Yup, that's my kid.

[Lizardlicks]

I just got one of those silly little green house shelves from Walmart tonight, put it together, and set up my grow lights and seed trays on it. After I had it all assmbled, my daughter, who just turned 6 on Valentine's day and lost her first tooth about a week ago, looked at the set up and then at me and thoughtfully informed me, "you know, when you're not using it for plants, you could keep more snakes on this."

I've never been prouder

[distaff]

Perhaps she will soon be following in your foot steps?
Take care she doesn't appropriate that rack for her own snake.

[EL-Ziggy]

A lesson well learned is a lesson well taught LL. Good job!

[Caspian]

What are you growing? I planted a bunch of bulbs last fall - crocus, daffodil, tulip, lily, etcetera - but those are all outside, and starting to come up. Inside I've just got a bunch of seeds that I found in Cutie mandarins. Those things are prolific! Out of 29 seeds, I had 29 sprouts, but one sprouted albino. It'll die, but it's always interesting to see an albino plant. I donated it to the bio lab at the 'local' college. It's the second time I've had a seed from a Cutie sprout albino.

[Lizardlicks]

What are you growing? I planted a bunch of bulbs last fall - crocus, daffodil, tulip, lily, etcetera - but those are all outside, and starting to come up. Inside I've just got a bunch of seeds that I found in Cutie mandarins. Those things are prolific! Out of 29 seeds, I had 29 sprouts, but one sprouted albino. It'll die, but it's always interesting to see an albino plant. I donated it to the bio lab at the 'local' college. It's the second time I've had a seed from a Cutie sprout albino.

Oh neat! I've never seen an albino sprout before, though I've heard that sometime you can find ones that have matured into full grown plants by tapping into a near by plant's root system. Essentially a botanical vampire Plants are crazy, man.

Right now I have cipollini onions, three different lettuces, chives, purple basil and oregano started in my first seed flat. Probably going to add more herbs and early flowers that need longer growing seasons next week, and a couple more weeks after that I'll get started on the 6-8 week plants like peppers and tomatoes. We're up here in zone 5b, so a lot of stuff does well, but the growing season is juuuuust short enough that there are a lot of things that benefit from starting indoors then transplanting out. I did direct sow some summer squash and the last of my old dragon's tongue beans last year since I was unprepared for garden stuff due to the move. They did pretty well! The season was short but I got 4 or five nice squashes and a handful of pods from only one squash plant and four bean plants.

[distaff]

We are 6a (IIRC). I'm still working on the cold stuff...I don't like to rush it, and hauling dozens of frost sensitive plants in pots in and out of the house every morning/night gets old fast. The weather here has been SO warm, I am tempted to start tomatoes and peppers...but, I won't. Currently tending peas, cabbage, spinach, and lots of lettuce. Several herbs are up as well, and I always have a fair amount of biennial/perennial hangovers.

I grow nearly everything in pots. We have Bermuda grass - and I prefer to pick my battles! For anyone who likes growing in pots, check out Larry Hall's Rain gutter grow system videos. The gutter is used as a water resevoir for the pots. I have several gutter lines going...so far, I really like them. Cheap and easy DIY.

[Caspian]

Oh neat! I've never seen an albino sprout before, though I've heard that sometime you can find ones that have matured into full grown plants by tapping into a near by plant's root system. Essentially a botanical vampire Plants are crazy, man.

Right now I have cipollini onions, three different lettuces, chives, purple basil and oregano started in my first seed flat. Probably going to add more herbs and early flowers that need longer growing seasons next week, and a couple more weeks after that I'll get started on the 6-8 week plants like peppers and tomatoes. We're up here in zone 5b, so a lot of stuff does well, but the growing season is juuuuust short enough that there are a lot of things that benefit from starting indoors then transplanting out. I did direct sow some summer squash and the last of my old dragon's tongue beans last year since I was unprepared for garden stuff due to the move. They did pretty well! The season was short but I got 4 or five nice squashes and a handful of pods from only one squash plant and four bean plants.

Nice! I love home-grown veggies and herbs, but they are something I've never done any good at growing. Down here in the high desert of northern Nevada, we're theoretically in zone 5, but the soil is horrible and anything that can't survive well into zone 4 won't survive here. I used to live over in the other WA state - the western one! Anything and everything will grow there. I'm smack in the middle of the worse drought area currently, but we had a nice wet winter, which helped a bit. I'm just hoping hard that we don't end up having a 'Spring' like last year, where it was hot during the day and below freezing at night - it destroyed all my fruit tree blossoms. My trees are still young, but the apples should be getting a little fruit, and even they couldn't manage a single one.

I've read that about albino plants, as well! Look up Vampire Redwood, if you haven't already. I suppose I could try to splice the roots of one of these sprouts into something else, but they generally only live as long as the nutrients in the embryo last - the seed. About the time the first true-leaves are coming in, they die. As I recall, I think redwoods are naturally prone to forming a communal network with their roots, but citrus... I don't think they really do. Albino mandarins would certainly be interesting! But if any of these sprouts ever bear fruit, it's highly unlikely that it will be much like a mandarin, since there's no way of knowing what donated the pollen other than that it was probably citrus. To my knowledge, the only way to get a true-to type sprout from a citrus seed is to have one that's polyembryonic - more than one sprout from the same seed. In that case, usually the larger, more vigorous sprout is supposed to be a clone of the plant the fruit came from.

[Lizardlicks]

Ehehehe, I'm in the western Washington, just on the east side of it! Bit drier and colder in Spokane than Seattle, but I like it that way. High Nevada is rough though. You'd probably have to do everything in pots like Distaff suggested. A few years ago I had quite the potted herb collection indoors... but then we had our first move, and I had to leave them at my husband's grandmother's place while we getting situated. She decided to help by putting them all out side. Without hardening them off. I lost pretty much everything