Welcome to the forum GoW - It's hard to know how to interpret someones commentary, so I'll ask you not to think I'm talking down to you. I'm anxious to see that you get all you can out of your foray into container gardening and help you along the way toward success. It's helpful to understand the very significant differences between container culture and gardening in the earth. If you read the original post & the subsequent conversations if you like) at the thread I'll link you to below, I think you'll have a much greater chance for a effort:reward quotient that leaves you feeling satisfied. You'll also see a recipe for a soil (the 5:1:1 mix) toward the end of the post that, in the long run, should cost about half as much to make, as a commercially prepared potting soil based on peat would be to buy. It has the additional benefit of being much easier to grow in, AND of providing a much wider margin for grower error in the areas of watering and fertilizing. There are a lot of good people here, most of them very enthusiastic, that carry a positive message and are willing to help you. I'm sure we all hope you stick around a while. ;-) Al Here is a link that might be useful: More on soils. If you click me,I'll take you there.

The Earth is wrapped in a blanket of air called the 'atmosphere', which is made up of several layers of gases. The sun is much hotter than the Earth and it gives off rays of heat (radiation) that travel through the atmosphere and reach the Earth. The rays of the sun warm the Earth, and heat from the Earth then travels back into the atmosphere. The gases in the atmosphere stop some of the heat from escaping into space. These gases are called greenhouse gases and the natural process between the sun, the atmosphere and the Earth is called the 'Greenhouse Effect', because it works the same way as a greenhouse. The windows of a greenhouse play the same role as the gases in the atmosphere, keeping some of the heat inside the greenhouse. Here is a link that might be useful: cook for book

I suggest you consider ways to move the following items OFF the desktop. printers, scanner, camera dock. The more you put on that desktop, the less working space you'll have. And working space is actually at a premium. We have our scanner on a shelf You could wall-mount the camera dock, perhaps (or install a shallow shelf on the "backsplash" area of the desk to set it on). A wall mount might be a good way to handle some future gizmo's, too--back-up external hard drive, PDA dock, etc. The smallish ones. Lots of times printers are shown on low carts that roll under--if you can find a way to preserve some "roll it under" space w/ that desk, that might be really useful. I wish I could suggest how to brace that corner without blocking it up completely.

I second the Ikea suggestion if you have a store within a several hour drive (our Ikea is 2 1/2 hours away.) We're in the process of putting our laundry room together and we're about 70% done. I love our Ikea cabinets and the white Ikea shelving unit. I've heard very iffy comments about the quality of Ikea furniture, in general. But I've read the kitchen, office, and PAX wardrobe collections are of better quality and hold up well. We've been very happy with the PAX closets we've had for several years. DH is making pullouts out of doors for the cabinets next to the washer. A side panel and a counter will be added to these cabinets. The upper cabinets also need side, top and bottom panels and the sink needs a faucet but hopefully you get the idea. We're staying flexible with the washers. We plan to replace these in a year or 2 for models that don't shake our house as much (laundry room is on the 2nd floor of an old farmhouse.) The new ones will be taller with either a home built platform or pedestals.