I have a grow light bulb in a floor lamp with an adjustable arm. It's over several plants and I'm never quit sure how long to leave it on or exactly where to point it. Right now I have it pointed at the white wall above and behind the plants figuring the light will will reflect and disseminate indirectly onto the plants. I leave it on only a few hours because they also get a very small amount of indirect, low light from and; window across the room and the fluorescent lights in the next room. I do wonder if the temperature is part of my problem with her and also my ivies, perhaps. Water could also be associated, I have heard that tap water left sitting at room temp awhile before watering clears the chemicals. I store my water in closed milk cartons a good while before use. I dunno if that makes any difference or not. ~ken_adrian... You said, "grow lights should be 2 to 4 inches"... What did you mean by that? 2-4 inch bulbs? 2-4 inches over plant? That is not the permanent position. I didn't post my zone because all my plants are indoor, but I live in VA. Thanks everyone for the advice and welcomes. I will check out that site, Carol23.

I posted in another discussion about an experience in a canning class I once had - about the many varied ways people measure things. It was amazing to see the different amounts everyone got for 4 cups of chopped solids - some were as much as 1 cup total over - yet each one of us really believed that we had measured correctly until we saw the differences. Even more curious was that everyone was over 4 cups and no one was under. Instructor said it was an unconscious mind-set, a fear of being short and that if some is good, more is better. :) The old construction axiom of "measure twice, cut once" has some truth to it. Deanna said she gets 6 1/2 to 7 pints, we have gotten up to 8 1/2, Annie mentioned in the past that she sometimes gets 6-8 I think. But 11 to 12? That has to be either insufficiently drained or mis-measured to make that much difference. Dave PS: "drained" and "well-drained" also means different things to different folks.

Lard has a larger fat crystal than other fats, which is one reason it works so well in pastry. Butter gives great flavor but has a lot of water in it and it melts quickly. The combination of lard and butter in pastry is a great twosome. When I use coconut oil (frozen and grated on the large hole on my box grater), I can reduce the amount of fat by about 25 percent, especially when using pastry flour or milling soft wheat or low-gluten spelt into flour to use for pastry. Good pastry is a combination of tenderness and flakiness and each characteristic is developed differently. Pastry is all about reducing the gluten development in the flour, so choose flour (pastry flour or Southern All-Purpose flours like Martha White, White Lily, Gladiola, Red Band) that has a low protein/gluten content to begin with as a great way to reduce gluten-development up front. If you want more tender pastry while using all-purpose flour you can add a little more fat and add an acid ingredient. Divide the cold fat in two portions and mix one half in the flour until it's very finely mixed. This will coat the flour so it develops the gluten in short strands (hence short-crust pastry) when the liquid is mixed in and will give a tender crust. Quickly add the remaining fat and keep it in larger blobs. When the heat of the oven melts the blobs of fat the steam will raise those layers in the pastry we recognize as a flaky pastry. Vinegar in a recipe is another way to decrease the gluten-development. Adding an acid brings one more tenderizer into play. "Acids soften gluten, breaking apart gluten strands and keeping the pastry tender." When eggs are used in a pastry recipe it is best used for something like a meat pie. The protein from the egg will reinforce the structure of the pastry, making it strong enough to hold a hefty filling. When liquid vegetable oil is used to make pastry it is considered a "warm fat", which coats each particle of flour so completely than no gluten develops. Oil pastries are very tender and tend to be more mealy than flaky since you don't have steam raising those flaky layers. Oil pastry is generally easier to handle and is easy to roll between two sheets of waxed paper. It's neither right or wrong what type of pastry you make - it's just one of those cooking/baking choices we make - BUT - as a general rule of thumb don't take an oil pastry to the fair because it will tend to get judged down because they rarely come up to judging standards. If a sticky dough that is hard to roll-out is your problem, you have too much gluten developed - probably from adding too much liquid and/or using flour that has a high protein content. Northern all-purpose flours like King Arthur and Robin Hood really don't make good pastry because of the high amount of protein. Add as little water as possible!!! As soon as lumps of dough stick together during mixing, stop mixing and adding water. It takes very little extra water, as little as 1/2 teaspoon, to quickly toughen the dough. -Grainlady

I agree. You don't need to prebake the crust for quiche. Usually, one doesn't brown a quiche crust. Having the dough as cold as possible before you put it into the oven helps if you're blind baking it. While I haven't had it slip in the oven, I have had the slip in the dish before the oven was opened! My kitchen can be very warm, especially in the Summer, and I've had dough so floppy from the butter starting to melt that it wouldn't sit in the pan right. A quick trip to the freezer for the rolled dough takes care of it. Popping it into the oven good and cold means the flour starts to firm up before the butter can fully melt, or something like that. It might have an effect on the flakiness, but I don't know if for good or ill (flaky comes from the steam let out as the fat melts).