"Mark. Gooley" wrote in message
...

[snipped, hopefully in the correct way!]

I got to the end and almost forgot my main point in replying in the first
place! Mark, if you google for "lasagna gardening," you may find some tips
on planting stuff in compost. Here are some Garden Web Forum messages on
the subject:
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/l...332417999.html

This stuff has some soil in it already, but not as much as what I got
last time. It's hard to mix the soil with it, as the soil is at present
mud.
I'm afraid that you might be right, and that a mix of it with soil would
have been wiser. Then again, there's no animal feces in it, barring
perhaps a spot of dog picked up by a lawnmower. Some unrotted
bits of wood: better as a soil amendment, yeah. I suppose that the
damned stuff could resume composting itself, which might be a bad
thing as well.

I don't think it will resume composting all that much unless you mix in some
grass clippings or something else that would heat it up.

The stuff I got last time was half composted yard waste and half native
soil, but they were out of that and this stuff looks to be maybe ten or
fifteen percent sand.

Well, at least sand improves drainage! (I keep telling myself that because
my property is basically compacted sand, unlike the red clay elsewhere in
North Carolina. One benefit is that I could, theoretically, till the garden
year-round with the possible exception of during a hurricane; alas, the
tiller itself would long outlast me at that rate! Come to think of it, the
tiller will probably outlast me at any rate!)

One joint of one of my fingers is swollen up and
aching, but it doesn't look infected and a doctor I saw about it says that
it isn't.

This may not work while gardening, but it works pretty well for other
activities: try taping 2 adjacent fingers together; that way the "healthy"
one serves as a splint for the bad knuckle. The knuckles don't exactly line
up, so the effect is that you can only bend the straightened fingers from
the metacarpals(?)

Also the left foot is acting up again: wearing a surgical boot
to keep the joint behind my big toe from flexing has given me a blister,
so for now I pretty much have to leave things as they are, as a diabetic
has to be very careful with his numb feet.

Yes, watch those feet! I assume you're familiar with moleskin to protect
the joint. Also, I think I saw somewhere, can't quite remember, something
that would act as a brace for the toes only (unlike the full-foot surgical
boot), but I can't quite remember where. If you like, email me, and I'll
try to re-create my search.

Anne Lurie
Raleigh, NC