Wow, Nicole, that bed is a work of art! Contest with your hubby?! No way LOL. You already won! :-) And good that you're putting those welders to such good use! CalamityJ, I have trouble believing there's anything that you can't do at your house from what I've seen of your talent :-) Thanks Karen, I agree with you about Nicole's bed being very high end. SusieRose, if you could ever find an attactive huge container on Freecycle, that would be the way to go with bamboo. There are so many interesting varieties, but it takes over if you don't plant it in its own "island". Really spreads and is hard to get rid of if you decide to dig it up. Trust me on this one! Ugh, I'll never plant it in a mixed garden again! Unless you've got an area just for bamboo, I'd go with a very large container. You might run an an in the Wanted section of Craigslist too maybe. Someone might have some to give you, or barter for a totem maybe :-) DD, my next marriage is gonna be to a carpenter LOL, but a welder with a rig might qualify LOL. Just kiddin' of course. Luckygal, you'll have to share pics with us when your hubby gets around to your welding wish list. I've known lots of northern hillbillies ..... western ones too! LOL When I first got to southern Calif I thought it would be all cool and groovy people, this was the '70's. The first person I saw when we reached the beach and got out of the car was some redneck with his ciggarette pack rolled up in his white tee shirt sleeve! LOL Of course he probably came from somewhere around here lol .... Stoney, I love your natural trellis! I bet it was fun to make! I'm not familiar with bittersweet vines either, but I love how your trellis looks. Vickie, I agree about the movement in Stoney's natural trellis too. So free flowing .... And Clarejoe .... I love the bean trellis you've made! How smart and it looks great too! Very good way to reuse an old two seater frame! I like how it looks "older" too. Adds character. Just for the record, it doesn't have to be a hillbilly trellis, y'all LOL. I love all the trellises. Just thought that one I rigged up on my deck in 2006 was a bit ummmmmm "freestyle" for my historic neighborhood. Maybe they think I'm into witchcraft too LOL (for the newbies, when we did the Junk Train and it came to my house, my son-in-law from Mexico originally, thought I was into some kind of witchcraft hahahahahah) Is that a wart on the end of my nose?! LOL ~tenderlee

George, my understanding of a dynamic accumulator is a plant with deep roots that mines minerals from the soil and stores them in it's leaves. By cutting leaves from the plant and using as mulch you have brought micro-nutrients from deep in the ground and made them available to another plant, such as a fruit tree. If you grow comfrey near the tree, you can chop off part of the comfrey leaves and drop them around the tree to improve the growth of the tree. Sort of like fertilizing and mulching at once without having to haul in anything to do it with. It has long been known that legumes set nitrogen for other plants, and work with the bacteria in the soil, but now there is a good deal of research and information being shared about how trees interact with each other through a fungi net underground. There are several videos available on line and I have linked one below. I have become very interested in the things that Mother Earth seems to do to try to heal herself. For instance, if you have a compacted lawn, dandelions show up. They have roots that go deep and start to open up the soil. I have watched videos lately that show areas in the middle east that have had plants come back that they thought were extinct, and the only action has been to fence off the area from the grazing animals. I seem to have changed the way I look at many things, and am learning that there are a lot more things we can do to help our earth function better. When you have 30 minutes to spare, watch this documentary by John D Liu. I'll bet if you watch it once, you will watch it more than once. It is thought provoking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iJKiFSQLn4 .............Mother needs a little more help from us. Here is a link that might be useful: Suzanne Simard

Yes, it is called rebatching, and I will avoid it if at all possible. It's time consuming and tedious. To let you know, I make cp soap by the 10 pound recipes. I presently have 2 buckets of soap scraps, I would guess about a 2 or 3 cubic foot container. Instead of rebatching it I will add it to a new recipe of soap. Unlike what you have, this is still virgin soap scraps, not previously used. I will make soap and give these away or use them ourselves. What I would do if I had these previous used scraps, I would just add it to a new bar as they are being used; they do stick fairly readily, and they rarely come off. If you are going to still rebatch, I would grate them, then lightly mist them (not dripping) the night before, then add them to a crockpot on low or medium heat. You will need to set aside about 4 hours or so, depending on how much soap you need to do. The trick is to add just enough water (by the tablespoon) to keep the soap pliable and not dry, while you are trying to mash it, until it is thoroughly melted. Be careful, this soap is very hot while in the crock! Any scent of the scraps will disappear in the final product, so if you want it scented, then let the soap cool down a bit and mix in scent just before pour/mashing it into any molds. hth

I'm planting this everywhere around my margins, ie the fence line next to my cedars at the back of the property, in between the short sides of raised beds, back behind some blackberries, and in the mulch circled under a few different trees (oaks & smoke tree). My plan is just to let them establish for a few years, and use them as borders/host plants, then use their prunings in my gardens.