Posted by seedmoney 8A (seedmoney@embarqmail.com) on Mon, Feb 18, 13 at 15:45 This offer is now closed. Tip...when responding to any seed trade or 'offer' it is a good idea to scan through the posts in the thread to see if the OP (Original Poster) has updated, changed, or closed the offer...as in this case.

Day 22 Update! Peppers and lettuce: The same peppers and lettuce from the previous shot. They're in the second-worst part of the UFO grow chamber -- far from the UFO in the center. Nonetheless, the peppers are doing beautifully. I've got a whole tray of them looking just like that. The lettuce, only so-so. They're putting out leaves at a good rate, but two of them never did stand up like I was hoping they would. Next up, the monsters: Okay, these pumpkins are getting a bit scary: The larger of the two now has three tendrils on it, and leaves the size of my outstretched hand. I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to keep them in here before they decide to crush everything else in their path, but I'll keep them in as long as I can ;) I realized that last time I forgot to photograph my eggplants. They're doing just shiny: So, now for my crazy okra: If you'll recall, one germinated tall like a freak, but with a strong stem, and dark green leaves; one germinated short with dark green leaves; and two germinated short with pale, chlorotic yellow leaves. I credit this to using old seed. I'm pleased to report that all of them are doing great. The tall one is now working on its second true leaf, while the two chlorotic ones are starting to turn green. All three of the small ones have just started on their first true leaf; I expect they'll look like the tall one (minus the crazy height) next week. My Ronde de Nice squash that just germinated? I transplanted one, and surprisingly, the transplant is doing better than the non-transplant! Now for the one that was my biggest concern last time: my watermelon. If you'll recall, its first true leaves had turned crisp and stopped growing. Well, I'm glad to report that it has not one, but two sets of normal, healthy true leaves now! Here's a shot of some of my miscellaneous squash and melons. Not a complaint from me about a one of them; they're all growing very healthy. My cinnamon basil was looking healthy enough that I felt it time to thin it out into individual pots. The remaining plants in the original pot are below: So, what's my primary concern this time? I'm starting to suspect that I'm getting more growth in the UFO chamber (red, grow) than in the Christmas chamber (blue, veg). I'm not sure yet, though. Now, that is to be expected to some degree, since that chamber is higher wattage (~105W vs. ~85W), it may be more than that. It's really hard to tell, though, because I moved my most mature trays to the red chamber and kept the youngest trays in the veg chamber. However, I do have one good comparison point: basil. I have a basil pot in the veg chamber that's exactly the same as the basil pot in the grow chamber -- same soil, same size, same plants, and same planting time. So, next week I'm going to photograph and measure the two and see how they compare. But overall, another good week :) The plants pretty much take care of themselves (since the LEDs are pretty cool, the soil takes a long time to get dry, so I rarely even have to water). Hence, I've been busying myself readying my outdoors for the new plants, for once it gets warm enough. I'm going to be training my vining plants to strings suspended from guyed poles this year, via vine clips; should be neat to see how they do.

Rose, Plain old Slug-Go has always taken care of my pillbugs and sow bugs, and we have literally thousands of them in/under the heavy mulch in late winter/early spring. When I plant seedlings, I put a little ring of a few granules of it around each seedling...it doesn't take much. This year I didn't lose a single vegetable seedling of any kind to pill bugs or sow bugs. However, I did lose about a dozen small marigold plants to the pill bugs during a rainy spell from the end of April to mid-May when it was raining daily and I did not keep reapplying the Slug-Go. I'll add that Slug-Go is supposed to remain effective even after rain, but my garden is on a fairly steep slope, so I think mine my wash away or at least leach out of the raised beds and wash dow into the paths, so I repply it often in rainy periods. There is an improved version of Slug-Go called Slug-Go Plus that is labeled for use on pillbugs and sowbugs. It has the iron phosphate that's found in the original plus Spinosad, which is a naturally occurring bioinsecticide. I've used it, too, and it has kept the numbers of pill bugs and sow bugs manageable. They never completely go away, but I seldom see damage from any of them. In general, they are only a pest in my garden and landscape during the rainy spring season. We are very dry here....generally in drought.....most of the summer months and their population probably mostly abandons our garden and landscape for the cooler, more moist woodlands that sit to our house's west, north and south. Pure food-grade diatomaceous earth is not easy to find in stores, and I think it is getting harder to find because some companies are now carrying a DE product that has a chemical insecticide added to it and some retailers carry that instead of the natural, organic version. I used to buy it in big tubs (the size of Tidy Cat buckets) when I lived in Texas, but can't find it here in OK. So, I mail order it from an online company. I order 5 or 10 lbs. at a time and it lasts forever. I've linked below the company from which I have purchased DE in the past. I've been very happy with this company. They ship quickly and their customer service is great. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Harvest Supply's DE Page

Thank you very much for your excellent response. That's it. Not surprisingly (and unfortunately), there is milkweed in that garden. I was unable to tend to it for a long while and the spurge and milkweed took hold and have been tough to eradicate. Last fall while attempting pulling out the spurge, I got some of the caustic spurge sap in my eye and had to get my eyes irrigated. Very painful. There were very thick fleshy roots. The genus of that imported beetle being tested on leafy and cypress spurge is Aphthona. I don't believe any are in my spurge areas or that the beetle has been all that reliable.