How to grow your own mushrooms indoors

You can go and purchase a mushroom growing kit or make your own.

First you will need a shallow container, something like a plastic storage bin works well.

We use a cardboard box lined with plastic.

Mix equal amounts of sterile compost, potting soil and peat, filling your container with a 2-to-3-inch layer. Reserve 1/4 cup for use later. Smooth the top layer of soil as uniformly as possible.

Now gather some shroom spores. If you know your wild mushrooms then go for it. However, if you are not sure, it is best to purchase your mushrooms. Grocery stores are fine to purchase them, as pesticides are not used in mushroom production. Once you have them you need to do some spore printing. Remove the stems and with gills down, press you mushroom caps down on a piece of clean white paper. Set aside and wait 12 hours for the spores to be released.

Mist the soil of your new kit with water enough to make the soil glisten. Scatter the spores over the top, then sprinkle your reserved soil over the top. Place plastic wrap over the top, poking several holes in the plastic for air flow.

Place this into your closet or anywhere that is is relatively dark and cooler, no more than 75F no less than 55F. Keep the soil lightly damp by misting every few days.

Mold will appear on the soil. when this happens (usually in about a week), remove the plastic wrap and cover with a light towel. Mushrooms could appear in as little as 10 days. Harvest your mushrooms at will.

You should be able to get mushrooms for 6-8 weeks using this homemade kit.




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Eating the Lillies

Lillies are common here. People love to dress up their yards with them. But to a prepper they might not be the the flower you would want in your edible garden. But before you rip them out, think of them as a treat, a way to pep up that prepper diet of yours.

Day Lilly's are edible, Tiger Lilly's are not!

You can save them for future use by drying. Soak them for 30 minutes in water to rehydrate for use. Day Lilly's taste a little like green beans when used fresh.


Sautéed Day lily Buds
Melt a tablespoon of butter in a heavy skillet over a medium heat. Add rinsed and trimmed buds, sauté until lightly browned. Add a few teaspoons water. Salt and pepper to taste. Cover and 10 min. drain.

Day Lilly Blossoms stuffed with Chicken salad

6 open day Lilly blossoms
2 1/2 c. cooked chicken breast meat, chopped
25 seedless grapes, cut in quarters
1 slice green sweet onion, diced
1/2 stalk celery, diced
3/4 c. mayonnaise
2 tbsp. fresh chopped parsley
2 tbsp. fresh chopped French tarragon
6 borage flowers
Fresh ground pepper to taste

Wash day Lilly blossoms and remove stamen . Make sure there are no flaws or discoloration in flowers. Mix chicken, grapes, celery, onion, mayonnaise, parsley, tarragon and pepper together in bowl. Stuff chicken salad into blossoms and top each with a borage flower.


Spiced Pickled Day Lilly
2 qt Day lily buds, unopened freshly picked
3 c White vinegar
3/4 c Light brown sugar, packed
1/2 ts Salt
1/2 ts Whole allspice
2 Two-inch sticks cinnamon,
10 To 12 whole cloves

Rinse and drain unopened day lily buds; remove any stem remnants. Place buds in to a saucepan. Add water so it barely covers buds. Bring to a quick boil, cover, and simmer 20 minutes. Drain. Pack hot buds into 8 hot an sterile half-pint canning jars. Combine vinegar, brown sugar, salt, allspice, cinnamon, and cloves in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil 3 minutes. Pour pickling solution over buds, distributing spices equally. Seal, process in a hot water bath 10 minutes.

You can stuff the Day Lilly buds with cheese after the 20 minute simmer, and drain, to serve as an appetizer.

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Hybrid does not mean GMO or GE

Cross post from A Homesteading Neophyte

I was wandering around the world wide web yesterday ( as it was too cool and wet to do much outside) and noticed something. It bothers me a bit when people that put themselves out there as an authority figure, confuse issues. If I give the wrong info I really hope someone calls me out on it. I will either give you examples as to way I think what I stated was correct, or apologize and fix the post. There are some out there however that are adamant that they are correct.

A woman asked a question about hybrids verses heirlooms. The answer by someone was that all hybrids are GMOs. No one questioned this. As I wasn't a member of the group, I was not allowed to correct the information. And I see little point just to join so that I can blast their leader.

Hybrid plants do not have their genomes messed with. They are plants that have been either open pollinated or done so by hand. As Humans we do this selective breeding all the time and have for centuries. It helps make once non-edible foods, or hard to digest foods, easier on our stomachs and our palates. Our heirloom and heritage plants were once hybrids, it just that these plants have been able to breed true for many many generation.

Do not fear the hybrid.

GE or GMO's are different. Man has gone in and spliced and removed certain genes to create a more perfect monster.

Attack of the killer Tomatoes

Now I am not going to go into why GMOs are good or bad. I think they should be clearly marked on food labels and seed/plants so that we can make decisions based on the information available and believed by the consumer. The point of this post is that hybrids are not GMOs.

Hybrids can be made by nature as well a by man.

When it comes to choosing a hybrid, look at the filial number. 1 means that it is the first cross hybrid generation. If you are choosing plants to seed save for, this filial number is not one you really want. You will be able to seed save and a plant will grow, however it will not be true. F2 and F3 are the 2nd and 3rd generation of that hybrid plant. Seeds saved from them will produce true to parent offspring. (exception to the F1 rule is plants that can only propagate themselves by roots, graphs (like apple trees) and vine)

Then you have your heritage and heirlooms that are almost guaranteed to produce true to parent plants because they are 100's of generation removed form the parents.

What seeds and plants to purchase and consume is up to you. Just do your research and make the best decisions for you and your family.

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How to sterilize your soil/compost;

Place soil in an oven roasting bag (like those turkey bags you see at the store). Add a bit of water (dampened) and tie off the bag. Place the bag on a cookie sheet and poke a hole for a meat thermometer. Heat oven to 200F. Bake soil until the dirt temp reaches 160-170F. (if soil reads higher, reduce your oven heat). Bake for 30 minutes. Remove and cool completely before using.

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Yellow Leaves in your Garden

If your tomatoes are yellowing, it is a good time to start fertilizing. Your soil needs a bit more nitrogen. Another problem is the rain, all the rain that we in the Heartland have been getting is not a good thing. Tomato plants are not swamp plants and it is never a good idea to water the leaves. All I can tell you is to clip off the yellow, fertilize and hope for the best.

With your pumpkins doing the same thing, it is the start of a disease known as Pseudoperonospora cubensis. It thrives in damp, cool weather. This is not something we are use to here {Heartland} You need to spray your vines with a compost tea, now, while conditions are right for the fungus to thrive. If you don't your quality and quantity of your gourds will be reduced.

Yellow leaves in pepper plants are also a nitrogen deficiency.

Your potatoes plants are suppose to turn yellow and die, that's when you know they are done.

If you are concerned about your plants and have a question, ask. I will do my best to answer.

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Tomato Talk

The federal government has sponsored research that has produced a tomato that is perfect in every respect, except that you can't eat it. We should make every effort to make sure this disease, often referred to as 'progress', doesn't spread.
~Andy Rooney

Mr Rooney knew it, but progress doesn't have to be all bad. Selective cross breeding of heritage tomatoes can also be considered progress, one that I feel comfortable eating.

Some of you have said some things to me that make me wonder if I am being too preachy. Yes, I think that you should plant heritage tomatoes rather then GMO's, but that doesn't mean I am going to look down on you if you buy your tomato plants from a popular store. The point is your trying your hand at something. And that's what I enjoy seeing. So run out, now is a great time in the Midwest to get those tomatoes plants into the ground, and buy your tomato plants. Once you find that growing your own is enjoyable and taste so much better than store bought fruits, you'll be hooked and want to try different fruits. And nothing beats the flavors that come with the different types of heritage tomatoes.

Before you buy your plants, you need to take a moment to think about what you want them for. Snacking, slicing and dicing, canning whole, making ketchup? This is important because different tomatoes are better for certain things. Once you have that figured out, it is just a matter of reading the tags on the plants, most the time they will say what the produced fruits are best used for. Even the names will clue you in on what they should be used for. Roma's are my favorite for sauces.

Soil prepping will not take most of you 10 hours to do. I have a large variety of tomato plants, because we need to have enough canned sauces, stewed and cut tomatoes to last a year. Most of you will only eat your tomatoes seasonally. One or two plants will be enough, so prepping soil will be simple. You will want lots of hummus in your soil, it needs to be porous and fairly light. If you, like me, have too much clay in your soil, add peat moss or compost to lighten it up. I live by the Garden Claw, have had it for years. This thing has out lasted all my potato forks, and I do suggest using one to break up and mix your ground soil with. If your soil is poor, it is important to feed them with compost.

Your location is also important, you do not want an area that is poorly drained, this will promote disease. You will also need full sun and an airy area.

Staking seems to be the most popular way to train the tomato plant. I trellis mine on field fences. Training your plants will produce larger fruits than allowing them to grow naturally. If training them, the plants should be about 2 feet apart. You will need to drive a 5 foot stake into the ground next to the plant, tie a piece of soft yarn or cotton cloth tightly around the stake and loosely loop it around the stalk. This will help reduce any damage to the rapidly growing plant. Pinch off all but two of the stems, these will be the main stems. This will help keep your plants off the ground.

I cheated this year, and placed a weed barrier around my plants. And have filled the path with straw. If using straw to insulate or as weed barrier, you need to be warned that you will have a carpet of green on top of the straw. Not to worry. It grows only on the straw and will not compete with your plants for food and water. The green grass will die before reaching maturity.

If allowing your tomatoes to spread out naturally, you need to give them about 4 feet from each other. Here you will need to use straw or dried grass to keep the fruits from coming into contact with the ground.

Cutworms are your enemy. To help prevent them from damaging your crop, place a thinly messed wire or a paper cuff around the base of the stem.



Cut worm damage and weeds grown too close

You need to mulch around your plants well. This is important to help keep moisture in and weeds out. Be careful when weeding, you do not want to weed up against your stalks. Pulling the weeds that grow right against your plants can cause root damage.

Harvest is simple, most the time the fruit will pull away cleaning from the plant. Either eat or preserve your harvest.



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Waste Not Want Not, Roses

Here is my rose petal Jam from last year.

To use rose petals; Gently wash and drain rose petals. Carefully remove the white/yellow part of the petals.

Rose petal Butter

1 cup of fresh rose petals
¾ cup of butter

Set butter out at room temperature just long enough to soften up for mixing.
Once soft, chop rose petals finely and stir into the butter.
Cover, and refrigerate. Let it sit for 24 hours so the rose flavor can settle into the butter.

Home-made rose butter will last about 2 weeks in the fridge, or freeze for several months.

Crystallized Rose petals

1 egg white, room temperature
48 Red Rose Petals, washed and drained
3/4 cup Sugar

Beat the egg white until foamy. do not over beat. Use a small pastry brush, coat each petal with beaten egg white. Brush lightly removing any excess. Immediately dip in sugar and place on a rack. Repeat with remaining petals. Refrigerate overnight to dry.

Rose Petal Sauce for Poultry

2 cups water, plus 1 cup
2 tablespoons butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon aniseed
12 red or pink roses with open blooms, petals removed
1 peeled red cactus fruit or 2 red plums, skinned
12 fresh chestnuts
2 tablespoons honey
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Bring the2 cups of water to a boil, while in a separate large skillet, melt the butter and cook the aniseed and garlic together for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside. Place the rose and cactus fruit in a food processor and puree until smooth. Set aside.

Using a knife, cut an X over the flat ends of the chestnuts. Use a hot cast iron skillet to toast them for 5 minutes. Once the shells open, toss them into the boiling water and allow them to cook for 15 minutes. Drain, and allow to cool. When cool enough to handle, peel the chestnuts and add them to the pureed rose mix. Slowly add the remaining 1 cup of water while pureeing the mixture.

Reheat the skillet with the garlic/butter, add the rose petal puree and simmer for 10minutes. Whisk in honey, salt and pepper. Strain through a sieve or several layers of cheese cloth to remove any solids. Keep the sauce in a pan, and keep warm, drizzle over your pan roasted or oven roast poultry.

Rose Fritters

Use you favorite beer batter recipe, dip in rose petals, then fry until golden. Drain then sprinkle with powder sugar.

Rose petal Vinegar

2 cups white wine vinegar (heat to near boil)
1 cup rose petals
3 or 4 whole cloves

Gently crush the petals to bruise a bit.In a sterilized canning jar, place the rose petals and cloves. Pour hot vinegar over top, roughly mash the petals with a wooden spoon and seal. Set aside for 10 days at room temperature and in the dark. Shake one a day. Strain vinegar and discard the cloves and rose petals.

Rose petals can be added to every freakin' salad you can think of. Add them to just about any dessert, and so forth.






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Chicken Feed

does anyone have experience with growing their own feed for winter or buying whole grains-something other than the expensive 50# bags from the feed store?

Just so happens, I do. Black Sunflower, cow peas and popcorn make great scratch. Depending on the size of your flock, will dictate how much you need to grow. I also feed my birds leftovers. Just be careful what you give them. They love rotting milk and meat. Watch out for the green peppers and onions, even though they seem to really enjoy eating it, their eggs will taste like an omelet. Dry greens, like clover, for a winter feed as well. Jerusalem Artichokes are a great sustainable plant to grow in your chicken yard. Bugs love this plant, the birds love the bugs, the plants love the poop, and you'll love the tuber.

As for the expensive feed, I go to my local co-op and spend a lot less on my egg layers mash than I do at the chain feed stores. You can also look around for a local mash maker. My b-i-l buys his from a man relatively cheap. Hope this helps you.

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Apologies all around

I am running myself a little thin lately. This is my excuse for the slow down of post here.

We are running a 5 acre homestead, at the same time trying to rebuild a 120 acre farmstead.

Not only do I write for APN and KSPN, but I also write for several e-zines, have two books that have to be finished by June and keep a personal blog.


Busy busy busy

Kansans, please keep an eye out on the weather. I have seen many people already taking out their warm weather seedlings because of the 80F temps. Just remember don't trust the month of April. We have killing frosts up until the last week. If a hard frost is called for, cover all tender plants with plastic or sheets.

Waste not want not; Dandelion Jelly

With spring comes weeds. However the dandelion, although invasive, is a beneficial plant to your yard (helps worms). you can eat the leaves in your salads, or make wine, but a great way to use all those gorgeous little yellow heads, and keep a burst of spring around is to make
Dandelion Jelly

1 quart tightly packed ripe yellow Dandelion flowers
6 cups water
6 cups sugar
juice of one lemon
8 tablespoons Pectin

make sure your flowers have not been sprayed, pick and wash. remove the ends, and as much green as possible.

Place petals, water and lemon juice large heavy bottom pot, bring to a boil, then transfer to a bowl. Place a piece of waxed paper over top and refrigerate until morning.

Return to pot, and sugar and bring to a hard boil. Stirring occasionally. Boil for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool until hand able. Strain through a sieve, discarding petals.

Add pectin to the liquid and return to a boil for 5-10 minutes, until it begins to set.

Pour into hot sterile jars, and process in a hot water bath for 5 minutes.
Tastes a bit like honey

Have a recipe to share, why not post it in the Kansas State Forum.

Waste not want not; Pea Hulls

With cool weather veggies popping up, it might be a good idea to think about some of the edible things we tend to throw away. Like the pea hull.
Don't throw them out or to the chickens, instead, make some Jelly

Pea Hull Jelly

4 cups juice from cooked hulls
5 cups sugar
1 package pectin

Wash pea hulls well, use as many as you wish.

Cover with water. Boil until tender.

Drain juice through several thicknesses of cheesecloth, reserving the liquid. Add pectin to measured liquid. Bring this to a boil.

Add sugar and return to a hard boil (can't be stirred down). Hard boil for 10 minutes.

Pour into hot sterile jars and seal. Water bath for 5 minutes.


You don't have to use purple, green works just as well.

Spring Planting

Don't be fooled by the wonderful temperatures we have been having here in Kansas. Resist the urge to plant your warm weather vegetables.

When the overnight lows are 60F or more for at least 1 week, then you may plant outside. You can help the process by leaving a black landscaping tarp over the area you want to plant. The soil has to be warmed up. Leave the tarp for a week, before planting.

If you do this now, make sure you mulch over the tarp and keep milk jugs, plastic sheeting or pop bottles handy to cover the plants when the temperatures dip again.

Cover those plants

If you put your cool weather plants in the ground, remember to cover the leafy ones if their is a threat of a hard frost. They are ok in the cold, it's the frost that will do them in. a bed sheet works just fine.

Make sure your potatoes are well mulched.

Tools used for Seed Saving and Starting Seeds

This is a repost of an article I wrote in 2007 from my blog, A Homesteading Neophyte



This is part 4 of the Tools series. Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 can be found by clicking the links.

I proclaimed yesterday that I was going to talk about tools used for an orchard. Yet I noticed one thing missing from the Garden series, and no one called me out on it!

Seed Saving is a very important part of homesteading. We can not be self reliant if we are forced to buy seeds year after year. When it does come to seed saving, the tools used are very primitive. Nothing fancy needed here.

The most important tool that you have on hand is your own garden. And it might be a little difficult, but you know that perfect vegetable or fruit you just plucked, DON'T EAT IT! It is the best ones of your crop that you will want to seed save.

Depending one the veggie, you will either need to cut it open, wash the guts off of the fruit, and set out to dry completely {completely is important, otherwise you will get mold}. This is a great way to save your melon and gourd seeds. You may go ahead and eat those.

Tomatoes need to be gutted. Sometimes you can still use the remaining tomato depending on the recipe you are using. You need a jar, water and a window sill. Place the guts in the jar of water, then into your window. A spoon will be needed to stir the contents occasionally. After a few days, a white moldy foam will appear at the surface. Skim it off with your spoon. Use a colander to strain, the seeds that sank to the bottom of the jar are the ones you need to keep. Allow them to dry out completely on a newspaper. If you smoke, use the cellophane wrapper to store the seeds in and place in your freezer until ready to plant. Non smokers, well go make friends with a smoker.

Potatoes need a dark dry area and a paper bag. Use what you can and if roots start growing on them, leave them for seed later. Sweet potatoesneed the vines cut and placed into a jar of water to form roots.

Items like carrots

or onions, need to be allowed to flower. Seed saving is a mater of cutting (shears) the flowers after they have gone to seed, into a paper bag.

Sunflowers and other edibles seeds and root nuts {ok peanuts} need to be cured in a dry warm place, separated from one another. Sunflower heads should be hung upside down in your barn or equivalent (string and rafters needed) with a cheese cloth/bed sheet hung underneath them to catch any fallen seeds. Peanuts after being allowed to cure out of the ground for several days, should be placed in a used nylon stocking to keep.

I use old envelopes to store my seeds.

Seedlings

Starting your seeds is a devastating accomplishment. You might lose half to all of your seedlings. An old milk jug, small cardboard boxes, a hot frame, cold frame, window sill, grow lamp, hydroponics system, soil, and water are tools that might be needed.

We each have our own variation of how we do these things. Experiment a bit to see how and what works well for you.

A few early spring flowers to add to your diet

Eat only flowers that have been correctly Identified, eat only the part of the plant indicated as some have poisons in other parts f the plant. Make sure no chemicals have been used on them, and introduce flowers sparingly into your diet.

Common daisy (Bellis perennis)
Daisy buds and petals give a pleasant, slightly sour flavor to salads. The buds can also be pickled in vinegar and used as a substitute for capers. Daisy flowers are best picked in spring and summer thereby prolonging flowering and producing further crops.
This hardy perennial can be found in your lawn and will grow successfully in sun or partial shade

Sweet violet (Viola odorata)
Has scented small blue or white flowers. It produces the only edible flower available in winter and early spring. They have a fresh flavor and are used to flavor and colour confectionery. The flowers can also be used as a thickener in soup and stews and make a tasty, interesting garnish for salads, fruit salads and desserts. Sweet violets thrive in a moderately heavy rich soil in a semi-shaded spot. Do well in containers but need to be placed in a cool position throughout the summer and must not be given heat during the winter

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)
This common weed has a yellow flower that tastes of honey if picked young. It turns bitter when mature. The flowers can be made into tea, wine and beer. They can also be used to garnish a salad. When serving a rice dish use dandelion petals like confetti over the rice.

Storing Wheat products

Growing your own wheat isn't feasible for most people. You need about 974 sq ft to have enough wheat to sustain your family for a full year. Then there is the harvest, which is extremely labor intensive doing it by hand. But as an experiment with the kids, a small patch is great.

Flour doesn't store long term very well. Whole wheat tends to get freezer burn, and only stays "Fresh" for about 3 months. This is why bleached flour came into being. I know it's horrible for the organic people. However sometimes beggars can't be choosers, and bleached flour will stay "fresh" for up to 1 year. I highly suggest storing whole wheat berries and grinding it yourself. That does take a bit of work, but you can store it longer.

When storing whole grains you need to keep them in a place that rarely sees over 70F but stays above freezing. No food should see day light in a long or medium term storage situation. And humidity is your worse enemy. Keep your containers off the floor and have tight lids securely in place.

I strong smelling herb on top of your grains will keep the worms away, dried lavender will help keep the mice at bay.

When rotating your supply, don't add new to the top. Use up what you have in the container, clean it, then add the new stuff. I would use smaller containers stacked upon each other rather than 1 large bin.

Garden Planning; A General Plan

First, location. You need a place that gets at least 6 hours of daylight, and water can be brought to it, leaving it not too wet and not too dry. Have both the soil and water tested. Some areas have had so much insecticide sprayed on it, that it is now in the water. Have the soil tested for things like lead. Check with your local extension office about the testing. Once upon a time it was about $7 a vial in Sedgwick county.

Also have your soil tested to see where you are on ph levels. Do a little research on what it is you plan on growing, and what it's soil requirements are. Start building up your soil by adding hummus, lime, manure, and so forth. Attempting to create that perfect ph. Also look for earthworms. The presence of them means a healthy soil. I would till everything under at this point. You will want to do this a couple of times, churning up as much as the weed and grass seeds as possible.

Plan out your garden on paper, from plot size, to what, where to put plants, and irrigation. Know your area, and it's climate, these will be a factor in what you can grow.

There you go, on paper it is simple. But there is a lot that goes into your garden once you know what obstacles you are facing. If done correctly, expect $15 worth of produce for every 1 hour you spend working in your garden.

Garden Planning: Seed Buying

The catalogs are coming! The catalogs are coming!

Seed catalogs are the porn of the garden freak. Your hands get sweaty, you drool just a little, your body shakes and you swoon just a little as you open the first catalog that arrives in your mail box. And it doesn't get any better as more arrive.

Do you remember the Sears/Roebuck Christmas catalog that came when you were a child. The 30 yr and over crowd should. It's like that. Your mother hands it over to you on a long trip, or just to keep you quiet, along with a pen or marker and tells you to have had it. Oh the joy! The bliss! You marked the toy catalog up like you parents had all the money in the world.

I want this, oh and that! I will die if I can't have that one!

And then you parents being the downers they are tell you "Oh darling, Santa couldn't possibly bring you all that." Oh the tears that would flow after that statement. Or was it just me?

Unfortunately your parents were right (how I hate saying it) and Santa, or the gnomes in your garden, can't possible help you with all those things.

Smells like chocolate? Tastes like Tapioca? Score!

Take a deep breath. Now look through the catalogs you have around, and every thing you circled. Now read what they are, and what zones they are best suited for. This should eliminate a few of the must haves.

Now, how much land have you set aside to garden? I have over 1 acre to garden, so I do have room to play, but a lot of people have a small area, think about the room you need for each plant.

What are you priorities? Do you want mainly fresh eating or caning foods? Have you been keeping that food journal? What foods do you go through the fastest?

What plants have you successfully grown in the past? Which ones die every time?

Now compare the prices of the same items in each catalog, which ones will save you money?

This should bring you back down to a reasonable amount of seeds. Remember that each plant needs different care, do you have the time and energy for that?

Is the plant listed GMO? Get rid of it. F2? keep it Open high hybrid? go for it. Heirloom or heritage, YES!!!! (that felt good)

So you are now down to the basics. I'm proud of you. And since you have done so well, go grab that special never seen, never eaten, mmmm. . . sounds heavenly plant. Splurge one one new item every year. It will keep the gnomes content.

Time to Start the Garden

Those that live in Zone 5 or 6 (then there are some like me that seem to live in both) it is now time to start some seedlings.

All the cabbage family
eggplants
rhubarb
onions

Start these seedlings indoors, under a proper grow light. You can do this under a counter, on top of counter, in closets, under beds, or build some space for your plants. All the above plants (and you potatoes) should go out right after Saint Patrick's Day.

If you have very little room indoors to start growing, try building a corner shelf.

You need white paint, reflective white paint. You do not need to cover the entire shelf in white, only the underside of the shelves, this is where you will mount your lights. You can use specialty lights, like grow bulbs, or a mix of fluorescent and iridescent lighting. Keep your lighting at least 8 inches from your plants, and use a timer to give them the correct amount of light.

Plant your seeds shallowly in a mix of loam and clean soil. Keep it damp, not wet. In 3 days to 2 weeks you should have sprouts (some plants are slower than others) Watch you seedlings. If they look spindly you have too little light. Burning leaves mean too much light.

And in 6-8 weeks, as soon as the ground is workable, no worries about frost, it is time to move them to your outside garden (St. Paddy's Day)

Blueberries

Here are some care tips for those of you that are thinking about blueberry bushes.

Blueberry shrub are natural insect resistant. They like humus and soft woodsy soil. Use only natural, organic fertilizer when cultivating.

They are not self pollinating, so be sure to plant more than one bush.

Soil should be 5. to 5.6 which is very acidic. A liberal amount of peat material is needed, if you need to add acid, use peat or compost made without lime. The peat should be dug into the earth and mix well with the soil.

Blueberries need an abundance of water, yet not standing. Make sure the area you plant in drains well.

After the plants 4th year, pruning should be done to keep the shrub manageable. You will find it necessary to clip the very slender stems, they may not produce at all, and the thick stems that have produce for several years, they may only produce at the tips. Keep you bush from over crowding to produce the best berries. Keep the stems not more then 1 foot is to much, less then 4 inches will be too close.

Weeding is very important. Keep the weeds at bay by smothering them in a thick layer of mulch with natural acid, like peat and oak leaves.

When you get your plants, it is important to keep the roots moist and out of the wind. Dig your hole big enough to where you will not have to bend the roots. Set the plant slightly deeper then the nursery had them. Once you fill your hole, like a saucer like depression to help catch water. add compost.

Young plants that are 8-15inches in height should be planted in early spring or fall.five by seven feet apart.

Now for those rabbits, sprinkle a little fox urine around your tender trees and shrubs and they tend to leave them alone.