool," Secretary Glickman said. ³It is
not a statement about food safety. Nor is 'organic' a value judgment
about nutrition or quality."

Some intriguing recent research suggests otherwise. A study by
University of California-Davis researchers published in the Journal of
Agriculture and Food Chemistry in 2003 described an experiment in which
identical varieties of corn, strawberries, and blackberries grown in
neighboring plots using different methods (including organically and
conventionally) were compared for levels of vitamins and polyphenols.
Polyphenols are a group of secondary metabolites manufactured by plants
that we've recently learned play an important role in human health and
nutrition. Many are potent antioxidants; some play a role in preventing
or fighting cancer; others exhibit antimicrobial properties. The Davis
researchers found that organic and otherwise sustainably grown fruits
and vegetables contained significantly higher levels of both ascorbic
acid (vitamin C) and a wide range of polyphenols.

The recent discovery of these secondary metabolites in plants has
brought our understanding of the biological and chemical complexity of
foods to a deeper level of refinement; history suggests we haven't
gotten anywhere near the bottom of this question, either. The first
level was reached early in the nineteenth century with the
identification of the macronutrients-protein, carbohydrate, and fat.
Having isolated these compounds, chemists thought they'd unlocked the
key to human nutrition. Yet some people (such as sailors) living on
diets rich in macronutrients nevertheless got sick. The mystery was
solved when scientists discovered the major vitamins-a second key to
human nutrition. Now it's the polyphenols in plants that we're learning
play a critical role in keeping us healthy. (And which might explain why
diets heavy in processed food fortified with vitamins still aren't as
nutritious as fresh foods.) You wonder what else is going on in these
plants, what other undiscovered qualities in them we've evolved to
depend on.

In many ways the mysteries of nutrition at the eating end of the food
chain closely mirror the mysteries of fertility at the growing end: The
two realms are like wildernesses that we keep convincing ourselves our
chemistry has mapped, at least until the next level of complexity comes
into view. Curiously, Justus von Liebig, the nineteenth-century
German chemist with the spectacularly ironic surname, bears
responsibility for science's overly reductive understanding of both ends
of the food chain. It was Liebig, you'll recall, who thought he had
found the chemical key to soil fertility with the discovery of NPK, and
it was the same Liebig who thought he had found the key to human
nutrition when identified the macronutrients in food. Liebig wasn't
wrong on either count, yet in both instances he made the fatal mistake
of thinking that what we knew about nourishing plants and people was all
we need to know to keep them healthy. It's a mistake we'll probably keep
repeating until we develop a deeper respect for the complexity of food a
soil and, perhaps, the links between the two.

But back to the polyphenols, which may him' at the nature of that link.
Why in the world should organically grown blackberries or corn contain
significantly more of these compounds? The authors of Davis study
haven't settled the question, but they offer two suggest theories. The
reason plants produce these compounds in the first place is to defend
themselves against pests and diseases; the more press from pathogens,
the more polyphenols a plant will produce. These compounds, then, are
the products of natural selection and, more specifically, the
coevolutionary relationship between plants and the species that prey on
them. Who would have guessed that humans evolved to profit from a diet
of these plant pesticides? Or that we would invent an agriculture that
then deprived us of them? The Davis authors hypothesize that plants
being defended by man-made pesticides don't need to work as hard to make
their own polyphenol pesticides. Coddled by us and our chemicals, the
plants see no reason to invest their sources in mounting a strong
defense. (Sort of like European nations during the cold war.)
A second explanation (one that subsequent research seems to suppport)
may be that the radically simplified soils in which chemically
fertilized plants grow don't supply all the raw ingredients needed to
synthesize these compounds, leaving the plants more vulnerable to
attack, as we know conventionally grown plants tend to be. NPK might
be sufficient for plant growth yet still might not give a plant
everything it needs to manufacture ascorbic acid or lycopene or
resveratrol in quantity. As it happens, many of the polyphenols (and
especially a sublet called the flavonols) contribute to the
characteristic taste of a fruit or vegetable. Qualities we can't yet
identify, in soil may contribute qualities we've only just begun to
identify in our foods and our bodies.

Reading the Davis study I couldn't help thinking about the early
proponents of organic agriculture, people like Sir Albert Howard and J.
I. Rodale, who would have been cheered, if unsurprised, by the findings.
Both men were ridiculed for their unscientific conviction that a
reductive approach to soil fertility-the NPK mentality-would diminish
the nutritional quality of the food grown in it and, in turn, the health
of the people who lived on that food. All carrots are not created equal,
they believed; how we grow it, the soil we grow it in, what we feed that
soil all contribute qualities to a carrot, qualities that may yet escape
the explanatory net of our chemistry. Sooner or later the soil
scientists and nutritionists will catch up to Sir Howard, heed his
admonition that we begin ³treating the whole problem of health in soil,
plant, animal and man as one great subject."

Omnivore's Dilemma
by Michael Pollan, p.179


or in bonded forms, that require microorganisms to alter to forms
that can be absorbed by plants.

It appears that we need to reinvent the wheel because there are so many
new posters in these groups.

Chem ferts kill the soil and leave you at the mercy of the
petro-chemical companies to feed your plants.

Spraying malathion on food crops must be the singularly stupidest and
worst idea I've heard this year, and there have been many contenders.

Joint compound would seem to be contra-indicated since it contains
triazine, which is used both in insecticides and herbicides.

I recommend in the strongest manner the two books above for anyone who
is thinking of growing food or who eats.



I printed out this post and put it on my lawn. I can see the grass
starting to turn green already

In article ,
Charles wrote:


I printed out this post and put it on my lawn. I can see the grass
starting to turn green already

Took me a second to get that.
Then I was ROFL! ;-D

Thanks.
--
Peace, Om

Remove _ to validate e-mails.

"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a Son of a bitch" -- Jack Nicholson

In article ,
Charles wrote:

It appears that we need to reinvent the wheel because there are so many
new posters in these groups.

Chem ferts kill the soil and leave you at the mercy of the
petro-chemical companies to feed your plants.

Spraying malathion on food crops must be the singularly stupidest and
worst idea I've heard this year, and there have been many contenders.

Joint compound would seem to be contra-indicated since it contains
triazine, which is used both in insecticides and herbicides.

I recommend in the strongest manner the two books above for anyone who
is thinking of growing food or who eats.



I printed out this post and put it on my lawn. I can see the grass
starting to turn green already

You're only young once, but you can be immature forever. Bully on you
Sir. Bully on you.

--
Billy
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/

I printed out this post and put it on my lawn. I can see the grass
starting to turn green already

Who are you? If you want a green lawn try applying magnesium. The center
are every chlorophyll molecule is magnesium.


--
Sincerely,
John A. Keslick, Jr.
Consulting Arborist
http://home.ccil.org/~treeman
and www.treedictionary.com
Beware of so-called tree experts who do not understand tree biology.
Storms, fires, floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions keep reminding us
that we are not the boss.

On Sat, 25 Aug 2007 21:03:30 -0400, "symplastless"
wrote:

I printed out this post and put it on my lawn. I can see the grass
starting to turn green already

Who are you? If you want a green lawn try applying magnesium. The center
are every chlorophyll molecule is magnesium.


Actually, mine is rather green just from water and mowing. We have a
lot of minerals in the water, and presumably the soil as well.

Magnesium does work well on the roses, though.

"Charles" wrote in message
Magnesium does work well on the roses, though.

Charles

Are you suggesting that roses are sensitive to magnesium?


--
Sincerely,
John A. Keslick, Jr.
Consulting Arborist
http://home.ccil.org/~treeman
and www.treedictionary.com
Beware of so-called tree experts who do not understand tree biology.
Storms, fires, floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions keep reminding us
that we are not the boss.

On Sat, 25 Aug 2007 21:49:15 -0400, "symplastless"
wrote:


"Charles" wrote in message
Magnesium does work well on the roses, though.

Charles

Are you suggesting that roses are sensitive to magnesium?


I am saying that when I occasionally put a magnesium sulfate solution
on the soil near the base of the roses that I notice the leaf color
appears to be a darker green and the bloom color is more intense.
(well, on the yellow rose, anyway, I haven't tried it on the others.)

And I only do it once a year.

On Sat, 25 Aug 2007 17:42:11 GMT, Charles
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Aug 2007 09:43:25 -0700, Billy
wrote:

In article ,
"symplastless" wrote:

Food is a substance that provides and energy source, mostly. Nutrient is a
substance that provides an energy source, elements, and other substances
essential for life, in types and amounts that can provide a healthy life.
Fertilizer is a substance that provides elements, as salts mostly,
Chem ferts (salts) can, and will, kill soil organisms, especially if the
attitude of "if a little is good, then more must be better" is employed.
ALL available information indicates that a large, diverse population of
soil organisms is best for growing healthy produce, rich in phyto
nutrients. Healthy soils are created with the incorporation of manure
and organic material into the soil to support micro-organisms.
--------------

"In addition to all the living organisms you can see in garden soils
(for example, there are up to 50 earthworms in a square foot [0.09
square meters] of good soil), there is a whole world of soil organisms
that you cannot see unless you use sophisticated and expensive optics.
Only then do the tiny, microscopic organisms‹bacteria, fungi, protozoa,
nematodes‹appear, and in numbers that are nothing less than staggering.
A mere teaspoon of good garden soil, as measured by microbial
geneticists, contains a billion invisible bacteria, several yards of
equally invisible fungal hyphae, several thousand protozoa, and a few
dozen nematodes. The common denominator of all soil life is that every
organism needs energy to survive. While a few bacteria, known as
chemosynthesizers, derive energy from sulfur, nitrogen, or even iron
compounds, the rest have to eat something containing carbon in order to
get the energy they need to sustain life. Carbon may come from organic
material supplied by plants, waste products produced by other organisms,
or the bodies of other organisms. The first order of business of all
soil life is obtaining carbon to fuel metabolism . . ".
- Teaming w/Microbes, by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis, p.19.
---------

"baby lettuce is one crop that may well be easier to grow organically
than conventionally: Harsh chemicals can scorch young leaves, and
nitrogen fertilizers render lettuces more vulnerable to insects. It
seems the bugs are attracted to the' free nitrogen in their leaves, and
because of the more rapid growth of chemically nourished plants, insects
find their leaves easier to pierce. "

Omnivore's Dilemma,
by Michael Pollan, p.165
-----------


³The organic label is a marketing tool," Secretary Glickman said. ³It is
not a statement about food safety. Nor is 'organic' a value judgment
about nutrition or quality."

Some intriguing recent research suggests otherwise. A study by
University of California-Davis researchers published in the Journal of
Agriculture and Food Chemistry in 2003 described an experiment in which
identical varieties of corn, strawberries, and blackberries grown in
neighboring plots using different methods (including organically and
conventionally) were compared for levels of vitamins and polyphenols.
Polyphenols are a group of secondary metabolites manufactured by plants
that we've recently learned play an important role in human health and
nutrition. Many are potent antioxidants; some play a role in preventing
or fighting cancer; others exhibit antimicrobial properties. The Davis
researchers found that organic and otherwise sustainably grown fruits
and vegetables contained significantly higher levels of both ascorbic
acid (vitamin C) and a wide range of polyphenols.

The recent discovery of these secondary metabolites in plants has
brought our understanding of the biological and chemical complexity of
foods to a deeper level of refinement; history suggests we haven't
gotten anywhere near the bottom of this question, either. The first
level was reached early in the nineteenth century with the
identification of the macronutrients-protein, carbohydrate, and fat.
Having isolated these compounds, chemists thought they'd unlocked the
key to human nutrition. Yet some people (such as sailors) living on
diets rich in macronutrients nevertheless got sick. The mystery was
solved when scientists discovered the major vitamins-a second key to
human nutrition. Now it's the polyphenols in plants that we're learning
play a critical role in keeping us healthy. (And which might explain why
diets heavy in processed food fortified with vitamins still aren't as
nutritious as fresh foods.) You wonder what else is going on in these
plants, what other undiscovered qualities in them we've evolved to
depend on.

In many ways the mysteries of nutrition at the eating end of the food
chain closely mirror the mysteries of fertility at the growing end: The
two realms are like wildernesses that we keep convincing ourselves our
chemistry has mapped, at least until the next level of complexity comes
into view. Curiously, Justus von Liebig, the nineteenth-century
German chemist with the spectacularly ironic surname, bears
responsibility for science's overly reductive understanding of both ends
of the food chain. It was Liebig, you'll recall, who thought he had
found the chemical key to soil fertility with the discovery of NPK, and
it was the same Liebig who thought he had found the key to human
nutrition when identified the macronutrients in food. Liebig wasn't
wrong on either count, yet in both instances he made the fatal mistake
of thinking that what we knew about nourishing plants and people was all
we need to know to keep them healthy. It's a mistake we'll probably keep
repeating until we develop a deeper respect for the complexity of food a
soil and, perhaps, the links between the two.

But back to the polyphenols, which may him' at the nature of that link.
Why in the world should organically grown blackberries or corn contain
significantly more of these compounds? The authors of Davis study
haven't settled the question, but they offer two suggest theories. The
reason plants produce these compounds in the first place is to defend
themselves against pests and diseases; the more press from pathogens,
the more polyphenols a plant will produce. These compounds, then, are
the products of natural selection and, more specifically, the
coevolutionary relationship between plants and the species that prey on
them. Who would have guessed that humans evolved to profit from a diet
of these plant pesticides? Or that we would invent an agriculture that
then deprived us of them? The Davis authors hypothesize that plants
being defended by man-made pesticides don't need to work as hard to make
their own polyphenol pesticides. Coddled by us and our chemicals, the
plants see no reason to invest their sources in mounting a strong
defense. (Sort of like European nations during the cold war.)
A second explanation (one that subsequent research seems to suppport)
may be that the radically simplified soils in which chemically
fertilized plants grow don't supply all the raw ingredients needed to
synthesize these compounds, leaving the plants more vulnerable to
attack, as we know conventionally grown plants tend to be. NPK might
be sufficient for plant growth yet still might not give a plant
everything it needs to manufacture ascorbic acid or lycopene or
resveratrol in quantity. As it happens, many of the polyphenols (and
especially a sublet called the flavonols) contribute to the
characteristic taste of a fruit or vegetable. Qualities we can't yet
identify, in soil may contribute qualities we've only just begun to
identify in our foods and our bodies.

Reading the Davis study I couldn't help thinking about the early
proponents of organic agriculture, people like Sir Albert Howard and J.
I. Rodale, who would have been cheered, if unsurprised, by the findings.
Both men were ridiculed for their unscientific conviction that a
reductive approach to soil fertility-the NPK mentality-would diminish
the nutritional quality of the food grown in it and, in turn, the health
of the people who lived on that food. All carrots are not created equal,
they believed; how we grow it, the soil we grow it in, what we feed that
soil all contribute qualities to a carrot, qualities that may yet escape
the explanatory net of our chemistry. Sooner or later the soil
scientists and nutritionists will catch up to Sir Howard, heed his
admonition that we begin ³treating the whole problem of health in soil,
plant, animal and man as one great subject."

Omnivore's Dilemma
by Michael Pollan, p.179


or in bonded forms, that require microorganisms to alter to forms
that can be absorbed by plants.

It appears that we need to reinvent the wheel because there are so many
new posters in these groups.

Chem ferts kill the soil and leave you at the mercy of the
petro-chemical companies to feed your plants.

Spraying malathion on food crops must be the singularly stupidest and
worst idea I've heard this year, and there have been many contenders.

Joint compound would seem to be contra-indicated since it contains
triazine, which is used both in insecticides and herbicides.

I recommend in the strongest manner the two books above for anyone who
is thinking of growing food or who eats.



I printed out this post and put it on my lawn. I can see the grass
starting to turn green already

try trimming a bit when leaving short comments.

I would say the key to youth is imagination ...

On Sat, 25 Aug 2007 19:46:29 -0500, wrote:

On Sat, 25 Aug 2007 12:44:23 -0700, Billy
wrote:

You're only young once, but you can be immature forever. Bully on you
Sir. Bully on you.

The key to youth is immaturity

On Sun, 26 Aug 2007 11:58:39 -0500, wrote:

(snip)

try trimming a bit when leaving short comments.


I should have, I thought about it, but couldn't decide where to snip,
what to leave in, so I just reposted the whole thing.

I'll try to find some examples to follow.

Charles

Sorry. I am glad I asked. I misread your statement.
Question: Is Epson Salts a good supply for magnesium?
Thanks.

--
Sincerely,
John A. Keslick, Jr.
Consulting Arborist
http://home.ccil.org/~treeman
and www.treedictionary.com
Beware of so-called tree experts who do not understand tree biology.
Storms, fires, floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions keep reminding us
that we are not the boss.


"Charles" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 25 Aug 2007 21:49:15 -0400, "symplastless"
wrote:


"Charles" wrote in message
Magnesium does work well on the roses, though.

Charles

Are you suggesting that roses are sensitive to magnesium?


I am saying that when I occasionally put a magnesium sulfate solution
on the soil near the base of the roses that I notice the leaf color
appears to be a darker green and the bloom color is more intense.
(well, on the yellow rose, anyway, I haven't tried it on the others.)

And I only do it once a year.

On Sun, 26 Aug 2007 18:07:40 -0400, "symplastless"
wrote:

Charles

Sorry. I am glad I asked. I misread your statement.
Question: Is Epson Salts a good supply for magnesium?
Thanks.


Yes. It also might be useful to break up a clay soil, but gypsum,
calcium sulfate, is usually recommended. Too much magnesium can be
bad, like too much of anything. I use a tablespoon in water, once a
year, per rose bush.