Hi Gracin: I'll work on what you wrote: "WCD is outgrowing the 15 gal. pot ... The sugar sand soil (pH 4.9 - 5.5) will be amended with about 50 - 60% composted cow manure. I guess the cow manure will add Nitrogen, and all I will need is the chelated iron, right? Or do I need bone meal" University of Georgia College of Agriculture stated that "Pine bark have a pH between 4.0 and 5.0 ... with 13% water-retention when fresh, and 21% water-retention when decomposed." Gracin, your soil is already acidic, so pine bark and peatmoss are NOT good choices. NPK of cow manure is: 0.6 / 0.4 / 0.5 ... it's very balanced. You don't need chelated iron, since manure has iron. You don't need bonemeal, if you add lots of manure. Contrary to on-line report that bone meal doesn't break down above neutral... it worked too well in my alkaline clay pH 7.7, when got rained on (pH of rain is 5.6). I dumped bonemeal around geraniums. Their blooms became vibrant deep colors, very pretty. But the plants got dwarfed and leaves got burnt. I put bone meal NPK of 1-13-0 into the planting hole of a white pine ... it burnt my white pine. Phosphorus at 13 was too high for my retentive clay. Bonemeal is great if worked well into sandy soil like Sherry. Kitty litter is granulated clay ... good stuff for sandy soil. I tested the pH of Scott's top soil, it's neutral ... safe to use. Zacklau in CT has acidic soil, he mentioned that his roses were sick, no fertilizer could solve the problem, until he fixed his acid soil with lime. Getting the pH to the neutral zone is more important that adding chemicals. The soil will release all the nutrients plants need when it's at the neutral zone. I would test the pH of the cow manure. Fresh cow manure is reported at pH of 4. If they use lime to deodorize the floor, it will bring the pH up. If they bag the cow manure and add more lime in to keep the odor down, cow manure pH shoots up to 8. I would test the pH of the soil, and the pH of the cow manure load to make sure that the combo is OK. Roses grow best at pH 6.5 to 7. Cow manure and kitty clay would be enough. Cantigny park in zone 5a with 1,200 roses put forth the best display when they fertilized with fresh cow manure in spring. It stank up the park but that was their best: roses with shiny leaves, dark green, tons of blooms. Latter years they use chemical fertilizer high in phosphorus, tons of blooms - but the overall health is never as good as cow manure. Horse manure also have iron. My neighbor ordered a pile of dirt with 1/2 "mushroom compost". I inspected his pile and saw mostly woodchips, the same stuff that I get from the stable. He topdressed his lawn with that, and has the deepest green lawn in the neighborhood. The woodchips that came with the manure made his lawn spotty. If your pile is 100% cow manure, no woodchips bedding like horse stable .... then you have the best stuff possible. Even high phosphorus fertilizer can't beat the amount of blooms when roses are fed with manure. It's best to check the pH of your cow manure to see if it's acidic at 4 like some reported values of fresh cow manure. Here is a link that might be useful: Testing soil pH using red cabbage This post was edited by Strawberryhill on Sat, Feb 23, 13 at 15:53

We shall see. I took your advice Dave, took the gloves off, took the top inch or two of kraut off the top and chucked it. Drained off most of the brine in the jar, added some fresh brine with it in a pot and heated it. Put in jars and processed. I did taste some of the leftovers stuck in the pot and it tasted good! I'm guessing I might have to rinse off some of the fresh brine when it's time to go but it had good flavor and a nice snap to the kraut. I didn't go blind from the stuff I ate so I hope I'm good!!

I have had a lot of you guys reach out to get the cabbage patch doll pattern from me, I am so sorry I have not been able to get it to anyone until now. I am going to enclose the link here for anyone to get it, you will need to download each photo that you want, meaning the file has the entire book, so if you just want the patterns just download those pics. Good Luck yall! Click on the words "Cabbage Patch Doll Patterns" it is an embedded link. Cabbage Patch Doll Patterns

I went and bought a Cabbage Patch Kid Baby (same size as DGD's doll. Opened it and made my pattern for a diaper. Made 4 diapers for her doll. Repacked up the CPKB and will return to store. Still will look for patterns tho. Couldn't find any on line and Walmart doesn't carry hardly any patterns. Will hit Joann's when I'm near one and check out the pattern books there. Thanks guys.