This is an interesting discussion. I think it depends on what you feel is the primary purpose of your garden. I can think of three reasons a person may have to grow vegetables: 1. Superior quality of homegrown produce. If this is your primary goal, then you would want to stick with stuff that tastes much better than what you get at the store, like tomatoes. If it doesn't taste a lot better than storebought, then maybe it isn't worth growing, and you should just buy it at the store. 2. Self-sufficiency If this is your primary goal, then even if you can get it at the store, you might still want to grow it yourself, just for the independence of growing your own food. If it doesn't yield well or takes a lot of labor to grow, then maybe it's not worth growing just because it's taking away time or space from other crops that you can rely upon better for a good food supply. 3. Seed saving/plant breeding and variety preservation If this is your primary goal, then production of food is a side effect of preserving genetic material. In this case, a variety might not be worth growing if it's very common, and you want to concentrate on rare varieties or your own family heirlooms or breeding projects. And then, of course, you could be like me, trying to do ALL THREE THINGS AT ONCE, and making things really hard on yourself. ;-) Of course they're not mutually exclusive, but concentrating on one can take your focus away from another.

Hey there Hunter, Pumice is a very good thing to use in your mixtures.The reason perlite is advocated is it weighs less and therefore cost less to ship also usually more readily available and cheaper too. Once you get a plant, when the transplant time arrives adding pumice to the mix is gr8. Pumic can make a nepenthes pot too heavy for a hanging basket. I haven't tried vermiculite in my cobras, but if it is working for you, it ain't broke so don't fix it good luck. "If noone tries nothing new, no change happens." Lois

Indirect sunlight will produce leggy seedlings for sure. Your best bet is to buy a 2 or 4ft two bulb "Shoplight" their not that expensive, and keep them as close to the seedlings as possible. For bulbs I have the best results with the "daylight" type of cool whites (More lumes the better). The warm whites (red) are more for the flowering stage. This post was edited by arkipelago on Thu, Jan 10, 13 at 21:54

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2006/apr/06/brazil.food A handful of the world's largest food companies and commodity traders, including McDonald's in the UK, are driving illegal and rapid destruction of the Amazon rainforest, according to a six-year investigation of the Brazilian soya bean industry. The report, published today, follows a 7,000km chain that starts with the clearing of virgin forest by farmers and leads directly to Chicken McNuggets being sold in British and European fast food restaurants. It also alleges that much of the soya animal feed arriving in the UK from Brazil is a product of "forest crime" and that McDonald's and British supermarkets have turned a blind eye to the destruction of the forest. According to Greenpeace, public and indigenous land is being seized by farmers using bulldozers and even slave labour. Last year more than 25,000 sq kilometres (10,000 sq miles) of Amazon forest were felled, largely for soya farming. http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/cattle-pastures-in-deforested-amazon-now-the-size-of-iceland.html The largest rainforest in the world is being chopped down almost entirely for a single purpose: beef. That's right, one of the biggest, most beautifully diverse ecosystems on the planet is being traded in—for hamburgers. According to a report from Mongabay, a full 80 percent of the land cleared by Amazon deforestation from 1996-2006 has been used to create cattle pastures. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/may/31/cattle-trade-brazil-greenpeace-amazon-deforestation A report today from Greenpeace details a three-year investigation into these cattle farms and the global trade in their products, many of which end up on sale in Britain and Europe. Meat from the cattle is canned, packaged and processed into convenience foods. Hides become leather for shoes and trainers. Fat stripped from the carcasses is rendered and used to make toothpaste, face creams and soap. Gelatin squeezed from bones, intestines and ligaments thickens yoghurt and makes chewy sweets. Greenpeace says it has lifted the lid on this trade to expose the "laundering" of cattle raised on illegally deforested land. Food for thought How much of the Amazon rainforest has been lost and how quickly? Since the 1970s, when satellite mapping of the region became available, around a fifth of the rainforest has been destroyed, an area the size of California. Greenpeace US estimates that, between 2007 and 2008, another 3m acres (1.2m hectares) of the Brazilian Amazon have been destroyed. The reason why I have never EVER eaten ANY McDonalds product. Question: WOULD ANY HUMAN BEING DO THIS, DESTROYING THE PLANET HIS/HER CHILDREN AND GRAND CHILDREN WILL INHERIT? KNOWING THAT BY DESTROYING THE LAST LUNG OF PLANET EARTH WILL CREATE SUCH DESTRUCTION? Ephesians 6:12 - For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBIA0lqfcN4&ebc=ANyPxKr2tTabALOgWatjVt_STm6f7ydG3TTj98MLB5452Hb760vlWNqgPQWnHUOJfqXvWIxXBrF6821ffItAemwD3KidX8AnLw