I have a question. One of my seedlings had the top broken off a few weeks ago, by a #@&@&!*(*($ squirrel that has a death wish. The topmost lateral branch (and only branch it had at the time, in fact) has continued growing much longer, and has somewhat turned more upright, as if trying to make a new leader. At the same time, several new shoots are starting in the axils of the needles along the stem, including one right next to the lateral branch that's now turning upward. Should I take that branch that's already trying to become the new leader, and stake it straight up? It's flexible enough to do so. Or - should I just let it go for a while and see what happens? I actually pushed a bamboo stake in the pot this morning but stopped short of trying to tie it straight.

In my experience, pollenless sunflowers still produce seed. I've read that seed will grow, however chances are it will not be another pollenless sunflower. If you're not planning to grow row upon row, you could deadhead, or cut off the flower heads after they fade but before they produce the seeds. But if you're planting a lot of them I suppose this wouldn't be an option. If it is an option then I suppose it would be better to go with a 5' variety rather than an 8' variety so they'd be easy to reach.

Hey there, I came across this page looking for different LED information but I want to try and set the record straight with a few misinformed people, or growers who tried LED's when they came for a few years and those who had poor results. Right now its still a bit of a secret that LED grow lights are giving pro results fast. Like most people, I tried LED 'grow lights' a few years ago when they came out and was highly disappointed. Although, its worth mentioning that ANY lighting you try will not work if you dont have the right spectrum/color temperature (measured in Kelvin 'K'). For most plants there are two stages, vegetative and flowering. Each plant has their stages a little different than another with some likeing short veg growth and long blooming growth, or visa versa. Most can agree on that veg growth requires a Kelvin 'K' temperature in the blue/white spectrum 6000k-7500K, and a blooming temp of 3000l-3500k in the red/orange/yellow spectrum. That goes for all plants and all lights. With that said the next reading on a light is the Color Rendering Index-CRI. The CRI index is a scale from 1-100 and it is how well that particular light Imitates the mid-day sun. there are no bulbs that can give you a CRI of 100, but some tweaked HID's can come close and now so can the LED's. When they first came out they were in the right spectrum, but with poor watts/USABLE lumen ratios. Meaning that even though its bright, in the right color range, and cost effective. They werent in the form of usuable photosynthetic energy, just in the form of visable lights that humans can see and use. Now they changed that and some high-dollar LED's not only can be fine tuned better than HID(High Pressure Sodium/Mercury Halide) in the form of usable lumens and CRI index up to 99, and the best bulb ive seen in an HID system was a hybrid MH to HPS coming in at 96. I was skeptical at first so i bought an expensive LED floodlight that had a usuable spectrum the same as visable lumens and rendered around a CRI of 90. It was in the 6300k range which is perfect for vegetative growth. I bought the expensive heavy bulb because if you experiment and go cheap then you will get what you pay for when it comes to lights. I was skeptical still so i surgically removed it from its packaging and it felt wierd using a floodlight bulb to grow stuff....it was like I was a sneaky teenager all over again, haha... Although after starting my plant from seed and after germination putting into my custom soil mix I went from Cotyledons (seedlings first pair of leaves that are similiar in every plant)to the second pair of true leaves in just 5 days with 2" of vertical growth. I have never....never seen that kind of growth in any of my previous plants I started from seeds. It could be that since I am becoming more skilled in my techniques of fertilizing and soil building, or maybe I was just lucky and had great genetics. So my second test is about to begin today and as a matter of fact I just ordered the expensive bright LED grow light that is 90Watts of power from LED's that are 2Watts each and the manufacturer claims that it can beat a 600Watt HID anyday. Once again my previous failure a few years ago has me suspicious but one thing is for sure. If my next seedling grows like my last super-grow-seed, Im switching my entire Florescent propagating lights out and switching to a row of those LED's. BTW if your looking for decent lights that are low power consumers, that dont put out alot of heat, and are a sure fire way to grow indoors. Then your best bet is to find a used 4-6lamp(bulb) Flourescent ballast that uses the high output T-5 bulbs. Those have came a long way as well and work very well for small grows......hope it helps!~ -G

I have Yorktowne Cabs and I have found them to be perfectly fine. They were here when we moved in. I repainted rather than replaced them for my mini reno. At 13 or more years old they look far better than some of the new cabinets. I have seen some cheap ugly prefab type cabs with the label Yorktowne but these are not their Gold Collection. Is this DIY or do you have a KD, GC or cabinet maker? If I wanted to go a step up from KM I would seriously consider a cabinet maker. You might discover in this market they have great deals and work hard for their money. Choose KM or Yorktown and the cabinet maker can do some amazing molding or details that will look as beautiful as Fieldstone or Crystal cabinets. ~boxerpups here is an article about cabs and a link from last summer. Compare cabinets web article http://www.cabinetscompare.com/?page_id=115 Here is a link that might be useful: Which Cabinets? Omega, Yorktowne, Medallion