Now I can't believe you don't get "Junk mail" where you live. As for colored paper I understand they no longer have lead in the ink and are as safe as black and white print. In the area I live in they throw a paper on my driveway all the time which we almost never read. Check with your neighbors also. We have paper pickup in our area and we have little plastic boxes to put out on our curbs. If you use newspaper you cut it into strips and place in water. Use a container for wrapping those strips around it and allow to completely dry. If you wrap with enough layers it will be as hard as most any pot and will not sag or change its shape if you don't set them into a tray of water for a long time. If it is thick you may want to punch a hold in the bottom of your pot. When planting you leave everything but make sure there isn't any paper above ground when you put in your transplant as it can "wick" the water out of the soil around your new plant. They also say to water the ground in the area where you want to set out these transplants the day before and let your plant go a little dry, this way the new transplant will have to reach out for water by growing new roots. If you use Styrofoam Cups they work best if you make little slits on three sides about half way down from the bottom of the "rim." [I use a old hacksaw blade which I broke off and grounded so it has a nice point which goes into the Styrofoam quite nicely. Then when you get ready to plant they are easier to break open for transplant without disturbing the roots.] They then break off quickly if you just "snap" your fingers around that rim. Using a bulb planter you will be able to put them into the ground with very little problems. One side thought, I do Genealogy and have been looking for a "Gardening Software Program" Well I find my Genealogy program works great for keeping records on all my gardening projects. It will hold all the pictures I take as well as all kinds of places for note etc. The nice thing is I don't need just one more program on my Computer. Paul

If it makes you feel better, until last year, I always killed more than survived. The year before that I only really broke even - although probably 90% of what I planted survived, only about half fruited. The interesting thing for me was that the half that fruited was all planted where I'd mixed in compost. Everything else was elsewhere. So the next year, there was more compost and it went everywhere. And you know what? Nearly everything survived and flourished. Freaky. Of course there is a lot to learn along the way. You have sandy soil... One of the things I saw in my own case was that cucurbits always did poorly. Most shrivelled up and died right away. We have really bad powdery mildew in this area and it "melts" the squash, pumpkins or whatever. Two years ago, my compost-fertilized acorn squash still managed to produce several squash before dying. There's things I can do to deal with the mildew. Keep the plant's leaves as dry as possible by watering in the morning and watering at ground level - don't spray the leaves. Plant it in absolute full sun (not a problem if you have 8-12 hours of sunlight - I don't have that much and have to get by with 6 or 7 hours). You did say you had lots of sun, didn't you? On the potatoes, I wouldn't give up on them quite yet. Keep watering. My Yukon Gold taters, that I bought from a very reputable seller and planted at the right time, with good weather and in good soil, still took about a month to break out of the soil. I worried and fretted and wrung my hands, it was taking so long. But now they're about 3' tall and flowering, so everything's fine. I've had trouble with peat pots as well and finally just tore the things up and put them in the compost. But if they work for you, that's great. You see, I haven't been able to master starting plants indoors. Might be lack of equipment - I have no heater or lights, just a big south-facing window on an unheated patio. If it has to be a transplant, I buy from a nursery. Speaking of which, have you talked to local nurseries? Most of the larger nurseries will have an information desk staffed by a knowledgeable person. If you don't want to seek them out, you can probably call them around 1 or 2 on a weekday and they'll have time to chat over the phone about your case. You say your weeds are huge. You have eliminated the weeds near your crops, right? Left to their own devices, opportunist plants will probably overwhelm a crop plant, because the weed only has to produce seeds, not a plump, juicy and tasty fruit for us to eat. At the very least the weeds will weaken and slow your vegetables. Pull them up for at least a one foot radius around anything you're growing. Better still, two feet. A blooming vegetable plant isn't necessarily doing real well. Tomato plants in the stores, in six packs with only a quarter cup of soil to them are going to be blooming too. Don't get too bummed out by garden envy. Maybe just grow lots of garlic. Which reminds me - where did you get this garlic? Is it garlic that's been there for a lot of years and adapted to your particular soil, or is it stuff you bought recently? Because if it's adapted and has grown there for lots of garlic generations, that might explain why it's doing fine and the rest not. I've heard people say, and I've read, that it takes 2-5 years of constant amending to get most soils to the point that they make good gardens. The primary amendment being adding organic matter (compost, or shredded leaves, or aged manure, etc.) Until your soil gets to that point, it won't be good quality and it's hard to grow plants in poor soil. Days to maturity is from the planting of the seed, to my knowledge. I've been surprised at how accurate it has been, too. Last year everything was within about 5 days of their 'days to maturity'. Maturity is when the first edible fruit is harvested from the plant. So something like an indeterminate tomato might take 75 days until the first fruit is ripe, but it will keep producing more fruit for another 30 days, or until frost kills it. For transplants, you'd have to add several weeks. How much depends on the type of plant.

topie, your using something to hold the paper pots apart is a terrific idea. That should work very well. May I suggest that you sow sweet peas no more than a week or two before planting time? Those seeds germinate fast, similar to dahlia, Morning Glory or cypress vines. I gave up growing sweet peas long ago. Our spring weather heats up too fast those beauties get sunburn ....same as spring flowering bulbs and Oriental Poppies...sigh... * ******* * ************ I usually fit 8 - 9 paper pots in a milk jug--- as tightly as I can. I actually don't mind when paper pots stick together. By the time the seedlings are big enough to transplant, the root ball is so robust that it holds the soil together. Breaking the pots apart won't do them that much harm. That's the beauty of WS. In fact, there are times when I even break apart the paper pots because the root ball is so dense I need to tease out the roots. Or I need to make a smaller chunk of seedlings. :-D

Hi Bookjunky-- Regular office staples will rust and decompose just fine. I am super vigiliant about metal and plastic debris in my yard because I have poultry that will inevitably pick it up and eat it. Yet, for years, I have shredded and composted catalogs and office paper with staples. Staples break down fine and rather quickly, and I've never had an issue. Search on the compost forum, if you like. Others have had similiar results.