before going out and paying for it at a big box store, I would consider checking out your local craigslist.org site for your area. Look under the farm & garden section and you'll probably see a couple postings for people selling off their manure for $10 a scoop (which is about as much as you could fit in the bed of a pickup). If you don't see anything there, post a "WANTED" in that same section asking for any farmers that would be willing to give it away freely. You have to remember, horse stables often have to *PAY* to have manure removed. Giving it away helps them save money too... --- Filed under: Yet another reason why I wish I owned a pickup. :sigh:

1. 2 of the 8 cuttings that I transferred to cups and vermiculite had a very small amount of mold on one spot. I gave it a good wiping with a damp paper towel and continued. Is that ok or should I be throwing them out? Or separating from the others? You did fine, choosing only perlite to root in. Vermiculite is too water-retentive for my taste. I'd have dipped the cuttings for a minute or so in a 10% solution of unscented household bleach or a 10% solution of 3% H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide) to eliminate mold concerns. As Al noted, F carica is a very genetically vigorous plant and very easy to root, as woody plants go. 2. How much should I be watering these since they are 100 percent perlite? I know the key is to keep them moist, but with all perlite they seemed to just drained 100% with little to no retention. Plants most effectively absorb moisture from the microscopically thin film of water on the surface of soil particles, and from water vapor trapped in soil pores, so you want your rooting medium to be damp - not wet ..... and you NEVER want your cutting stuck so deep that it is below the upper limit of any perched water your medium supports. Cuttings need gas exchange, too. You might consider screening & rinsing your perlite, and employing a wick at the bottom of your container. Damp, not wet or soggy is what you're striving for, and 80% humidity with some air movement is a worthy goal. 3. Do they need any sunlight at this point? I don't have them near a window. Technically, they don't need light to root, but the cutting WILL be able to carry on some degree of photosynthesis in the green stem tissues, which will contribute food to what is already stored in cambial tissues. Also, it's best to have any foliage that emerges preconditioned to the photo-intensity that will be the norm for the cuttings. I wouldn't have planned my adventure around the idea I was going to maintain these cuttings indoors for the winter. I'd have timed it so they struck at or just after last frost, so they could go outdoors. Root temps of 65-70* with air temps about 10* cooler are ideal for figs, and eliminate the bottom heat as soon as they strike. If I take fall cuttings, I bury them upside down to callus until figs/mulberry starts to leaf out in the landscape, then I dig them up and pot or plant. I get near 100% success every time, and don't have to fuss with them and watch them decline over the winter. There's soo much more that COULD be said ...... Any questions? Al

I don't have experience painting a mirror, but I would think you could use any glass paint. Why don't you pick up a couple of inexpensive mirror tiles (or maybe a glass shop would give you some mirror scraps) to practice on. Michael's seems to sell quite a variety of glass paints to choose from: glass window paint/color

Maple seeds germinate best when harvested and planted while still green and soft. (Of course, you don't do this before they have sized up fully). When picked instead after they become hard and brown then they have a full dormancy that has to be overcome. Which is what you have been trying to do. The purpose of this dormancy is to prevent the seeds from sprouting at a dumb time, like the middle of winter. So when a particular kind of seed is known to need alternating hot and cold periods to sprout what is being done is duplication of the passing of seasons, starting from when the seeds would drop to the ground during autumn in nature. If a kind of plant has seeds that sprout a root first and then a shoot later, during a different season then it may take quite awhile for them to be ready to be potted on. Also there are some kinds where different seeds from the same batch sprout at different times, perhaps over a period of several years. Again this will function as a safeguard, in this case assuring that if a given year turns out to have some killing event like severe cold or drought the entire generation is not lost to it.