Megan, I admire your determination and enthusiasm! But if I may, I'd like to offer some advice gleaned from 40 years of gardening experience. The early years were a financial challenge, but resulted in great personal satisfaction. To save yourself and any plants that MAY (very iffy!) result from your seeds the stress of caring for them indoors and then the not-inconsiderable chore of moving them to a new location, growing them on until they become large enough to bear fruit, hardening them off (getting them used to the outdoors), etc.--I would strongly suggest you nurture your gardening spirit with little more than a few herbs for now--or just to see something green and growing, even start an avocado or citrus in a pot on a sunny windowsill. These are fairly forgiving, at least for a while--and it is not hard to leave them behind eventually! Many people just trying to grow herbs in a south-facing window in winter do not realize how little sunlight actually is reaching their plants. Not only are the days about half as long, if there are window screens, that cuts the light down radically. Most culinary herbs are Mediterranean natives, so they want LONG bright sunny days and balmy nights, not the short dark winter days on a windowsill where the temperature may drop nearly to freezing at night through the glass! The thing about growing under lights is that light is effective only at the top of a plant. For a mature plant to do more than barely survive indoors under light, and especially to get things to bear fruit, you'd have to just about have lights surrounding the plant vertically in order to provide sufficient light to all the leaves, and leave them on at least 12 hours a day. (I usually leave mine on 16 hour days for seedlings that I start.) Actual greenhouses are all window, so light is pouring in from all sides. In the meantime, Megan, until your own spot of ground is a reality, find a way to put some money aside against the day when you have a garden spot prepared and at that time buy plants that will be ready to bear within a year or two. No matter how strapped for cash you may be, I expect that you, like pretty much everyone, have little indulgences that you can afford to (or will yourself to!) sacrifice and can put aside a few cents-- daily if possible, but weekly for sure-- in order to make your dream a reality. Here are some examples of ways I have been able to save: clip out store coupons for things that you are going to buy anyway (that's important!--it saves you nothing if you buy a brand name you would not ordinarily purchase if it still costs more with the coupon discount than a generic item!) and then as soon as you get home from the store, put the cents you saved into a special bank just for YOU. Also when you come home from any shopping trip, immediately put any coins you have into your bank. Oh, yes, that reminds me--cut up credit cards! Pay cash! If you smoke (hope not!!), QUIT or at least cut back & put the savings aside. Same with anything--cut back on that beer, fancy coffee (or chose plain brewed instead of a latte!), a candy bar, donut, etc.--cutting back even a little bit will start seed money growing (pun intended!) and your health will improve, too! Do you drive around campus when you could use a bike in good weather? Save gas money! Anyway, you get the idea. But you must have the will power to save the money & not break into your bank for any reason! Cut out pictures of the plants you want and make a notebook, plan your garden, do whatever it takes to keep yourself inspired so you do not touch your plant money! Finally, when you do get settled in your new place, find out about local garden clubs (online, Chamber of Commerce, library, etc.), go to the extension office for free how-to handouts on all aspects of gardening, talk to people at farmers' markets, find out when & where plant sales are or just who likes to garden. Most gardeners are happy to share extra plants and seeds or sell them for a minimal cost AND share their expertise. Just look at the resources at Garden Web! We all are out here, all over the U.S., as happy to help in person as on line. Hope this was not too long or preachy. Just that I remember how badly I yearned for a garden 40 years ago --and now I have gardened in 4 states and in Belgium and learned so much. I still am on a tight budget now that we are retired, but I have LOTS of plants and have made so many gardening friends. Good luck, Megan! And stay tuned to GW for encouragement!

Further on the PTO. It is the mechanism that connects the motor to whatever you want to apply power to, in your case the mower deck. The simple ones are manual, operated with a short lever that merely rotates a shaft with a pulley on it to take up slack in the mower drive belt. With an electric PTO, the mower drive belt is kept at a more constant tension between engine pulley and mower deck pulleys, while there is a clutch between the motor pulley and the actual motor shaft. This clutch is electrically actived by a toggle switch to engage the clutch and drive the blade. The electric system is more elegant, has longer belt life, and can be fairly expensive to repair (but seldom seems to fail). The manual systems vary somewhat among the brands, but at least the JD system seems quite well designed and very practical for anything you are going to use it for, at a nice cost saving that will more than cover a couple of extra drive belts over the life of the mower.

Hi Itssohot and welcome to the desert. Flowering pear (Pyrus kawakamii) is native to Taiwan and prefers rich garden soil. Unfortunately it tends to struggle here in the low desert because our soils and water are alkaline. Their flowering season is in early spring for about two weeks and the rest of the year the leaves show symptoms of chlorosis and salt burn. It is possible to create a landscape with a Mediterranean or tropical theme all by using desert-adapted plants. Dozens are showcased in the free booklet Landscape Plants for the Arizona Desert available from some nurseries or your city's water conservation office. Another great resource is the free interactive CD Water-Wise Landsaping in the Arizona Desert also available from your city water conservation office. Most cities also offer free landscaping/gardening classes for their residents. The on-line version of the booklet is available at the address below. Here is a link that might be useful: Landscape Plants for the Arizona Desert

Yes, I was planning to use Red Wigglers. 77 during the day won't be a problem (and humidity in the bin won't be a problem)...it's at night that will be the hard part. Don't they have a natural night time drop where ever they're native to? I assume that since they don't live under the soil, but rather in the natural "composting" conditions of leaf piles and such, that night temps drop in thier natural habitat as well. I'm just wondering what that would be normally. I did read a lot of posts about what others here do in the winter - wintering in the garage, etc. Someone mentioned thier worms survived down to zero outside as well. I guess what I want to know (and haven't found here searching/reading) is what the lowest nighttime temp is that I could keep them at, and still have them warm up and be active during the normal warmer daytime temps. I'll keep looking/reading - it's got to be somewhere. In any case, what about the feeding? Are lean table scraps and more paper/cardboard okay, or do they need to be fed heavier on the kitchen scrap side?