Thanks Raybo, Yours are looking great and I'm sure you'll be enjoying a lot of corn in the coming months. Mine was "Brocade F1 hybrid" (78 days) from Garden's Alive. http://www.gardensalive.com/product.asp?pn=3037&bhcd2=1245009779 I pre-sprouted the corn in a paper towel and planted them as soon as there were some roots coming out. I didn't really keep records of things this year but I'm pretty sure I planted the corn on or a few days after March 24. I have a picture of the corn container complete with 16 holes in the plastic covering on this date. I think I planted them later that day also. There were 1 or 2 times when I either covered the containers or brought them into the garage and used an aquarium heater down the fill tube. Brian

I have been lurking for a couple of months, but I have to post on this one. I went to the store about a month ago to get one bag of blood meal. I came home with 9 pink fountain guara grass, 2 russian sage, 2 corkscrew grass, and 9 silver falls (to go with the corkscrew grass in a nice tall skinny container i already have). They had some plants 50% off, so I also got a just budding Strawflower, a youngish lobelia basket, and (happy dance) a smallish variegated Weigela. I got about halfway home and realized I had forgotten the Blood Meal. So I stopped at the very nice little garden center at the hy-vee (grocery store) near my house - the garden center is actually done by one of the local greenhouse/nursery centers. They were having a 25% off everything sale and bulbs for a $1.00 (instead of $4.00!), so I got a couple of hanging baskets of yellow and orange callibrachoa (million bells), 4 tiger lillies, 6 stargazer lillies, and 12 assorted - red, white, yellow. I again got halfway home and had to turn around. You guessed it, forgot to get the blood meal!!

Of course the daylength and angle of the sun has something to do with how much light reaches the seedlings, but I don't think that's the only reason you see legginess on the seedlings. They simply need more light than they can get via a window at this time of the year. Winter sunlight is weak and inconsistent, and it is even weaker on cloudy days. When I first starting raising seedlings indoors in the 1990s, I raised them in a window, and it wasn't even a really sunny area, but I would carry them outside for several hours a day from the very moment they sprouted. They only had to stay inside on cold days. I had legginess issues all the time because they just couldn't get adequate light when they were inside, which is why I switched to using lights instead of relying on natural light. I don't know that lettuce and spinach are more prone to legginess than tomatoes and peppers, but because of their growth habit, they seem to tolerate legginess less well than the tomatoes and peppers. I would assume the low-E glass might allow less light to reach the plants. It won't matter to the plants if they have light during the day or at night as long as they have it. I don't see why you couldn't leave the lights on at night and turn them off during the day. I am assuming there is not a garage window that would let in just enough light to make the plants start stretching towards that window, thereby becoming leggy in the process. You can wrap your shelf with clear plastic or reflective mylar to help hold in the heat. A cold frame might work for starting the most cold-hardy seedlings at this time of year, but only if it is covered up with a blanket or something at night to keep out the cold and if it has a vent to allow excess heat to escape during the day time. All a cold frame does is keep frost off your plants and provide them with a warmer environment when the sun is shining. It does not keep them much warmer at night because it lacks both insulation and a heat source, so it cools down once the sun sets. Those pop up cold protection things and plastic mini greenhouses do not keep the plants warmer during cold nights and tend to roast them during the day without venting. If we ever build a cold frame (and I have saved a storm door to use whenever we get around to building a cold frame), we will insulate the walls. I use floating row cover material to keep frost off my plants on cold nights in the spring once they've been transplanted into the ground or into their permanent large containers, but even the best row cover made (and I don't have it) only gives you 10 degrees of protection. I have two different weights---one gives 2 to 4 degrees of cold protection and the other gives 6 to 8 degrees. So, even with them, I can keep the plants only slightly warmer at night. I have had some luck keeping plants warm on really cold nights by putting on two layers of the row cover that gives 6 to 8 degree protection, but just because you double the fabric doesn't mean it gives the plants 12 to 16 degrees of protection. I think it might give them 10 degrees if doubled. However, in spring, it is enough to prevent the plants from freezing (usually) on cold nights. We have a sunporch with insulated half-walls and glass windows and a greenhouse, and it gets pretty much just as cold inside both of them at night as it does outside. I could keep either or both of them warmer by heating them, but don't think it would be cost-effective. They are warmer during the day on sunny days though, and are uncomfortably warm on warm to hot sunny days, so venting is essential. In past years I have started leaving seedlings out on the sunporch all night long once the temperatures are staying above about 35 degrees at night. I won't chance losing them by leaving them out there on cooler nights. I use a heat mat to germinate pepper seedlings and that's about it. I remove the heat mat as soon as the seeds germinate because leaving the plants on the heat mat after that is not good for them. Every one of us has had to experiment to figure out what works for us in terms of seed-starting and then the hardening off of seedlings so they will be ready to go into the garden. I have found that what works best for me is to avoid all the "too's"...don't start seeds too early or too late, don't give them too much light or too little light, don't grow them in temps that are too hot or too cold, don't keep them too wet or too dry, don't expose them to too little air movement indoors followed by too much wind movement outdoors before they can acclimate to it and don't plant too many. (Well, I still have trouble with that last one.) As your home and property change, you will have to adapt your seed-starting practices accordingly. For example, I used to use the wrap-around front porch, which faces east and south, to harden off seedlings when I moved them out from the house. However, as our young trees and shrubs grew, the porch became increasingly shady, which is great on a hot summer day but not great for seedlings that need light. So, then I had to move the seedlings to a new location to harden off. You have to be flexible and adapt as your conditions change. You also have to be able to adapt to every kind of weird weather Oklahoma throws at you and your plants in spring. Starting seeds indoors is a wonderful process but it will drive you crazy if you let it. Things happen to young seedlings---a flat gets dropped and hits the ground upside down demolishing little seedlings, the cat decides a flat of tomato plants is a cat bed, a sudden wind gust sweeps a flat of seedlings off an outdoor table. It happens. I just always raise enough seedlings to make up for life's little disasters and don't let it make me crazy if a variety germinates poorly, is hit by damping off or meets with some unforeseen disaster.

This is hilarious. According to this Urban Dictionary definition, I am poor. I shop at Wal Mart (ALL the time, and occasionally go to Goodwill) and I do not have a Versace anything. I do know how to pronounce it now though. Seriously, I hope I am never defined by what I wear, at the least, although I certainly enjoy nice things! poor 20 up, 77 down Low-class, underpriveleged people. You will find many poor people if you go to places such as Wal-Mart, as poor people seek discounted prices as they do not have much money. Poor people will wear brands such as Faded Glory, Wrangler, and other commonly available brands, and most likely will have no knowledge of brands such as Burberry, Armani, Gucci, Versace, and other nicer brands. They will often drive used cars, typically cheaper domestic cars or inferior foreign brands such as Hyundai, typically more than five years old. Severely poor people will have cars that are ten years or older and they might purchase second-hand clothes from stores such as Goodwill. Poor people will have inferior jobs and probably make less than $50,000 a year. The definition of poor varies by region. The poorest of people will live in trailers. With no means to live lavishly, poor people will often lead a simple lifestyle. Poor kids are often unpopular at school as they can not fit in with popular children. Sometimes also used by some people as a noun to refer to people they do not like. Their clothes are not brand name, they must be poor. Look at the poor people shopping at Wal-Mart!