General help question about a forum
catherinet (5IN)
11 months ago
last modified: 11 months ago
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morz8 - Washington Coast
11 months agotsugajunkie z5 SE WI ♱
11 months agoRelated Discussions
A General Question about Lye and Potash
Comments (1)First, there is a big difference between wood ashes and potash. Potash is the term given to mined or manufactured mineral salts that contain potassium in a soluble form. Potassium chloride (KCl) is the most common form. In a few cases, potash can be extracted from plant remains - like ashes. Wood ashes generally contain a very small amount of potash - less than 10%. They are primarily calcium carbonate, a common liming material used to increase soil pH. And a little wood ash goes a long way - the recommended application rate is 15-20lb per 1000sf or about the equivalent of a 5 gallon bucket. Wood ashes should only be applied directly to the garden if your soil pH is below 7. Better to use as a component in your compost operation. Potassium tends to move through most soils very slowly so unless you are doing a lot of heavy cropping, there is typically sufficient levels available in the existing soil. It is always a good idea to test your soil before applying, perhaps unnecessarily, and certainly if you are uncertain about the soil pH and contemplate adding wood ashes. Lye is a very corrosive alkaline compound that is known as 'caustic soda' or sodium hydroxide (NaOH). Historically, it used to be made from potassium hydroxide (KOH), but that process proved to be inefficient and is no longer in practice. To my knowledge, lye has NO use in the garden and using it for any purpose should be undertaken with great care....See MoreQuestions about the forum, help please.
Comments (3)To get to your clippings just open any post (message) and click on: "see most clipped and recent clippings" then click on: "Go to My Clippings Page"...See MoreGeneral Question about a tropical houseplant
Comments (1)Hi there, you've posted in the Australian Tropical Plant forum, which is fine, but you might find the US tropical forum more active. It's very hard to do without a photo. If you have a photo on the harddrive of your computer that is less than 60kb in size, you can post it in the Gardenweb Australian Photo gallery and we can take a look. If you have an off-site way of uploading photos, you can do so and get a "link" that you can then post within the text of a message. All a bit scary if its your first time. If you like, and the photo is not too big, you can try to e-mail it to me directly through the link on "my page" and I'll see what I can make of it. Cheers...See Moregeneral question about timelines for buiding custom homes
Comments (15)Thanks to everyone for so much great advice! If we're able to pull off this dream, we want to definitely ensure we do it thoughtfully, carefully, and correctly (thank you Virgil!). I'll be 54 when I retire and hubby will be 56. Years ago he used to talk about getting 10+ acres so I've had to drag him back to reality with regard to maintenance as we age. My best friend custom built on 10 acres an hour north of Sacramento (her DH is very talented and built it himself) and I've seen the nightmare in time commitment for the upkeep. Now I'm thinking half an acre tops will work. We can't/won't stay in our current home for several reasons: it's a 2 -story with many wasted rooms for just the 2 of us (we want a single story and smaller), it's in a more expensive county than Olympia, and we own 40 acres of land (for DH who is an avid duck hunter) that is currently 1.5 hours from us but is only about 30 minutes from Olympia. The traffic around Olympia isn't so bad (especially since we won't be working then) and it's a big enough city to give us all the amenities we need, including good medical care. We love Western WA and do not like Eastern WA at all. David Cary- I definitely won't even attempt to predict land prices and interest rates so far into the future. But how would I find out about estimates for tear downs? Virgil- Thanks for the estimates on time frames for all the various phases. You said "All of this can be seriously reduced by going to an existing tract development under construction or completed." I've read a few posts of people purchasing lots in tract developments. But does this mean I'd have to pick one of their builder's models or could only choose finishes? I'm not interested in doing that at all. Kristin S and Summit-nice ideas about poking around on Redfin now and spending some time in Olympia to see where we may want to live. I like the idea of being able to set up a search. But here's another question that is kind of rhetorical- a few months ago DH said he DIDN'T want to look for land too soon in Olympia. He cited the horrendous ongoing and growing homelessness problem in Seattle (it's actually spread to a suburb 20 minutes from us, of course on a smaller scale) and said he didn't want to buy land if Olympia may end up having similar problems. I sort of agree but think we'd really need a crystal ball to answer that question!...See Morefloral_uk z.8/9 SW UK
11 months agocatherinet (5IN)
11 months agocatherinet (5IN)
11 months agotsugajunkie z5 SE WI ♱
11 months ago
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floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK