John - Several of us are downsizing. It's funny - the ideal number of plants seems to be around 65. Last month, I went from 108 to 90, heading for 65. Mine are a pain to water. What happened to that 25% - or do you want to say? :) (Kevin got ribbed royally recently by Howard for tossing some of his in the trash.) If you're at the point of replacing T8s or another type tube, or going CFL, the current thread, "Hey, Clara - What lights did you get?" has a couple of posts that may provide a quick tutorial. Summary - CFL good; tubes bad re: amount of light for plants, amount of energy consumed, and amount of utility bill. Additionally, the CFLs provide heat which can cut/eliminate the need for a space heater, if you have enough of them in an enclosed space. (Hope I'm doing justice to the thread.) Last year, I got 2 42W CFLs, along w/ "brooder clamp lights" from HD. They're those round, shiny metal, ugly clamp-on things, but the 10.5" fixtures are the perfect size for the 42W CFLs. A side note - from hours on the Web and phone, I've concluded that's the largest brooder light made. An inexpensive fixture for 85W doesn't seem to exist, unless you want to find parts here and there. Anyway, last winter, I had one 42W bulb over Phals, Phrags, and Paphs. They were about 6' away from the window. Everything rebloomed. Caveat - they were all outside the summer before. So - before you buy more tubes, CFLs are sure worth checking out. 1000Bulbs.com seems to have the best prices. Whitecat8

I fought this for years and here is where it lead me. Using synthetics can and will produce more as well as more dependable results 100% of the time IF you know exactly what you are doing. That means if you don't hold a degree in the field,it will be hit and miss even asking questions of people who hold the degrees and know exactly what they are doing. Problem is the expert must see and touch the plant,know history of soil&run fingers through it and know precisly what has been done including but not limited to,daily weather,amts & timing of water and nutrents up to that point. Organic is the way to go for even for the most dedicated gardeners. Organic is more forgiving of neglect and mistakes eventhough the mistakes and neglect will reduce production,it's not intolerable amounts. Non-organic mistakes often result in drastic results up to and including 100% loss. An often incountered one is where fertilizer is applied then miscalculation of weather and/or moisture occurs. Another is where insectiside is used to rid a pest that is effecting a plant by eating leaves or sucking some juice but not killing it nor ruining all fruit. Benificials on neighboring plant is eradicated and a pest that was being kept in check or shows up suddenly mushrons and ruins one or more crops. Very few things you do organicly will result in such sweeping results,good or bad. The soil should always be in transition for the lack of a better term. This addresses fertilize applications. In any container or plot , I try to insure there are diverse types and stages of finished compost. That insures that as micros are consumed replacements are being produced. I believe far too much gravity is afforded N being tied up by deterioating matter. Dumping a lot of fresh material like saw dust with huge amounts of exposed surface will definitly starve plants until rate of decomposition slows. A case where there is negitive results but usualy recovers enough to produce a fair to poor crop. Turning under green cover like vetch can realy supply season long crop fuel. I just cannot stress enough how important it is to understand your plants and that will happen with experience and experience will come sooner by asking inteligent questions of those willing to help. In an effort of convincing sceptics that it is possiable to read plants,I offer some off topic evidence. Try this out if you know a rancher,not nessarly an old crusty one, a cowperson in their 20s is quite capiable. Drive him/her to a herd they have never been around and without leaving the seat of the vehicle they can tell you; very near the age,the sex,weight and breed/mixture of breed for each animal while average person is deciding what color they are. If alowed to walk near them (many cattle dislike and will run away from strangers) closly estimate stage of pregnancy while our novice wonders why the one giving birth within a week is not fat as the one who has 3 months to go. Think about human faces. Isn't it amazing that we can differinate all of them. Practice!

I shop at multiple stores. Pay day is every other Friday so I that is when I go to Wal-Mart or Smith's (Kroger owned). Every 2 weeks we also get coffee beans at the little mom and pop shop. We go to Sprouts every 2 weeks as their ads overlap on Wednesdays. This is actually getting less frequent as they have not put the bulk things on sale that I want the most as frequently (steel cut oats and short grain brown rice). The bread outlet is a once a month trip. Other stores such as Keller's (for meat), Trader Joe's, the international markets, Vitamin Cottage (for other bulk items), I alternate months. Some things I get through Amazon's subscribe and save and that can vary in frequency. Eggs are mostly from my hens and many of our vegetables come from our garden. Some of the variety in shopping is about the money savings but it is more along the lines of trying to match the quality to a certain price point and meeting my needs of acquiring a diversity of ingredients. Arborio rice at TJ's, quality meat at Keller's, red lentils in bulk at Vitamin Cottage, etc. Part of it is me trying to maintain a well stocked pantry because my moods are fickle and if the pantry has a variety of things, I can cook according to my mood. Pre-planned menus never, ever work for me.

I also really love the Suave Daily Clarifying shampoo, it's dirt cheap and doesn't harm my very delicate fine hair. I just stumbled upon it too. I had bought it for my husband and he didn't use it so I had this huge bottle and used it and was surprised at how well it did for my fine hair and plus, it doesn't make my scalp itch, that has become an issue for me. I also found a conditioner that I love, it's Martix Biolage, the detangling one. Finally, a conditioner that doesn't make my scalp itch AND actually takes the tangles out of my insanely tangle prone hair. I used to shampoo daily because I styled my hair every day. Now, I just put it in a ponytail and call it done. I wash my hair about every third day now. I'd be very afraid to put baking soda in my fragile hair...I'm sure it would destroy it. I once (ONE TIME) used Dr. Bronner's liquid Castile to wash my hair and it damaged it so badly that it had to grow out before it was normal again. UGH! I'm lucky that I have hair, don't get me wrong, but my hair is very weird! My scalp is also very oily...so I cannot go very long without washing. Three days is pushing it and I can only pull it off because I wear it in a ponytail. I also can't stand the smell of stinky hair...UGH! It gets stinky after a couple days. That's when I know it's time to wash!