starting seeds

[yinepu]

Quote:
oh the brooders are nothing compared to when I had quail in the house.. three cages of them..


they LOVE to dust bathe... so you can imagine what it was like...

funny thing is when they moved outisde they completely quit laying for almost a year.. apparently they liked being in the house where the people, dogs and cats were

 

[wyoDreamer]

DH made me some shelves in the basement storage room to start plants on. Just wide enough and long enough for two of the 72 cell Jiffy trays on each.
I start two trays, then when the plants get big enough I repot them into 2" plastic pots w/ potting soil and start another two trays worth. There are no windows in the storage area, so i have two cheap shop lights hanging from chains so I can raise them up as the plants grow.
Each light fixture holds two 4' bulbs. I use one "warm light" and one "cool light" bulb in each so that I get the fullest spectrum of light that I can. Every couple of days I turn the trays 180 degrees to expose all the plants to the broadest spectrum of light. The lights are on a timer so the plants get 14 hours of light every day.
I am looking for a small oscillating fan that I can clip on the framing and create a variable breeze to help make the plants stronger before going outside and facing the Wyoming winds.

 

[fried green eggs]

ya wanna know the sad part...?

my house is like this almost all year round

I'm OK with animals in the house !

We have 2 Rotties and lots of bunny's in our house. The bunny's are shy but they are all over. They are much better at hiding, since we put in darker floors.

Anyone that knows me - knows I would rather be outside. I have a theory - dust isn't a problem or even really noticeable, IF you don't disturb it!

 

[MountainMamaHST]

Yinepu, that's awesome. I'd be divorced! I want to get mini lama cha goats so badly. But, I can wait :/
Here's my seed babies!

 

[MountainMamaHST]

Lamancha.... stupid phone

 

[yinepu]

Yinepu, that's awesome. I'd be divorced! I want to get mini lama cha goats so badly. But, I can wait

Here's my seed babies!

Luckily my husband doesn't mind.. he even told me to order some bantams this year so we can make more mini pickled eggs

He also told me to get whichever goats I wanted.. I have been trying to find standard Lamanchas.. but haven't had much luck.. so I have my Saanens for now and will be getting a few Nubians to add to the herd

 

[swede-murphy]

We garden for market and there's little profit if we have to buy set plants. We grow everything on tables in front of windows on the south facing side of the house. Yes, it over takes the house for a few weeks, but it is our surest sign of spring. LOL

No, it is not too late. This is the proper time to start for our growing season, which is comparable to yours. I use all re-cycled plastic pots that guy at the garbage transfer station picks for me. I re-cycle all the small cells, the small pots, the medium pots, the large pots.

I make the potting soil as well. It's just bark and poop and rotted straw and rotted leaves and our own soil all composted together. My wife got weary of my suspending the shop lights from her curtain rods, so this year I made pvc "goal posts" to hand the shop lights from.

This is similar to my set up, only I used a metal shelving unit set up on a counter top in my sun porch. I hang two 4 ft florescent lights from the bottom of the middle and top shelf on chains so I can adjust them up and down so as to get close to the plants; this gives me a double-decker plant starter. The bottom (top of the counter) has a heat mat. After transplanting, I move the trays up to the second level, and start some new plants on the heat mats. The metal shelving unit came in a box of parts, and I was able to build two 4 foot long, two shelf units for not much money. The hanging shop lights (T11, I think, the small diameter but high output tubes) did not cost much. I probably have less than $200 in the whole thing, and this is the 3rd year using it. Compared to the price of plants from the nursery (along with their load of disease and pests!) the system has paid for itself. Last year I started around 100 tomato plants, about 80 pepper plants, lots of cabbage, onions, egg plants, and summer and winter squash, as well as a late crop of basil and other herbs. The lights are on timers, BTW. Sometimes it is best to invest in a workable system up front that will last years and give you a good return on the investment.