Last year I grew Hollyhocks inside and just pushed the seed down flat into the top of the soil. Actually I think I started some using the wet coffee filter method first, then transferred them to soil after they sprouted, but that might get tedious if you want 200 plants! Hmmm so if you winter sow hollyhocks it is possible to get blooms the first year? I was bummed to hear others talking about no blooms til the second year, so I would be delighted if its true :)) Also here is a link to a site I bookmark for germination tips. It is my favorite. Here is a link that might be useful: Seed Germination Database

OKLibrarian, So, you're saying you have to plant cool-season crops first and harvest them in order to make room for warm-season crops? That can be very difficult since there is some overlap. I have some raised beds for cool-season crops and I begin planting onions and potatoes in them in Feb. of most years, but other raised beds reserved only for warm-season crops, and I start planting in them in late March of most years, or earlier with plant protection like buckets (to cover tomato plants on cold nights) or frost blankets. The first couple of years that we lived here, I had to use the same beds for cool-season and warm-season crops, and it didn't work well for me because I needed to plant warm-season crops like tomatoes early enough to "beat the heat", but my cool-season crops were still a month or two from being ready for harvest. After I enlarged the garden by adding another raised bed or two for several consecutive years, I finally had a large enough space to plant both in separate beds. Now, when cooler-season crops are harvested and a bed is "cleared", I just succession sow a warm-season crop in its place. This succession planting allows me to plant something virtually every month from Feb. through Sept. or Oct., if enough rainfall is occurring that I can plant in the summer for a fall garden. I also use containers to raise some early tomatoes because above-ground containers (mine sit on a southward-facing concrete slab with a metal barn wall north of them) warm up faster than the soil in my raised beds, and I can drag the containers into the barn if really cold weather threatens. It also fills my "need" to plant something in Feb. (that's when I put purchased plants from 6" containers in the 5 large containers on the slab) and I usually harvest tomatoes from them in April from a mid- to late-Feb. planting date. The plants I buy are very large, with main stems about the size of my index finger, and often they are in bloom or about to bloom when I buy them. With luck and if the container plantings are successful, my tomato harvest starts in April and continues until frost wipes out my in-ground plants, which occurs in November of most years. Hi Hank, The Oklahoma Mesonet was developed and implemented as a joint project between OU and OSU and has been operational since 1994. It consists of 110 observation stations, with at least 1 in each Oklahoma county. Each station has various weather measurement instruments located at on near a 10-meter transmission tower. Mesonet station observations are made every 5 minutes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every week of the year. The data is bundled and transmitted to the Oklahoma Climatological Society every 5 minutes and the OCS verifies the data and provides it to Mesonet customers. When you are viewing current data, you're seeing observations recorded in the last 5 to 15 minutes. The type of data observed includes air temperature, dewpoint, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, soil moisture levels, soil temperatures at several depths, etc. The types of weather events tracked via the recording of this data includes dry lines and the movement of cold fronts, thunderstorms, heat bursts, wind gusts, etc. You can use the section labeled "past data and files" to view observations for any month and year for any station dating back to Jan. 1994, assuming the station you're requesting was operational then. So, for example, if I am trying to determine when my county's average last frost "really" occurs, as opposed to the average last frost date based on 30-year averages, I can pull up data for March and April of each year and see the last freeze date and figure out what planting date seems safe for me, much as I detailed in my orginal answer to the original post on this thread. I use the mesonet a lot in the spring to track air temperatures and soil temperatures and use that data in making planting decisions. Mesonet data is used by many research groups and government organizations, like NASA, the National Science Foundation, the U. S. Departments of Agriculture, Commerce and Energy, and the Oklahoma Water Resource Board. Yet, much of the same data is available online to citizens like you and me. Basic mesonet use/data is free, although you'd need to download the free Weatherscope software in order to be able to use the Mesonet's features. Some people and organizations subscribe and receive access to more data. When you go to the Mesonet's main screen (linked below), you see a state map showing current temperatures. In a litle box beneath the map, you'll see the weather observations for the station you've selected as your "home" station (mine is Burneyville) and the data in that box includes the most recent observations for air temperature, heat index or wind chill as appropriate, dewpoint and relative humidity, recorded rainfall, and wind speed and direction. On the left side of the page is a menu and you can click on the categories there to see various data brought up and displayed on the map. When you click on a category at the left, you get another index box at the right with sub-categories you can see. For example, if you click on the soil temperature at left, you get an index at right where you can click on soil temps at various depths. I use "Mesonet Data" the most and one sub-category I often use is "Past Data and Files". Sometimes I click on "Decision Products" in order to view Agweather Data or OK FIRE data. Since my spouse is the local VFD's fire chief, and my son is a professional firefighter and a volunteer firefighter on his "days off", we use OK Fire data a lot when we have grassfires or wildfires because the data helps us understand the current fire data, and it helps predict fire intensity, ignition, spread, direction/speed of forward movement, etc. Many agricultural producers and even simple home gardeners use AgWeather to make decisions about planting, irrigation, harvesting, spraying (dispersal conditions),etc. I find the mesonet data to be very helpful. Combined with the NWS's Enhanced Weather Page, I can sit down at my computer and spend 2 to 4 minutes viewing weather data and have a good understanding of what is occurring in Oklahoma, weatherwise, at any given point in time. ' I hope this info is helpful. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Oklahoma Mesonet

In my opinion they are not worth the cost. Putting the lights closer may help and using a fan to gently blow the plants helps to encourage shorter, stockier growth. I use a 400 watt HID light in my basement in front of a 6' south facing patio door. The plants still show a tendency to grow toward the window, even with that. They don't get leggy, but they do stretch more than if they could be outside in the sunlight. Another thought is not starting plants as early. In the past I have started tomatos 6 weeks before expected plant out date and I end up with 3' tall plants. This is too large for my preferences, I would rather have a 6"-12" plant so I now start them 4 weeks before plant out. Under floros any plant that is started indoors early enough to grow much beyond 6" will get leggy as the floros aren't capable of properly lighting much beyond that. So, get a fan on them, and don't start them as early if they are getting beyond 6" tall before either your plant out date or before the weather gets nice enough that they can be set outside during the daytime.

Hi guys, I'm new to this forum, I frequent the butterfly forum, but I've just started worm composting, and I wanted to share with you where I got worms cheap. The company is called rockinjawrabbits.com. They are in Tx, but their prices beat anything else I found on the web. $22/lb with shipping I believe. They are bedrun which I think means eggs and young included, so you could be getting a lot more... Anyway I just wanted to pass this along. Hope it helps.