I talked to my husband when he got home from work last night. We're not using any of those bags of soil. We're using all native soil. We've also decided to plant these trees over 2 days. He works second shift so we don't have all day to do it. He's just going to dig a hole in a part of our yard and then when he's done with it will fill it with some topsoil or something. Funny that someone brought up a tiller. We already tried that idea. Well, sort of. We tried to rent one from Home Depot earlier this week, and they said we couldn't rent it yet because it's too muddy outside and they don't want any mud getting on the machine. We told the guy we would never return the machine with any mud on it but he insisted no one can rent the tiller yet. If all we were doing was planting trees it would be one thing but once we plant we are committed to putting up vole fencing around it. We've already got all the poles put up. Where we are planting we can see vole trails everywhere. Not to mention we also have to stake these trees (I stake every tree I plant for 2 seasons) because they are going to be in the prevailing wind section of our yard. The trunks and branches on these 2 foot European Hornbeam fastigiatas are so tiny! They look like they could snap right off. I smiled to myself this morning when I re-read my original post. I was completely panicked when I wrote it. I'm calm about it now. We're planting half today and staking and fencing them, and then the other half tomorrow on his day off. It'll be fine. I see people on videos all the time dig a hole to plant a tree and put the dirt back in and have enough to backfill, but we never do. And we put every bit of dirt we dig out of the hole on a tarp so as not to lose any of it but we still don't have enough.

Just curious, because I live in Zone 7 as well, but did you specifically ask for water soluble house plant fertilizer, or just "fertilizer". All of the Lowe's, Home Depots, and Wal - Marts in my area carry both the outside garden and lawn fertilizers which are usually applied with a push spreader and they carry 10-10-10. However, in a different part of the store they usually also carry a big selection of water soluble house plant fertilizers. Finding a 20-20-20 or other combination water soluble house plant fertilizer should be no problem at any of these stores. Although finding a water soluble fertilizer that does not contain a high percentage of urea based nitrogen might be difficult at these places. Could it be that you were in the wrong section of the store or possibly asked a new employee that did not know the difference between the two types of fertilizer? Curtis

I have grown chard before. I sow the seeds just below the surface about twice as deep as the size of the seed itself. Mine are sprouting in my jugs already, so you will probably have good results too. Good luck!

You are going to want to go with 3000K LED. The absolute best are the Sylvania Ultra HD Professional Series, really makes colors appear vibrant (95CRI), and the light has noticeably better color tint, but they are expensive. It is possible to find 3200K LED, but they are much harder to find (and options likely to be much more limited). 3200K would probably be the optimal color temperature for your situation, it's a vibrant bright white, but still warm enough to be within the range of feeling residential. I am going to tell you one thing though, and you can tell your wife I told you this: There is no LED product that feels exactly like the old-style GE Reveal bulbs. They do sell neodymium glass though, so maybe you could find some way of putting this filter over the LED bulbs. I have actually tried this, and surprisingly it does make the LED light feel a little more 'natural'. (and before anyone brings the subject up, yes, I am aware that the now discontinued old version of the Cree TW bulb used neodymium glass, but reviews said the light still did not feel like incandescent Reveal, despite the increase in CRI )