> Im just growing for fresh veggies for my little family of 3 and of > course the love of watching things grow :) Dont want too little and > certainly not an over abundance either i was thinking where i already > have 10 tomato plants to continue that pattern and just do 10 of each > veggie if that works. How big of a space would i need? Danger, danger! One pumpkin can take up as much space as ten tomatoes. :) My opinion: - Ten tomatoes: Assuming that they all live and thrive, that's a whole lot of tomatoes, far more than you're likely to need for fresh eating, but, hey, there's always sauce. I'd recommend giving each tomato a minimum of an eighteen inch by eighteen inch square. - Peppers: I'd give them at least a foot by a foot. They're much less productive than tomatoes; ten plants would be fine. - Ten healthy successful cucumber plants will feed Nebraska. OK, maybe that's an overstatement, but I wouldn't grow that many. My plan for my garden this year is to prepare three spots for vining cucumbers, plant three seeds in each spot, and then thin to one plant per spot when they're all up and healthy, for a total of three plants. - Ten healthy successfun pumpkin plants will cover Nebraska with leaves. OK, I'm really exaggerating, but pumpkins sprawl over a _lot_ of space. On the other hand, if you're not overprotective of your lawn you can plant the pumpkins near the edge of the vegetable garden and let them crawl over the lawn. But i still wouldn't plant more than five, and I say five only because it's always upsetting when you plant only two or so, and one of them dies. - Ten corn plants, on the other hand, isn't quite enough. The customary minimum recommendation for corn is a four-plant by four-plant block, sixteen plants total. The block planting increases the chances of good pollination. I plant my corn at eighteen inches; many people plant it much closer. This post was edited by chickenfreak on Thu, Apr 11, 13 at 0:57

I go back & forth about this lawn weed. This time of year with the small yellow flowers & small foliage I don't mind it. Once the larger leaves come & it reseeds into my flower beds I don't like it as much. When I've converted parts of the lawn to flowerbeds buttercup is the most persistent weed around the edges pushing up through any possible gap in the cardboard smother layer. For that reason I pull it whenever possible, but don't use any chemicals to get rid of it in the lawn. What I don't like about the weeds in the lawn is the way it interferes with playing bocce ball or croquet. A smooth turf without these larger leaved weeds would improve my chances of beating my opponents. Just today sat on the lawn pulling buttercup & its new runners, plantain, & another creeping spreader with purple flowers called Prunella vulgaris. One weed led to another until I had crept along for a few hours pulling up a huge amount of weeds that had basically woven themselves through the turf. Hundreds remain, so it might be a losing battle, but I feel triumphant and just may have a chance of beating my son at a game. Anyone have this weed in their lawn? Here is a link that might be useful:

Well, here's an update. I followed the advice from the "Growing Under Lights" forum. Some one their recommended lights within 2" of the top of the plants and to run the lights for 16 hours each day. So, I set the timer, zipped up the plastic tent and went away. I did water once, a few weeks ago, and again today. Well, I now have a jungle of coleus plants. Several had grown up past the light, but those were mostly flower stalks that were probably started when i brought them inside. Some plants were already rooted, and some I rooted fresh at the time of my first post. Everything is thriving. I do have some gnats buzzing around, and I purchased a few of those sticky fly tape strips to hang inside the plastic covering to minimize their spread around the house. If my plants continue to grow this well, I could easily continue to take cuttings from the cuttings I already have, and end up with a hundred or more plants. And, under the artificial lights, the colors in the leaves are beautiful and rich. So, thanks for your help and advise. I'll try to keep in touch as the winter progresses. I'll also need to check my electricity bill. Adding another layer of lights would double the power needed to run my little hobby. I did take some cuttings from a coleus that a friend was tossing at the end of the season, and also some cuttings from my outdoor Persian Shield. As mentioned above, some people have success just keeping cuttings in plain water through the winter and planting them out in the spring. I may just try that. Though, I wonder if a longer winter has a greater chance of complications if plants are simply in water. My winters are pretty long, with first frost in early October and final frost or plant out date is June 1st. As the climate warms everywhere, those dates are less accurate, but we still have pretty cool night and soil temperatures for tropical plants. Best of luck to all. Martha

daninthedirt: Peppers can take several weeks to germinate. I can't imagine one germinating in three days, unless the seeds were moist long before that. If I'm reading bau correctly, the pepper wasn't from saved, dry seed but straight out of a fresh pepper. I could see that sprouting much more quickly. I get pepper seeds germinating in under a week using the damp paper towel method. Then I move it into starter mix and it's a few more days to another week to see actual cotyledons emerging.