Well let me tell you about China, since I just returned from living there for 2 years. Our dog food is 1,000% better then the crap you get there. After eating there for 2 years, I have about $10,000 worth of damage to my teeth because of 3 cracked teeth and 1 tooth which came out. The Chinese do not use a band saw to cut their meat but instead use a meat cleaver which leaves bone fragments in the meat. When you bite into the meat, which is in every dish you get, you will crack your teeth when you hit one of the bone fragments. Those pictures of an animal being cut up, is right next to the veggies and there are flies all over going from the bloody meat to the raw veggies which you will be eating tonight. I had to return back to the US after 2 years because my gastrointestinal tract finally gave out from eating their unsanitary food and I needed to seek medical attention. I went from 210 pounds 6'2" to 155 in a few months. There is ZERO quality control over their package goods. Eating something out of a box was like eating "Cracker Jacks" because you never know what the surprise inside is going to be. The Chinese never complain and just accept it, because there is no one to complain too. Their veggies are grown on the worse polluted soil I have ever seen. It is like eating raw veggies grown on top of fresh raw sewage. Anything that comes from China, stay away from at all cost!

Thanks for the link Annie, I checked it out, and as of the date of that article, Seminis did sell to Territorial and Johnny's as well as Fedco. It could be that a couple of the brassicas I just bought from Fedco, as well as the Lollo Rosa lettuce from Burpee could have come from Seminis. I will have to call the companies and check. A short snippet from the article Annie posted: " Taking spinach into his own hands: Nash Huber doesnâÂÂt want to get stuck depending on a hybrid that might get dropped by a mega-company owner on a whim. He also doesnâÂÂt want to lose any of the vigor, disease resistance, etc. that hybrid has provided. So Nash is working on dehybridizing �" breeding an open-pollinated spinach that is well adapted to his needs. (pictured: Huber, left; Matthew Dillon, right) Posted February 22, 2005: The news of MonsantoâÂÂs agreement to purchase Seminis has received little attention from the media other than the financial pages and a few seed industry and anti-globalization web sites. But then again, why should it? How many consumers �" of food or seed �" have even heard of Seminis? And yet, as Seminis spinmeister Gary Koppenjan said, âÂÂIf you've had a salad, you've had a Seminis product." It is estimated that Seminis controls 40 percent of the U.S. vegetable seed market and 20 percent of the world market�"supplying the genetics for 55 percent of the lettuce on U.S. supermarket shelves, 75 percent of the tomatoes, and 85 percent of the peppers, with strong holdings in beans, cucumbers, squash, melons, broccoli, cabbage, spinach and peas. The companyâÂÂs biggest revenue source comes from tomato and peppers seeds, followed by cucumbers and beans. In large part, these numbers reflect usage of Seminis varieties within large industrial production geared towards supermarkets, but Seminis seeds are also widely used by regional conventional and organic farmers as well as market and home gardeners. JohnnyâÂÂs, Territorial, Fedco, NicholâÂÂs, Rupp, Osborne, Snow, and Stokes are among the dozens of commercial and garden seed catalogs that carry the more than 3,500 varieties that comprise Seminisâ offerings. This includes dozens of All-American Selections and an increasing number of varieties licensed to third parties for certified organic seed production. The brand-name companies under Seminis (such as Petoseed) have developed, released, produced and distributed varieties common to the market farmer and even home gardener. These include Big Beef, Sweet Baby Girl and Early Girl Tomatoes; Simpsons Elite and Red Sails Lettuces; Red Knight and King Arthur Peppers; Gold Rush and Blackjack Zucchinis; Stars & Stripes Melon; and Bush Delicata and Early Butternut squashes (see sidebar for other popular varieties)." So home gardeners DO have to check their seed, these are very popular varieties though the article is NOT saying that these...

I like Whole Foods but if I shopped there regularly, I'd have to choose between paying the mortgage or buying groceries. LOL That store is just too expensive. Sprouts has an awesome bakery section. The apple pull apart sticky bread is my favorite but they are also pretty expensive overall. I go to Trader Joe's every once in a while and find them to be cheaper. Most of my grocery shopping is done at Fresh and Easy. I like their products and the prices on produce. I only buy meat from Costco. I go once a month and I divide and freeze my meat for the month. We also have some Sunflower health food store but I haven't been in there. They advertised organic milk for $8.00 a gallon on sale so I knew I wouldn't like their prices.

Thanks Rosalie - I have a sister by that name but she gets called Rose by everybody except our mother. I can understand about the wood ash - often wish I had a wood stove in fact but am reduced to powdered lime. I know they grow in acid soil because I have grown them in it but wondered if for optimum flowering and plant health I should be trying to make the soil more alkaline. I worry about how much and how often. I have built up beds on heavy clay and so am altering the environment somewhat. As for worms - I do find them in the built up beds when I am weeding through the cooler months so the soil there must be okay. I know the more organic matter I add the more worms I find and I do tell them to stick around but summers can be so extreme here I doubt they would survive! Can they survive? Thanks again