The measurements of 4x8, are the length and width of your garden? If that is the case, know that some of those plants get very large. Eggplant, tomato and peppers grow fairly large and can easily consume all of your space. You will want to choose compact varieties or do some selective pruning to keep them contained. Keep them staked or caged to contain their encroachment on your other plants. Carrots and spinach require little space to grow well as long as you harvest regularly. Grow your peas and cukes upright on a trellis or use your chicken wire as a trellis and allow/train these plants to grow upright. You can use stretch tie or twine to aid in training them upward. Plant your tomatoes and peppers where there is abundant (minimum 6 hot hours) of sun. Thinning is the removal of the weaker seedlings that have germinated too close together. Choose the stronger seedling to remain behind. If they all appear equal in growth just gently remove all but one as per the spacing required for the chosen plant. Hardening off means slowly exposing them to fluctuating temperature and wind after being protected and controlled indoors. IOW you gradually expose them to outside conditions when the weather is favorable. Personally, I would not use peat cells for seed starting. If you already have, once the seedlings emerge and begin to set leaves, there will be little to no nutrients for your plants. I would, at that point, transplant them into a seed soil mix in a small plastic pot. Watch your space and don't over plant. Stressed plants are more likely to be killed by disease. The soil in your garden should be a mix of topsoil and compost ( I also mix in a bit of "crappy native soil" because it contains vital nutrients and minerals). Plant in the topsoil and "mulch" with aged compost. Be sure there is adequate drainage with your weed fabric underneath. Many landscape fabrics do not allow sufficient drainage (even though it says so on the package). You don't want to turn your garden into a pond. Search around the web for some small veggie garden tip sites. Your space is your largest concern for the amount of plants you are placing in your garden. Specifically, watch your tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. Don't be frustrated, you will learn more from your mistakes than your success. Gardening is fun and productive if you are patient and understand why things failed or succeeded. You will learn more and more as you continue. Good luck!! :) Robbie

You need volume and you need air in order for that to compost, so no, a 2 quart jar is just going to produce smelly sludge. Multiple jars will just make more sludge. If you have an area where you want to put your pile that is not covered with snow right now, you can start by collecting newspapers, shredding them, and layering them with the food wastes. Come spring, everything will warm up and start "cooking", and you can add brown and green yard wastes to the pile then. Or if your chosen spot is snowed in, get a large plastic garbage can, drill holes in it for air (many many holes, including on the bottom for drainage) and then layer your food waste and newspaper in that until spring.

First rule of compost, it will happen just be patient. Most important ingredient, anything and time. 1- yes, for the start of your bin, 3 pallets is fine. In the future, you may wish to make some more bins along side your first bin so you might want to plan your space accordingly. Each new bin will take two more pallets. A common way to do bins is to have 3 of them. The end bin is where you are adding materials into an active compost pile, the middle bin is where you store cover materials (browns or carbons) for adding into the bin as you have greens that need covering. The bin on the other end is for when you fill up the first bin. 2-Do you need to line it, probably not. Where are you located? If you are in the desert, then lining the bin with cardboard would help it retain moisture while still being able to breath. If you are in an area where rodents are a big problem, then hardware wire might be desirable. I've never had any rodents show interest in my compost bins though so not really a worry. Otherwise, no worries. Perhaps a board or bit of wire to put across the front to keep the dog from digging into it but I've not had any of the neighborhood dogs show any interest in my compost bins. 3-Don't worry too much about correct ratios, you could drive yourself mad that way. Get a mixture of things in there and then react if things don't seem right. If the bin is dry and mostly brown, it will take forever to break down. Add a bit of moisture and it will break down slowly or perhaps turn into leaf mold which is good too. If there is too much green, it will likely get wet and stinky which means add more brown. If it is simply too wet, it can get stinky, add more dry browns. Proper moisture is usually described as moist like a well wrung out sponge. 4-I would probably count tea as a green as are used coffee grounds. But as I said, don't worry too much about ratios. Just get a mixture. A bit of green cover with brown a bit of moist (most food scraps are mostly water) add some dry. If it seems too dry, dump the dish pan on it. If all you got is mostly leaves and shredded paper/cardboard, then ad some urine (or send the guys out to pee on the compost pile) to be your green/moisture. Most important, if it is stinky or looks yucky, you need to add more brown cover material over it. When we add the kitchen scraps or other stinky additions into the compost pile, we dig a hole in the hot top center of the pile and dump in the bucket, then we dump a bag of other peoples bagged leaves over the top of everything. If the addition is small, perhaps just dig the hole in the compost pile and dump in the stuff then cover back over. Good luck and welcome, composting is great! Here is a link that might be useful: TCLynx

Get it all the way out of the Deathcube asap, it will have trouble living in there. You don't need to repot immediately -- indeed, you might want to let it grow a bit before doing so, as it's probably a bit stressed out. A good indicator is if you are seeing little drops of gooey dew on the leaves -- the ones that have already grown probably won't get dew ever, but the new leaves should. Gooey Sundews are happy Sundews. Once you have a good layer of dewey leaves it might be time to repot. Potting CPs is pretty easy, what you will want to use for the most part is a combination of Perlite and Sphagnum Peat Moss. Perlite, in case you don't know, is a very common soil additive, it's the white pebbles in almost any commercial soil mix. Gardening Sand and/or Long-fiber Sphagnum is also pretty common -- it's very likely that your Lowes plants are currently growing in pure Long-fiber Sphagnum, every one I've seen is in it. What I like to do -- and I am no expert, mind you -- is use 1 part Perlite and 1 part Sphagnum for just about every one of my plants. I actually use an empty Lowes Deathcube for such, what I do is I pour in about a cup of Perlite and Sphagnum, then shake it like a martini, this mixes it up quite well. I have heard that whatever pot you use needs to have good drainage -- although I've also heard of people using pots with no holes at all. I've had a lot more luck with glazed or plastic pots than clay or terracotta ones, which seem to get a little white fuzz on them around my house. I've gotten all my pots from the local Fred Meyer, with about half of them being fully glazed neon-colored nightmares, and the other half being half glazed and half terracotta (the glaze stops halfway up). They have a single large drainage hole at the bottom which isn't ideal, I don't think, but as far as I know, works fine. You do not need to cover the pot per say, especially in a humid area like yours. What I would do is just put it in a windowsill and open it when it's warm out for humidity. You might even be able to keep it outside -- do you know what USDA zone you are in? http://www.arborday.org/media/zones.cfm I am in USDA zone 6 according to that list, and my D. Adelae and D. capensis var alba (Albino Cape Sundew) didn't like being outside all night too much (they lost their dew) but they do great in a windowsill. One challenge you are going to have is watering it -- it will likely not live with Tap water. You will need to collect Rain Water (assuming you do not have Acid Rain) or Distilled Water and use that instead. Distilled water (*not* "Purified" or "Drinking" water, those contain salts and minerals which will kill your plant) can be bought at most stores, I get mine from a WinCo, but I've also bought it from KMart and Fred Meyer in a pinch. Costs about $0.50 - 0.75 a gallon, 1 gallon should last you a week or 3. I use a turkey baster to water my plants, as well as a small squirt bottle to mist them every few days. One thing I've happily discovered is a "deep dish" Saucer for my plants -- I got mine from CaliforniaCarnivores, but you may have better luck finding them locally: http://www.californiacarnivores.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=13 They are standard 5" wide saucers but they're also about 4-5" tall, which means they hold about a cup of water. The soil will suck that up quite nicely and keep the plant at a perfect watering level. In a pinch you could make one out of the Deathcubes, I imagine, but that would require a hacksaw or something. Also, if you are going to purchase something from them (Venus Flytraps, Pots, Saucers, etc) I cannot stop singing the praises of the owner's book: http://www.californiacarnivores.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=3 It contains a wealth of information on the various types of Carnivorous Plants as well as caring for them and has a billion and one photos. Oh, and just one question -- what did the octopus plant look like? It was likely another type of Sundew, but I'm curious as to if it was what I think it was: My Cape Sundew was sold in a little pot with a baggie and a piece of paper that advertised it as an Octopus Plant, which I thought was pretty neat.