I am an idiot.. I didn't even bother thinking about what size my cucumbers will become compared to what size cucumber will fit in the mold... I planted Sweet Success cucumber seeds and found a forum of people discussing it and people have posted pictures...these cucumbers get huge and fat! I don't think these will be suitable for the molds... unless they grow long before they grow fat... but I doubt that. I found a website of one store here in Dubai that says they have a cucumber variety named "Soarer" that I thought would be perfect for these molds but they were sold out when I went... :( The only alternative I could find was a cucumber named Beit Alpha. I think these can still grow to be fat cucumbers but I am hoping I can just pick them while small and they will do find in the molds. I don't think I will order seeds of different varieties from overseas because of time/seasonal issues. It will start getting too hot I think by the time the plant is big enough... I should have read more about the Sweet Success variety before... I just liked the description that they are easy to grow and don't need pollination so I bought them.

How forgiving your tree is depends in large part on what approach you take to reverse its decline, and timing plays an important part in determining how enthusiastically your tree will react to your ministrations. Let me know if you want to make a plan that will begin with eliminating the mealybug problem and entering into a discussion about what's going on in the root zone. In addition to my offerings here, it's likely I'll offer some links to short (short in comparison to a book, but longer than the average GW/Houzz post) articles/posts I wrote, which you can read at your leisure. Sound like something you're up for? Al

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

if we can get enough people interested i would definitely be interested. it'd be better if it happened after the fair fr us, but we could do a sat morning even next weekend if need be. where at in garner? we're in garner. oh, and i wouldn't be surprised if you could do more than 6-8 loads to an hour if we could keep people moving. we got some manure this spring under similar circumstances and it took all of 5 minutes to load our truck to overflowing. if the cost is too prohibitive, consider a smaller bobcat or something along those lines- might be cheaper. we'd even be interested in loading by hand if nothing else worked out. we need mulch and don't have much money right now, so this would be perfect.