I started some in a 128 cell flat and I've started pole beans in flats too with very good success. Some say they don't see the advantage to it but there are some advantages for me. I get a quicker crop albeit smaller than when I am direct seeding like I did back in August for my fall crop. I do this with the first couple of weeks of my corn planting too. It just gets some of that stuff to the market quicker and it helps me get attention to my leafy greens, radishes, herbs and other things that come in earlier than corn and beans normally do. This year I started some lemon cucumbers and other cucurbits early indoors in cellflats. Had great luck with that too.

What an interesting conversation this has been. How different we are in our likes and dislikes. I guess one of the things I like most is getting out in the spring as soon as the first green shows. i try to try at least a few new perennials or shrubs each year and I have to see if they made it through the winter. We have always been on the border line of zone 4 and 5. Now almost the entire state of Iowa is considered zone 5. This will be an interesting spring. Ten of the last 12 days have been below zero. I planted some new butterfly bushes last year. We'll see. I don't like lawn work, but I live with my daughter and she loves to mow lawn. That takes care of that. I don't mind watering, fertilizing, or weeding. I do not like deadheading. Visitors ? That is one of my greatest pleasures. By visitors, I mean those who stop by who actually want to look at the gardens. Family, friends, or those who just want to visit? No. I feel uncomfortable unless they ask to see them, knowing that they may not be all that interested. Right now, I am enjoying going through all the new catalogs. So, bring on Spring !!

Farmers markets are a good research tool. Watch what people look at, which tags they read. Keep a good count of what you sell. FMs are a pain. If you rent, say, 4 tables 8' x 2.5 feet, then you can get 12 flats per table. You can have 48 flats out at a time. Bring twice that many. This will require some form of layering setup for hauling. You can't get full retail. At an FM you have to offer one of: * stuff you can't get elsewhere. * much better quality than elsewhere * much better prices than eslewhere. When we were trying to do trees at an FM we found that no one wanted little trees. We found that all day's work sold $100-$200 worth of product. Still worth it to see th interest. The bedding plants beside us did really well. They brought 2 SUVs rigged with plywood shelves to haul their plants. Came to two markets in our area every week, and were making a sale every few minutes, usually $20-$40. Competing with the big box stores is tough. They are buying by the semi-load from outfits that are producing in multi-acre greenhouses. So try as much as possible not to go head to head. If you sell tomato plants, sell heirloom varieties, or siberian varieties that do well in the cold. Sell lilies that you forced 6 weeks early, or potfulls of daffodils of weird colours. Where you have to sell things that aren't in bloom yet, try to have a few that you started early enough to be in bloom duirng the bedding plant planting season. Tag them not for sale until last day at the market, but put them where people can see what the younger ones will look like in a few weeks. Doing this for a full set is nice but you may have to start them when it is too expensive to heat your greenhouse. FMs are also an opportunity to let people know about your nursery. One of our long term best local nurseries is both a wholesale and a retail operation. This is a win, as it means they can move people from retail during slack times of the day. Allows them to give decent shifts to people, and long term work for about half of them. (Spring thorugh fall.) They don't go head to head with the box stores, but instead sell to other small nurseries with an outstanding selection. Don't trash your leftovers. Instead use them to make baskets. Labour is the big problem with the hort trade in general. Pay 10-20% over minimum wage so you are a sought after employer. Change it up a lot so people aren't spending two weeks at 40 hours a week transplanting pansies. The more they know, the more useful they are in a crunch. They will also take pride in what they know. Spend half your day working with your people. Tell them when they do a good job. Take them aside to tell them when they screw up. Corrections should be of the form "This is a problem. This is why it's a problem. This is how it should be done. Ok?" Criticism should be directed at the task, not the person. If it's the start of something new, I will often use a line like, "I screwed up. I didn't make myself clear." Young people especially do well form example. I like hiring young people. I can hire a bunch that work afternoons only, or mornings only, and have the other part of the day for tasks I can't easily delegate. Often it will take me a couple hours to get everything ready to have 4 people work all afternoon. I fire people for only a few reasons: A: chronically not showing up when they said they would. (I hire a lot of high school kids after school, so I have to be flexible about basketball, homework, prom prep.) B: chronically failing to follow directions. C: lying to me, trying to hide what they did.

I know this is an old thread but I just went through reading everyone's comments...thank you, I needed to see I am not alone! An hour ago I put down my cat because of incurable inappropriate elimination. When we bought our house 5 years ago and the previous owners left him here..package deal, I guess.. but they always kept him locked up by himself in the sun room and we figured out why pretty quickly. My best guess is that he was captured from the enormous pack of feral cats down the alley by the kids who lived here. They did not neuter him so we did that immediately. He had litter box aversion from the very start so we took the recommended steps... veterinarian visits which turned up urine crystals so we put him on prescription food and took care of that issue, but it made no difference. We ensured his box was clean, we tried different types of litters, litter boxes and locations before we landed on the Catgenie (worth EVERY penny, btw). We even attempted to toilet train him but never got past the pie pan in the rim. We gated him in the bathroom with his box, food water and a bed. We attempted to retrain him in a huge crate that fit his litter box, food and a bed- all to no avail. We supervised him, blocked access to rooms and rewarded him on the rare occasion he'd do the right thing. We decided to let him out with the dog and encourage him to eliminate outdoors, but even after being outside for hours, he'd come in and I would catch him using the den carpet as his litter box. We've used every cleaner under the sun (microban disinfectant from jon don is spectacular) and we replaced the carpet after thoroughly disinfecting and sealing the affected areas. We just went through the drug therapy but it did not work either. I tried to surrender him to no kill shelters but they're overwhelmed with animals due to the economy. We tried making him an outside cat, but he ALWAYS sneaked in and would complain about the cold/heat and would claw the house to come in. I talked to him a lot about his habits because I believe that our pets do understand us. I feel just awful but I exhausted my options ....this is 5 years of trying to solve the problem! Euthanasia with a veterinarian IS a humane choice, but most importantly it was our last option. This isn't a matter of inconvenience or cold heartedness, we've tried every and any thing we've heard or read about...some things we tried more than once! We LOVE this kitty and inconvenienced the bejesus out of ourselves to accommodate, retrain and reasonably coexist. For us, it is a matter of financial strain, health, sanitation and insanity from zero results after years of failed attempts. Cat urine soaked couches, carpets and walls do not even come close to the mild smell of a dirty litter box. No, I will not live in a home that reeks of cat urine. It is unsanitary. Everyday was incredibly stressful walking in the house and being hit with a wall of intolerable odor. I guess in some way I am trying to support myself and come to peace with this by telling you that we tried. Hard. For years. If you're faced with this problem, try like hell to fix it but if you and your vet(s) cannot cure inappropriate elimination, be gentle with yourself through the process. Today is a sad day because my precious boy is gone and I failed him in curing his elimination problem. I'm trying to rationalize an agonizing decision.