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Welcome All! I'm a dreamer, I hope you are too! A Posse ad Esse, or From possibility to reality, is a general state of mind. I hope you'll share your possibilities with me as I will with you. Namaste~

March 23, 2009

The highest form of flattery!

It's been said many times that impersonation is the highest form of flattery. That being the case, I'm feeling pretty flattered!

A reader of mine, S~ , who found me through my writing at the "Simple Green Frugal" website, sent me an email the other day to say hi and that she had realized that we lived only 50 miles or so away from each other and wanted to introduce herself. This is, by the way, very welcome regardless of whether you're around the corner or across the globe. If you're so inclined, you can either leave me a comment or check out my personal profile for my email address and drop me a line that way. I love few things more that getting to know the people that stop by the blog, especially if they've been able to take something away from it.

Such seems to have been the case for S~, and I wanted to share it with you. Her husband and her have been working toward, as I understand it anyway, much the same kind of suburban homesteading that A~ and I have been. I'm so flattered that some of the plants that they're planning for their garden this summer have been able to get their start in a seed starter modeled after the one that I came up with earlier this year! Check it out:In fact, truth be told, S~ and her husband have one-upped me on this one. Most of the materials that they were able to use were scrap that they already had in the garage and they were able to put it together for around $8.00. (not counting the lights/bulbs of course.)
Check out the tomato seedlings too. They got theirs started toward the end of February where as I just barely got mine started this past weekend.

We were able to share our inputs on a couple of the shortcomings that have come up too. The starter is working great, but the outside edges of the flats are a little far out from the lights and aren't getting as much light as the centers. I've corrected for this by rotating the flats 90 degrees every couple of days. Initially I planned on covering the whole thing with those reflective survival blankets that are cheap to get, but the problem was that someone had literally bought all of them from every store local to me. I'll be checking again soon for some of them.

S~, thanks for sharing your starter with us. Glad to hear that it's working well for the most part. And I'm still looking forward to learning more about beer making from you guys.

till tomorrow...
P~

6 comments:

Chiot's Run said...

It's always fun to meet a like-minded soul!

jana said...

Hi!

I'm S's older sister, trying to so a bit of suburban homesteading in Orange County, CA. Because I live in an apartment, I have a large plot in a nearby community garden (about 450 sq ft). We don't need seed starter tables around here--we don't even get frost in the coldest part of the winter. My back porch is where I start my seeds--or I just sow them in the ground directly.

Anonymous said...

Hey P~,

Something (seems to me, at least) missing from these seed starting kits are reflective sides. Even tinfoil! Which would solve at least some of the bending of plants and would reclaim more of the light.

Is there a reason people aren't doing that?

ChicagoMike

Steph said...

My seed starter set-up looks very similar--the two shop lights--and I am having the same issue with some being outside the optimal area. I like the idea of reflective sides from ChicagoMike. I've been rotating them like P~.

Rosengeranium said...

Actually I'm planning to build something similar for my indoor gardens using leftovers from my son's toy shelving unit.

I passed and the "I think you're FABULOUS!" on to you - check it out http://indoorgardener.blogspot.com/2009/03/i-think-youre-fabulous.html

P~ said...

Chiots~ I couldn't agree more!

jana~ I'm so glad you dropped in, no doubt at little sisters prompting. I hope you won't be a stranger.

Mike~ Yeah, it does need some reflectivity. It's on the list, the very very long list. Should get some pretty soon though.

steph~ The lights really do a fairly good job, they just need a little help once and a while. I think the reflective materials will help too!

Rosengeranium~ Tack så mycket för att! I will pass it on soon.