"My neighbors idea of gardening is going to Target while the landscaping guys come to cut the grass." --LOL, Doris! This is my first year WSing. And really, it makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Most seed winters over and then you get "volunteer plants". Every year, I have "volunteers" -- hollyhock, sunflower, cherry tomato, marigold, basil, and even last summer, I got about ten very nice cantaloupe from vines that came up out of composted soil that I had just moved into a new raised bed. I didn't even have much for it to grow in yet at that spot, and at first I thought the plant was cucumber so I trained it onto a trellis. Imagine how well it would've grown with better conditions! Thanks to several generous folks, I have WS'd a lot of really interesting-sounding plants that I never tried before. I do not have good luck with seeds I plant in the ground in spring. Some of them never come up. They dry out just at the wrong time. Or the cat digs them up. Or the dog walks on them. Or the birds eat the seed! And worse yet, I've even been known to forget what I planted where and have PULLED THEM UP thinking they're weeds! Whoever coined the term "Golden Years" must not have been old. When you think about it, it's just really nature's way, what we're doing, except that we are protecting the seed from drying out and from all the other things that happen to it. The "volunteer" plants seem to "know" when it's time to come up. So this is going to be really interesting to me to see how the milk bottle makes the difference. With my milk bottles clearly marked (with grease pencil), that alone will keep me from destroying seedlings thinking they're weeds! I live on the back of a small town park. People use the sidewalk that runs about ten feet from my back chain link and I see them sometimes just standing there looking over my garden in the summer. If I'm out there they always make comments and ask questions. I always grow tomatoes in my raised beds and people around here seem to be really interested in tomatoes. Those who don't have space for anything else, will grow that. I plant mammoth sunflowers and hollyhock just outside my fence, they get a lot of attention; so much so that somebody actually cut off one of the sunflower heads last year and made off with it. And they love to look over the grapevines just inside my fence that grow on an "arbor" DH made me out of iron pipe, pipe elbows and stock panels. Those same people walk the park all year 'round and now they've started to ask questions about what all those milk jugs are in the corner of one of my raised beds. I mean, these folks truly get involved in my garden. In the hottest part of the summer, when I'm not very good about getting out there and pulling weeds, they let me know about that, too! So thanks everybody for taking the time to post advice and especially to those who've sent seed to me, and in fact sent seed to the person who sent seed. I got really excited about some of the seed I got after I Googled and saw what some of the plants look like! I keep a "gardening journal" on my computer and I like to copy the pictures of what the things I plant are supposed to look like from the Internet, along with any other information I can get: height, growing conditions,culinary or medicinal uses, etc., and paste them into my journal. So I was really busy doing that for awhile. I still have planted my tomatoes and peppers inside this year. I know the tomatoes would probably be fine WSing but I'm not sure about the peppers. They seem to need to be warm all the time and I've been told that if their roots get cold it affects production for the life of the plant. DH is a tomato lover and I like to can whatever excess I have so having good tomato plants is important. If things do as well as I think they will this spring, I will WS tomato seed next year. I too am having trouble collecting enough milk jugs, but I will save all year now and be better prepared next year. I just can't take things out of people's trash. I work for an agency that provides jobs to people with disabilities, and one of the businesses we run is a recycling center. But taking things out of the bins is a big no-no for us. The mess in the parking lot people make when digging around in our bins means we have to spend a lot of time cleaning up after them. Things blow across into other people's property and they have the police come out and tell us to clean up. If we don't do it fast enough we are fined. When there are lots of people taking recycling materials, it really reduces the amount of stuff we ship out and affects our income. So if you live near a recycling center, please ask them first if it's OK for you to take things. They might have things they can't recycle and have to throw away that you can have all you want of. In our case, that would be anything made of styrofoam. And any time any of you dumpster dive, please clean up after yourself. Don't climb in. There are sharp metal objects, broken glass, and sometimes even 'poo' in there. Although the mess that's made is always a problem, what most businesses fear about dumpster divers is that they will get hurt and sue.

Next time take them directly to the Food Bank, that way they won't clutter up your pantry and won't expire before they are eaten. My dad used to do that, and they'd have rows of canned peas with dates on top in maker. I couldn't swallow a canned pea if it was the last bit of food on earth.

Fantastic job. Congratulations! Your backsplash is really different and goes so well in your space. The color choice is refreshing. I like how the gold color in the adjacent laundry room(?) plays off the b.s. It is a warm, functional and comfortable kitchen. Did I miss what material your countertops are???

Lol... I suppose the blame for 'telephoned' lies with me (if I'm thinking right, this refers to that old game where one person whispers a long sentence in someone's ear, and they whisper to another person, and so on until it 'returns to sender'. When it is finally repeated out loud, it can bear no resemblance to the original message.) I really did not mean to cause trouble lol. I just wanted to make the case that if the test isn't readily available, or if - as one person posited - that California no longer offers tests through the University and County Extension Services, that a test is not ALWAYS necessary. Like I mentioned above... there are some very good reasons, in some circumstances, where a test is of more value and importance than in other situations. However, it is sobering to realize that human civilization was built on agriculture. Total ignorance about how to manage land can lead to future problems, but if all you have is a small plot (some people only have a 4' X 4' bed, or even a few containers) then one should really take a sober, reasonable approach to a $100 commercial soil test! And again, before someone challenges my opinion, I'm not saying that it's wrong to get a soil test - there are real benefits - but all one really has to do is drive around one's neighborhood if they want to see what grows well in their native soil, or get on Yelp! if they want to read reviews of locally available mediums. If you have the extra money, are having problems you can't solve, or are seeking to optimize your return, then by all means... get the test. However, if like my Great grandfather's lifetime of gardening... the soil test is not available, or is beyond your means, then just plant already lol (I'm not talking about Nancy, just in general.) Ecc. 11: 6 - "In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good."