Congratulations on improving a patch of soil. It may be the most important work a human can do. It IS work and takes effort and patience. I started a veggie garden about 3 years ago in some of the sorriest thick heavy clay, but with vermicomposting and heavy mulching, it is coming right along and turning into fertile loam. Bought my worms (sold as red wigglers) from the local bait store and they have done a great job and thriving in this soil. Also have noticed big night crawler earthworms have moved into the garden. They burrow much deeper and aerate the soil even better. If you avoid chemicals, you will get beneficial insects to prey on the pests. Compost, Compost, Compost- if you can find a source (your local diner?) for coffee grounds and egg shells, get them to save that stuff for you. If you have the time and energy, pulverize the egg shells down to a fine powder, so the earthworms can digest that good stuff. Another good thing you can do for your soil is to grow nitrogen-fixing legumes- beans and peas. Get a few soybean seeds and grow your own edamame! Try clover or alfalfa as a cover crop in Winter- I've heard hairy vetch is good as well.

Hi bosewichte, Well, of course, it's hard to tell what may have caused your problems by just reading your post. Basically, it sounds like you did everything about right. There are a few things that I do wonder about however; they may or may not be the cause of the problems. First of all, I think you should get a thermostat for your heat mat. Without it, you really don't know what the temperature of the growing media is. Usually, you don't want the temperature to go over about 75 or 76 degrees. Then, you mentioned filling and using plastic dixie cups. Actually, they're pretty deep for seed germination. To prevent the growing media from staying too wet, shallower containers probably would have been better. In any case, you want the media to be moist and not wet. When the seeds germinate, their roots will need oxygen, which can be driven out by too much water. Also, watering seeds from the top can easily cause the seeds to be buried too deep. Most folks agree that gentle bottom watering is the best. If the growing media is moist (not wet) before you put it into the germination containers, and you use the plastic domes, you probably would not need to add any more water until after the seeds have germinated. My guess is that your seeds ended up too deep and/or the growing media was too wet. You should see slight condensation on the underside of the dome, but if water runs down the sides it's too wet. Hope this is helpful and good luck in the future with your seed germinating. Art

I think the best thing you can do right now is to sit down and draw your kitchen up to scale...preferably on graph paper. Include all windows and doors/doorways as well as the widths of each and the distances between walls and the windows & doorways. Once you have a to-scale drawing I think you will begin to see how everything fits, or not! Yes, there are recommended guidelines for aisles and seating clearances, etc. See the link below. Take your time...don't let KDs or cabinet guys or anyone else pressure you into making a decision just because they want to get going. As Bmorepanic said, this is your kitchen and you will have to live with it for a long time while they're just around for a short time. Remember, you're paying these people to do what you want, not what they want. Some KDs stress form over function...i.e., they care more about how it "looks" than how it works. So, relax, step back, and go back to the beginning! Good luck! Oh, BTW...don't start demolition or anything else until you have a final design that you're happy with...AND the cabinets and appliances are in. You don't want to be without a kitchen while you wait around for your cabinets...and many times cabinets, etc are NOT delivered on time. Here is a link that might be useful: NKBA Kitchen Planning Guidelines

rhome... you are so amazing! I can't believe your talent and genorosity. Here's the latest... now DH has finally started really looking at my concepts, thanks in part to your input. He doesn't like the idea of the cooking area being on that southeast wall because to the right of it is the hallway to 2 bedrooms and just below that is our only family room area. It's a small house that I've conceded to move to in the interest of a lower cost of living and comfortable retirement. I was trying to work around that huge 9' window that is also roughly 7' in height (8' ceilings) and 9' long. I would have love to have my kitchen in the back of the house leading to our screen patio and HUGE backyard pool area. He NOW says he's willing to replace that window with something more workable so I can use that wall space. We may even be able to cut out that little jog in the wall (west side just below window) which is 6" depth and width but I'm thinking it may be easier to just work the cabinetry around it. with a little tweaking. So I feel awful that you spent so much time and now that we can see it, are going to look into completely changing things around. I am repurposing the old laundry room into a pantry. That space is 10' long x 6' wide. The entrance is that doorway opening on the west side. The water heater is also in there. It leads on the south end to what used to be the garage but is now a third bedroom. I won't need an additional pantry closet but would love pullouts for spices/oils by my cooking area. I love love love the idea of the TV on a swivel/pullout. We were planning on putting one somewhere in there. The front of the house (south) will be our main TV area but not viewable from the kitchen. I definately want some informal seating in addition to the round table. So now I have to put pen to paper (since I'm too lame to effectively manage the programs I've downloaded) and come up with a new plan utilizing the back of the house as my kitchen. I was thinking we could use the section below the sink island as the eating area. What if I were to flip the sink and and then overhang to the opposite sides of where they are now on the island? The sink and DW is in that basic location now so I thought it would be easier when reconstructing. As it is, he's getting crazy with all the changes I want to make. I'm going down to that house on Monday and will take pictures of what existing now. I'm hopeful that will help in making sense of my nonsense. My husband can't get over the value of the information available on this forum. All this time he thought I was just goofing around. You guys are THE BEST!