Whew! I had no idea what you were going to say about the "rules". Jody, from the title I couldn't tell if you wanted us to do a "barn raising" type thing, or what. Like, were you going to say that everyone had to bring our shovels and hoes and come camp out at your place while we hand tilled an acre for one of your neighbors. Worse, you could have been requiring each of us to send a gallon of our best hard-earned compost off to some remote Siberian village. Postage would have been awful, not to mention the tears shed over mailing out black gold. Reading lists and sharing what I can spare is easy. No problem. Well, no problem as long as the first thing on everyone's list isn't a scoop of llama poo. I don't know if I'm ready to share that, yet. ;0)

Ok. I am using the AeroGrow Garden, as a light gardens for my African Violets. I finally got NEW bulbs in them, 3 gardens. So now they are under new full power AeroGrow lights. Think they are 26watts, the flat fluorescent lights that they sell. So they are now getting the full spectrum/strength of light. I HAD 1 year old Aerogrow lights in all of them, and the violets were growing/blooming like crazy. But now that I have the new bulbs in them, does anyone know how far away from the plants, I should have these lights now? They are about 4-6 ins. away from the tops of the violets, depending on the plant. Each is a different height. So...before I end up possibly burning them, does anyone know how far way, I should have the lights from the violets? They were doing GREAT, as I said, with tired OLD lights on them, now that they have the NEW powerful grow-lights on them, I assume there is much more 'growing light power' hitting them. So....anyone know the distance I should use? Or leave it as it is? AeroGrow is of no help, they of course want me to buy a new LED garden from them. These light bulbs were expensive enough!! IF you are doing the same as me, using an Aerogrow garden as a light garden, not growing a garden in it, using the hydroponic system,...how far are you putting your lights? I have the light hoods in the 3rd hole on the light pole. If that helps. I think there are 6 holes, it tops out at 12in away from the plants. So...any help out there?

Beautiful garden. I think it will be difficult to keep grass looking good around raised beds unless you have a lawn mowing company and then it will not be a problem. As' localeater' mentioned I would not use pea gravel. Seeing your beautiful garden I would not use any kind of gravel, but I think a stone path between the two beds and from the patio would look good. Of course if later you decide that that is not the place for your beds then it would look silly to have a path from the patio to the middle of your lawn. Good luck on your garden.

But it attracts a global audience which is not going to be particularly helpful for seeds, starts or tools but excellent for advice or information. Absolutely no reason to be scared of Craig's List :-) It's not going to bite you and you can arrange to have any materials dropped off at the college if you are worried about someone finding out where you live. (my personal opinion is that the Garden forum is useless and is used only by those who are not familiar enough with the site to ask in a more appropriate forum or those who don't know anything about gardening.)