Hey Deleware, Thanks for your reply! I started 1 shelf (48'' x 24'') with cheap lights: a 4â double fixture with 2 x âÂÂâÂÂGro-Lux OctronâÂÂâ 32W bulbs. About $60, altogether. I got a bag of relatively expensive potting soil (lawn repair) to get going and so far germination and growth look good, but IâÂÂll experiment with cheaper media. (IâÂÂm also intrigued by the idea of pumice or germination mats so you can also eat the roots, but I guess theyâÂÂre only good for sprouts? And I donâÂÂt want to go hydroponic. Anyway, no rush to get into that.) IâÂÂve also been viewing some YouTube videos. Though not as many as you so far. One mentioned using a top layer of vermiculite to enhance germination. What do you think? After my mustard and sunflowers IâÂÂve just started some peas, maybe too dense though. I covered the whole surface, as MumâÂÂs recommended for sprouting, so it will be a fairly expensive crop. Have you come across any good sources for the nutritional values of different spp.? Yes, letâÂÂs swap info. Happy growing! Cheach

One of the landscaping/tree companies was on my street chipping branches from Irene. I just walked down the street and asked them if they would mind dropping the chips in my driveway. He didn't have much in the truck, but asked me how many I wanted. I asked for 10 yards. He came back an hour later and dumped them. The driver was pretty thrilled - they are so busy post-Irene that I saved him a 10 mile trip to go dump his wood chips. On a regular basis, when I need more wood chips, I'll approach a tree service working in our neighborhood. I always look to see what type of tree they are taking down - I don't want anything that is all pine or if it has tree of heaven in it. FWIW - when I've tried to call these landscaping companies and ask for their wood chips, they want to charge me $10-15 per yard. But if I can find their guys working locally, the foreman will always dump them for free.

Jennamae, About blogs, there are lots of places where you can set up a free blog. Or one that is quite reasonable. You can set up free blogs on Wordpress or blogger (which is different from blogher). Both have a lot of options and it seems they keep increasing what they offer for free which is quite nice! Wordpress does have a lot of very attractive templates but blogger might be a little easier to set up. There is Typepad also which is excellent. There is a fee but it is reasonable and they have many great templates and options. After you set up a blog, you can then set up a feed with feedburner. People can subscribe to your blog. This may sound overwhelming. But once you get into this, it will make more sense as you go along. In fact, I'll warn you that it is probably addicting! :-) You can even have your domain name that you use for your current website be used as the domain name for your blog if you want. You might like the options that you see for blogs so much that you may prefer to use a blog as your main website. The different blogging sites give instructions on what to do to have traffic to your domain name go to your blog just as though it was set up with your domain name originally. Then there are the social networking sites like Facebook. I haven't done much with those but people sure are using them! So you might take a look and see if they'd fit in with the other things that you do to promote yourself. Promoting yourself can keep you very busy for quite a while! But what is nice is that there is so much that is either free or cheap online! Unlike newspaper ads which are very expensive. Ginny

Annie, that is one of the pea varieties. They all look a bit different, some more swirly-curly. Upper left is sunflower and buckwheat. I do a bit of mixing when something has the same grow time. (or might be mung bean with the sunflower). Just like our outdoor gardens, where the bulk of our crops are tomatoes, greens, beans, summer and winter squashes, etc, I grow the winter indoor garden with the most food value, then rotate some of the others but not as often. Sooz, BakersCreek has free shipping on all orders. I would think you would want to pick a flower of your choosing. Link, HERE 2MD, yes, you will have fun experimenting watching what does what and how fast/slow the grow is in your environment. Most written copy by seed sellers is for the cotyledon stage of growth, not the first true leaves. 13-15 days will be the little 1-2 inch tweezer garnish commercial growers sell to fancy restaurants. Your salad mix can go straight into your outdoor garden if you are free of frost. My salad bed is 2ftx6. I start a 2ft row of mesclun mix every two weeks all spring so I always have some for harvest. My first row is already in. (covered with a board for germination but mostly to keep the strong rains from washing the seed away). Lots of tricks in that dept.