The Grow Bucket is a great way to start your hot peppers that take a long time to start. Just leave the light on and let them go.

Marie, Thanks, yup I did it myself...with the Boss crackin the whip...saying Hurry Up...git-r-done...LOL I'm glad you enjoy the beds....:) I had plenty of Adult Supervision.....I'm glad she can cook real well...LOL UtOh...I better get back to work....I hear someone stirring....ROTFL...back to the Daylilies...right after I answer Roger...:) Roger, The flagstone walls have a base of 6 inches of 2A modified crushed stone. They are dry layed, I use "Crusher waste/dust" as a back fill as I build up. I start wide at the base and then build up at about a 8 degree lean to the rear. for every 2-3 layers of flagstone I repeat the backfill process. If they are built above 3 feet high, I backfill with 2B crushed stone first, coming up to 3 feet high. I then switch back to the crusher waste/dust for the remaining height. This allows for good drainage with no dirt/soil wash thru. It also builds a long lasting non-shifting wall. Even in weather extremes I have had not problems with the walls. I do get an occasional Chipmunk that thinks it is fun to try and dig out behind the walls...but after a few days they stop trying..LOL I used to use typar weedblock behind the walls, but found it ia not needed and a waste of money if the walls are back filled properly. I do use the typar if I am putting in a drain pipe system, I wrap the pipe with the typar to insire to soil blockage occurs. I hope that answers your question and gives you a better idea of the way I make the walls. Thanks, I'm glad you like the walls....they take some time, but I like that look on flower beds, adds a nice structure and seems to set off the flowers..IMO..:) Rick

I don't understand the purpose of the drop cloths, and like Larry, I'm concerned about the fire risk. Raising seeds indoors will lose its appeal really fast if your light-shelf set-up burns down the house. Tomato seedlings should be grown on at cool temperatures after the seeds germinate. The ideal temperature for them is 65 degrees. Leaving seedlings on a seed germination mat is risky and can damage them. I have a seed germination mat and rarely use it. If I'd known how easily 95% of the plants I grow from seed would germinate indoors without a germination mat, I never would have bought one. Some years I don't even dig it out of storage and use it at all. When I do use it, I move the entire flat off the mat once 50% of the cells in the 72-cell flat have germinated seeds in them. About the only vegetable seed I'll use the germination heat mat for is pepper seeds, particularly older seeds I've had a few years. I often germinate my tomato, pepper and other seeds in zip-lock bags like George mentioned. As long as I remove them from the zip-lock bag before the plant stems and roots become intertwined with one another, they don't mind being moved from the bags to the flats of soil-less mix. I find it very efficient because I'll have full flats with each cell filled with seedlings, instead of having flats with some empty cells because the seeds in them failed to germinate. I prefer to grow seedlings on for a few weeks in conditions that are fairly cool. Because the guest room where I put my light shelf faces the south and has big windows, I struggle to keep the room from getting too hot for them. To keep it cool, I close off the HVAC vent in that room so that it isn't getting any heat when the heater is on. I let them have a couple of hours of early morning sun and then close the drapes so that the room doesn't heat up too much. I keep a fan running 224/7. When you raise seedlings indoors in a room that is too hot, they quickly grow into monster plants, and that's not good for them. When they grow large quickly, they outgrow the available space under the plant lights. When that happens, what are you going to do with them? I used to move mine to my screened-in back porch, but once we built the greenhouse, that became the place I put them when I kick them out of the nice warm house. They might get warmer in the greenhouse than I'd like during the day, but then they get very close to freezing temperatures in there most nights, so that keeps them from growing rampantly like they would indoors. It is so early to be starting tomato seeds indoors that I get a headache thinking about it. You only need to start them 6 to 8 weeks before your recommended transplanting date. The OSU-recommended planting dates for tomato transplants are April 10-30, with the April 10th date being intended for folks in far SE OK and the April 30th date being intended for folks in far NW OK. The rest of us have to chose an appropriate transplanting date somewhere between April 10 and April 30, based on where we live in the state and on our local soil temperatures and air temperatures. Sometimes, in a really hot winter with an early last freeze, we can put tomato plants in the ground up to a month early and get away with it, but years like that are few and far between---maybe once or twice a decade, and it just happened in 2012, so I don't know if we'll have another year like that any time soon. I usually start my tomato seeds on Super Bowl Sunday, and that can be far too early for me in years when the air and soil temperatures stay cold deep into spring. And, it can be almost too late in a year like 2012 because it means my seedlings will barely be big enough to be transplanted early. So, I feel like it is the exact right time to start them since it isn't precisely right for long, cold springs or short, warm winters. It is right in the middle. If I started tomato seeds as early as you have, my husband would lock me in the cellar until the insane urge to start seeds now had passed. That is because he knows all too well how crazy it makes me to have big, healthy plants indoors that cannot go into the ground for another month or two. Because our weather is so erratic, even when I start them on time, I sometimes cannot put them into the ground for another 2-6 weeks beyond the preferred transplanting date. The last time we had a year like that, it just above drove me crazy, and I just about drove him crazy. So, since you started your seeds so early.....welcome to the insanity! Dawn

@sjetski, CCN is not super convenient driving distance, but completely worth the trip. That's where I purchased my Bhuts, Habs, and Jalapeños. I just learned of them, and will probably use them for more of my transplants next year. @tsheets The 5-1-1 they are in now is a bit different from the 5-1-1 they will be going in. The on they are in now is made with Agway branded "pine bark mulch" which is more consistently larger size "fine" than the material I'm using now. It turns out that Agway item is a special order at my local Agway and they just had a partial pallet left, which I got a couple of bags from. The new mix I am making with a product called Kambark Pine Soil Conditioner, from a NC based company called Kamlar. It is well composted fines and is very moisture retentive. I actually cut the peat back and increased the perlite a bit with it. It is definitely more water retentive, but still you are right in the heat of the summer if may require twice daily watering.