Roflol, All the planning in the world isn't going to solve the problem. With WS you have so many seedlings that you have to just stuff them in somewhere and run away from them to get more. I think the best piece of advice I got about what to do with all my seedlings was from a 3 year old who was helping plant seedlings 2 years ago. He heard me moaning that I was running out of room in the garden beds to put all the seedlings. He looked at me with that puzzled look a 3 year old gets and said "no more room?" He kept looking at me and got up and walked all around the front yard, came back to me and said "dirt, dirt everywhere, dig a hole and drop them in." He then grabbed a container and my little shovel and started digging holes in the lawn, and all over, then he dropped seedlings in the holes. I was laughing and laughing, then realized how right he was. I had dirt all over the front yard, so where was the problem? I just started stuffing the garden beds with my seedlings. I dug up some of the lawn, who needs lawns right? Just stuff them in where ever there is dirt. Don't forget, there's always containers to put plants in too. Walmart has wonderful cheap pots that start at $.88 for an 8 inch container with a saucer. When you get desperate, as my hubby did last summer, when he had to help get the seedlings in for me, while I recouped from surgery, I found, even an engineer can be creative with his pot plantings. He just followed my lead and stuffed seedlings into pots. When I realized what he did, well it was too late to make changes. Some hubby creative planting pics different types of zinnias in one pot. he read zinnia only. balsam impatiens in the top of the strawberry jar, he put alyssum in the sides of one and my strawberry plants in the sides of another and portulacca in the third. the remaining 4 seedlings of 4'oclocks. he just stuffed them all in a 12 inch pot. They bloomed beautifully too. duck taped the leaking birdbath, filled it with miracle grow potting mix and put the drumonndi phlox and petunias in it. the last malva seedling, in a left over pot. 3 foot tall cactus zinnia in a 10 inch pot. He thought it would stay short cause it was so small. It grew quite well, with twisted and bent stems, but the flowers where full and normal and always facing up towards the sky. See, there's always a way to find more room, just dig a hole and put it in or fill a pot and put it in. Fran

Drippy, even though I certainly wasn't an avid gardener when I lived in Alabama, if the rule was "don't dig in wet clay ever" then nobody would ever get anything planted. And, certainly if that clay bakes hard enough that the surface cracks you'll wish you had dug when it was wet. I know since I've been up here I've learned that using machinery such as a rototiller on wet soil (like the spring thaw kind of wet) can do damage that takes years to undo. The machine apparently creates enough friction that some of the clay in the soil crystallizes. It was specifically said that the clay in the soil does that, not the other components. (This advice from Bill Lord of the UNH extension). I asked if this was true with just hand turning soil and the answer was clearly a "no." So, avoid rototilling, but I think you can plant things unless it's just totally sopping wet. I think token's advice is pretty good, but short of total drenching rains I don't know if you can avoid wet clay all together. One more point you might find useful from him. He addresses the "pine straw is good for acidic plants" belief by saying that studies have shown it has no affect on pH. The pine sap is acidic, but the straw is not as acidic. Once the straw breaks down the calcium, which is the main component of the cell walls (if I remember correctly) balances out any acid in the needles to create a neutral organic product. I don't know if you're covered up in pines as Huntsville has many more hardwoods than the lower areas of Alabama, but just in case you have easy access to straw. Also, take my advice lightly. As I said, I wasn't an avid gardener when we were surrounded by the brick-quality clay.

Hmm, I never realized that FG had a message board. Haven't grabbed the mag off the newsstand in a while because it gets me in $$$ trouble. Such lavish photos and unusual plants. So, if any Fine Gardening board refugees arrive they are more than welcome (and we'll probably teach them how to 'do it less expensively'). I agree with the opinion of IT people given what they've done to eBay in the past 10 years.

I won't even begin to list how many cleaning products are in my house. It's. Absolutely. Terrifying. That being said, I'm working on getting rid of much of it and using more natural/earth friendly methods. One thing that I am having a tough time giving up is my toilet bowl cleaner with bleach. I just haven't found anything that makes me feel like the toilet is as clean as when I use some bleach based product. Just mixed up a batch of baking soda, essential oils (eucalyptus and peppermint), a little bit of Dawn dishwashing liquid, and enough water to make a paste. This was used to scrub the tub which gets absolutely horrible because it's an old porcelain tub (but the finish was messed up from the previous owners)...it got it as clean as the harsher cleansers I've used with about the same amount of effort. Bonus is that it smelled lovely, way better than most cleaning products you can buy in the store. Looking forward to hearing more about some of the alternate cleaning products that people use.