I agree a zillion times on the heat mats! I have 12 of them and need more of them. I do like the idea of using a heating blanket, never thought of that, it would be perfect size for starting flats of Caladiums this year, as last year I didnt have enough heat mats for them and it took forever for them to sprout. Lights are also vital for me, I have way way way too many of them in our home, occupying 4 different "grow rooms". Other gizmos, I use a large turkey baster for watering individual plants. The baster seems to let out just the right flow of water, as the watering cans seem to spill water into individual plants that dont need watered. This can be time consuming, but necessary until flats are all drying out at the same time. I bottom water all seedlings until they have been transplanted. I also use, well it isnt a gadget but it is a technique really, a gallon water jug where I mix my fertilizer at HALF STRENGTH with water, and I will use equal portions of this (as needed) with WARM water, which gives me a 1/4 strenght fertilizer for all seedlings/plants that get watered. As you know, you should never water with cold water, but if you mix a batch of fertilizer and then dont need to use it all right away (say, a gallon amount), it gets cold in its container. So, I allow the gallon jug to get cold and then just mix with warm water, whatever amount I think I may need. I just use a second water jug and mix equal parts. No fertilizer waste! I also use valve action markers in different colors that I use to right on my pots, so I know what is in them. I dont actually right out the whole name, such as Petunia 'Tidal Wave Silver', but I will simply write a small TWS on the pot, so I know what it is without using tags, because tags can (and do!) fall out. In the off season, after I scrub my pots, I use a black valve action permanant marker and mark over these labels so that the next season they are ready to go. I also have jillions of pie plates, muffin tins, and pot pie tins which I use for sowing seeds. These are the perfect depth for planting almost all seeds. Though, I am now beginning to use more commercial plug trays, I still use lots of the muffin tins for planting up to 25 seeds. I also use cut up sections of plug trays for "jimmying" up the different containers to reach the light. For instance, right now I have several containers with impatiens seedlings and several with petunia seedlings, which are about an inch difference in height. I jimmy up the petunia seedlings in the flat so that they are the same height as the Impatiens, and all plants are the same distance from the lights. My plants almost touch the lights! I also use little tiny baby toothbrushes for scrubbing plug trays and bottle brushes for cell packs and pots. My husband designed some "free standing" grow light racks for me for when my plants have outgrown the shelves. We drape several chains over a table and hang the lights under the table, and I can keep growing on my plants when they are quite tall. I can raise the lights up to two feet if I wanted to! Most plants dont get that tall though before getting hardened off, but the height is nice for getting containers going early. Anyone can build this, just get a good old sturdy table. I also do the wet toothpick trick! Works great for "smashing" pellets also. I like to smash my pelleted seed so that they all germinate at about the same time. Another thing to do with the toothpick--if any of you are like me and want to conserve every single seed that germinates, I get frustrated when I have a container of ready-to-transplant seedlings and I look closely and see several seedlings that had just sprouted. Especially with seed that was expensive, like impatiens! What I do is, I keep an eye on the flats and I will use a toothpick to remove some of those tiny germinated seedlings from the container, and move them one by one into a new container. Since they have just germinated, there is only a very tiny root system, so you dont hurt it at all by moving it. If I did not move them, they would get ruined when I transplant the larger seedlings to cell packs. I also keep an eye out for ungerminated seeds,in particular with impatiens or seeds that I spent a lot of money on. I dont quite understand why they dont all germinate at the same time, but it happens all the time! I will use a toothpick to pick up the seeds, put them in a new container and back under the domes for germinating. This also keeps me from losing those baby seedlings I mentioned before. Tedious? Sure! But I strive to get everything I canfrom what I spend on seeds! Anyway, those were my gadgets! Neat post!

Emily L - I found this post doing a search. He was responding to someone that was trying to build a new home to look old. gary1227 11 years ago We completed our new 'old house' this past spring (March 2009). We designed the house ourselves with the help of a local draftsman. We came up with our design by taking photos of area homes and going through books of historic homes that were of the period we were looking for. Our house is an Italianate Farm house and fits perfectly in our 12 acre rural setting. The house did cost us a bit more with the added trim work inside and out but to us it was worth it. We used Hardy Board and Azek trim on the exterior and installed a geothermal system for the heat, a/c and hot water. Here is a link that might be useful: Link to our Construction Blog

Fifty years ago I was a newlywed. I can't imagine how a smartphone would have improved my quality of life. In fact, although I like my phone (up to a point) and love the Internet (to excess), I'm concerned about how they are changing human interaction. Even watching the Red Carpet prior to the Oscars last night . . . the venue was packed with people, half of them staring at their phones. That said, my husband and I were the first among our friends to acquire a portable phone. It was a "bag phone," big and clunky, and we kept it in my car for emergencies. I have always appreciate their safety aspect. We were the first to get smoke alarms too--at over $100 a pop. Fifty years ago I was dragging a heavy Electrolux vacuum around. Maybe if my present Shark had been invented then I would have been a better housekeeper. :-)

We received this wine aerator as a gift. https://m.wine.com/product/vinturi-wine-aerator/120451?warehouses=CA&cid=GoogleBase_CSE_120451_Beta&gclid=CjwKEAjwlq24BRDMjdK7g8mD6BASJABBl8n310IPzm54CwZGYb5jIVpe2Mj-rkHdl7ntD2MlAdvEXRoC3Pnw_wcB&mode=xfercomplete Sometimes I have guests do blind tastings - (1) a glass straight from the bottle, (2) a glass poured through the aerator. They prefer (2) about 2/3 of the time. 1/3 of the time they can't tell the difference - but those guests might not be able to tell a California wine from a French wine, so we won't give their opinions too much weight. No one, so far, has preferred (1). If you decant into a carafe then the aerator is unnecessary. I picked this laser-sighted infrared thermometer up on a whim, because I was in Home Depot and it was only $16. http://m.homedepot.com/p/PRO-SERIES-Non-Contact-Infrared-Thermometer-with-Laser-Sighting-12-1-Spot-THERMNC/204262824 Along with enabling all sorts of geeky investigations - have you ever wondered how much hotter your ceiling is than your floor? do cats have the same internal temperature as humans? when your spouse is "steaming mad", is she really? - it has certain cooking uses. Measuring the temperature of a pan. Or of spitting oil that is too scary hot to dip your probe thermometer in. This one is as cheap as they come, and no doubt there are advantages to the expensive models, but save your money and get the wine aerator too. Differences in the emissivity of surfaces limits the accuracy of infrared temperature measurement anyway.