spiritrockjohn, Ok John, I had a closer look at what you posted and now understand your situation. I have collected the material from 10-day courses (S.N.Goenka) and know that the material is very wet compared to normal household stuff. You need to have a lot of browns - straw, leaves, sawdust, and other garden refuse to compensate. It will be a job to collect enough for your composting. Your guide of 50:50 kitchen waste to brown is too shy on browns. I am assuming that you are talking volume ratios. A better mix should aim for 60% to 70% browns by volume. The C:N ratio of 30:1 for example is based on dry weights. Your food stuffs is a lot heavier than the rice straw you are adding even without the water. As you may have found, you need to turn the pile frequently to prevent it going anaerobic. The wood chips are not going to compost very much but are a good bulking agent to aid the aerobic process. Screen the wood chips out after each batch and they can be reused. I am providing a link to compost bin construction. These bins can be made from salvaged pallets and so will be quite reasonable in price. By having a floor that is off the ground, rats should not have access to the bins. You will also have to have a lid. This bins do not keep out mice though. Some centres have composted materials; some centres have others collect it for off site composting; other centres give it to local farm families to feed pigs. Those may be some considerations if you cannot get a handle on the composting. With metta. Here is a link that might be useful: Wooden Compost Bins

Hello BarberBerryFarm and HomeHydro, Thanks a lot for your replies :o) I will answer your posts : @barberberryfarmer : Oh, ok :o) Since you are using a run-to-waste system in which you do not recirculate the nutrient solution the addition of such a buffer will not be needed and your current muriatic acid solution is adequate. I thought you recirculated your solution - in which case a buffering agent helps - but in this case it will not likely make any difference. However I would advice you to change to a recirculating system for both economical and environmental reasons. @Homehydro : That's ok :o) take as long as you need, I'll be here to discuss it when you want to. Regarding the software and any help, the best thing you could do right now to help me would be to use the program and give me some comments on what can be improved, what you like, don't, etc. For me the most important thing is to make the program the BEST possible software for home growers so any improvements I can make will be great. Also if you can share the link to the software with other homegrowers and give me their opinion it would also be great :o). Possibly in the future building a recipe and fertilizer database will also be something we would like to do but currently I am interested in getting the software fully developed before starting that journey :o) Thank you very much for offering your help ! Thank you very much again for your replies, Best Regards, Daniel Here is a link that might be useful: Everything Hydroponics

I've got the Escali. Like it for the same reasons that Cilantro mentioned. Also, it is very light and flat so we can store it in our pot holder drawer and pull it out to use at the drop of a hat. It is a button push to go between ounces, pounds&ounces and grams. Definitely get one that can weigh up to 11 pounds/ 5 kg. When you tare (e.g. zero out the weight of a bowl and anything already in it), it is the total weight that has to be less than 11 pounds. It is pretty easy to get over 5 pounds measuring into a heavy bowl or pot, but 11 pounds means you can measure for something like a good sized loaf of bread without going over or put the flour canister on the scale with a 10 pound bag of flour in it, tare and measure what you've removed. We have been using it for years with no issues. There are times when I have to lower my head to see the numbers under the curve of a bigger bowl so I can see the advantage of the Oxo. One of the reviews on Amazon says the Oxo remembers where it was tared to when it shuts off which would be an advantage the way we use the scale - always taring when starting to use it, but might be a disadvantage if you don't do that and use it without noticing that it isn't zeroed out when empty. Both use standard batteries. I somewhat prefer the 2 AA to 4 AAA as less fiddly to change but that's a very minor difference. The Oxo is bulkier and more than twice as heavy so it would be hard to decide which one to get if we had to replace ours. The main Escali advantage is the weight difference Oxo scale at 2.5 pound vs. 1 pound for the Escali. The main advantage for the Oxo is the pull out feature.

Hi, I'm still here and still following Atkins. I have lost 15 pounds in just about 6 months, but my husband and I ate out last week and I saw a pound or so come back after that. It's always dangerous to eat out, I find. I'm at about 40g carbs daily (total--I'm doing Atkins '92, which does not subtract fiber), and I think that is close to my critical carbohydrate level for losing. As long as I stick to plan, I stay in ketosis and my hunger is well suppressed, so that I don't overeat. I generally eat about 1300 calories per day. I still have quite a few pounds that I need to lose, but I am looking at this as a total lifestyle change. I imagine it will take me a complete year or more to lose all the weight I have set for my goal. I started at 152, was 137 at my lowest--probably 138 right now due to the date night--and my goal is, I think, 119. We'll see as I get closer to that. I am a 5'2.5" tall, 40 year old woman. I'd love to have an Atkins buddy on this forum. So far, I haven't come across anyone else following this way of eating. I imagine an allergy to eggs would make things difficult, but you can do other proteins and fats, right? Best wishes to you. I hope to see you here often.