Links related to weather: Forecasts, History Archives, and Neat Features
~ Degree Day Calculator by Zip Code
~ Weather Underground! ~ First/Last frost Dates by ZIP code from DG: 32º F, 28 º F and 24 º F. 10% to 90%
Climate Zones:
~ USDA Hardiness Zones (average winter lows)
Koppen Climate Classification System
~ Koppen Climate System in Wikipedia
Some ATP Forums Seed Trading Forum - https://garden.org/forums/view/trading/open/ Group Buys & Classified Ads - https://garden.org/forums/view/forsale/ Cottage Gardening - https://garden.org/forums/view/cottage/ Perennial Forum - https://garden.org/forums/view/perennials/ Bulbs - https://garden.org/forums/view/bulbs/ Plant ID Forum - https://garden.org/forums/view/plantid/
Fluorescent Bulb Types Standard old T-12 fluorescent bulbs like shop lights emit 2 ½ time s as much light per watt as incandescent bulbs. It's true: incandescent bulbs are less than half as efficient as old fluorescent bulbs. Use incandescent bulbs for heat. Use fluorescents for light! The newer style are much more efficient than old T-12 fluorescents. When they have screw-in bases and built-in ballasts, and usually have "pretzel-twist" tubes, they are called "CFL" for Compact Fluorescent Bulbs. T-5 and T-8 tubes have similar new technology, but I guess are not usually called "CFL". - T-12 bulbs are 1930s technology. T-12s are dimmer and much less efficient than modern CFL bulbs (or T-8s or T-5s). - T-8 bulbs (early CFL-like technology) are much more efficient than T-12s and a little brighter. Their price is now dropping to match T-12s. - T-5 bulbs (newer technology) can be twice as bright as T-8s and about as efficient. T-5s are more expensive per tube, but around the same price per lumen. - Old-fashioned 4-foot T-12 tubes consume 32 or 40 Watts of electricity and they only emit 2,100 to 2,800 lumens. They are the least efficient and least bright type of fluorescent bulbs. (There are newer, higher-rated T-12 bulbs that go up to 3,200 lumens, but they are more expensive and less efficient.) You shouldn't use the new T-5 tubes in old fixtures because they need different ballasts (electronic ballasts) and T-12s need magnetic ballasts. Some websites and books say that you CAN run T-8s in a T-12 fixture "since the pins fit", but it's bad for the bulbs and inefficient. - T-8 bulbs use only 28 - 32 Watts of electricity. T-8s are much more efficient and somewhat brighter than T12s. I see light outputs of 2,725 to 3,000 lumens. It looks to me as if the newer T-8 tubes are coming down in price to equal the T12 bulbs. - Some T-5 tubes are almost twice as bright as T-8s - they use 54 Watts but put out 5,000 lumens. This is a cure for spindly, leggy seedlings! There are "High Output" T-5s and "High Efficiency" T5s, and others with unusually long lifetimes. Special features cost more. T-5s are still evolving and falling in price. Some T-5 bulbs cost up to twice as much as T-8 bulbs, but they do emit twice as much light. It may be worth paying the shipping if you find a good price online for a case of T-5s with just the features you want. Color, Spectrum or "Temperature" Pretty much any type of tube can be found in any color "temperature" (any spectrum) - cool blue, warm red, white or daylight. Light that is too reddish sometimes causes elongation. But don't spend money on "spectrum" at the expense of brightness. Brightness (intensity) is more important, and it comes from lumens, plus closeness to the plants, plus good, clean reflectors. I plan to continue using one cool blue and one warm red tube to cover both ends of the spectrum at least cost, greatest efficiency, and better bulb lifetime. Broad spectrum "grow-tubes" (tri-phosphor coatings) are a little different from color. Broad spectrum tubes have tri-phosphor coatings to "spread out" narrow spectral peaks. They have a more uniform distribution of intensity all across the spectrum, instead of sharp peaks and low valleys. I've read that really expensive grow-tubes are just moderately expensive "broad spectrum" tubes that were re-labeled with marketing claims. Both broad spectrum and grow-tubes are less efficient, more expensive, and don't last as long as regular tubes. It's debatable whether broad spectrum tubes do any better for seedlings at all. I believe that chlorophyll absorbs it all and turns it all into energy (except for the narrow green band that makes plants look green). But there may be seedling subtleties that I'm unaware of. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescent_lamp#Color_temperature Tube Lifetime Any fluorescent tube becomes less efficient as it ages, and less bright. The rule of thumb with T-12s used to be "replace every 2 years if used 18 hours per day". "20,000 hours" is claimed, but at the older age, they give dimmer light and wast more electricity. You should replace bulbs before they develop black spots, or flicker, or fail! If you put new bulbs into one fixture and you can tell by eye that it's significantly brighter than another fixture with old bulbs of the same "color", it is time to replace the old bulbs. Even if some intense but old T-5 bulbs are still bright enough to keep seedlings happy, at some point the saved electricity will pay for new bulbs. At some later point, the saved electricity will pay for the cost of new bulbs PLUS the resources consumed to produce and recycle them. How to get more brightness without replacing bulbs? Clean the tubes and reflectors! Move them closer to the plants more often. Hang more reflectors down the sides and ends of your trays (but keep good air circulation). Mercury Modern CFL bulbs have only around 3 milligrams of mercury per 4 foot tube. That's less mercury than would have been released from burning enough coal to power incandescent bulbs! But it is still mercury, which is very toxic. Many states don't consider 3 mg enough to call it "toxic waste", but YMMV. There are eco-friendly CFL bulbs with 1/3rd the mercury (1 mg per bulb). I assume there is some trade-off in brightness, efficiency or longevity. T-5s are still being improved, so read the fine print and watch for new models. - - T12, T8 and T5 stand for the diameter of the tube in eights of an inch. T12 are 1 ½" in diameter. Twelve eights of an inch add up to 1.5 inchs . T8 bulbs are 1 inch in diameter. Narrow, bright T5 tubes are only 5/8 inch in diameter. http://www.littlegreenhouse.com/accessory/lights2.shtml
Seeds I have available for trade:
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To loosen and improve the aeration and drainage of commercial potting or seed-starting mix, mix the commercial stuff with lots of Perlite, chicken grit, screened crushed rock or screened medium pine bark mulch or fine bark nuggets.
To improve drainage, grains should be around 1/8 inch. Say around 2-4 mm if they are rounded, or longer & thinner if they are chips or shreds or fibers. Unusual shapes really open a mix up!
That's why "sharp" crushed rock drains better than river sand with similar grain sizes. But if you have to choose between clean nuggets and soggy, smelly, dirty shreds, use small clean nuggets.
Bark shreds and chips are better than rounded nuggets for increasing aeration and drainage. They really open a mix up! But if you have to choose between clean dry nuggets and soggy, smelly, dirty shreds, use the small clean nuggets.
As a rule of thumb:
Screen quickly by tilting the screen 30 or 40 degrees and pouring the mulch over the screen so it runs slowly down the slope with a little encouragement. That's what passing through "easily" means.
Screen slowly by laying the screen flat over a wheelbarrow. Add just 1-2 spadesful. Now rub that around with gloved hands or the back of a steel rake until no more falls through the screen. Dump the coarse stuff to one side and repeat.
Screen less aggressively by propping the screen at a slight angle and rubbing it around only briefly before dumping the coarse stuff. You can shake the screen briefly or tap it up and down a few times.
Rather than waste hours by starting with ⅛" screen, first pass the mulch or nuggets quickly through ½" and ¼" mesh. Most of what passes ½" but is held back by ¼" is good to use in containers. Then use the ⅛" mesh on the small amount of bark that passed through ¼" mesh once or twice.
Reduce the amount of bark dust by starting with medium mulch, not fine mulch. Most "medium nuggets" will be too large to use in small containers, but "small nuggets" may have more dust and fines.
If you have a lot of dust in your final "cut", and a lot of patience, you can lay window screening on your mesh and remove some of the dust that way. If you find a source of 16 mesh screening - or anything coarser than 24 mesh - please let me know!
Don't use pine bark that was stored wet in a plastic bag if it smells bad - anaerobic fermentation products are acidic and bad for root hairs. If you must use "smelly bark", flush it with water and let it air out first. Or compost it for a few weeks if you don’t need clean sterile mix.
Don't waste any too-coarse or too-fine bark. Coarse bark makes great mulch for top-dressing. Fine bark can be mixed into outdoor soil, such as a raised bed. You can always clean your lawn mower and use it to chip coarse chunks down to medium chunks. I think pounding on them with a brick would work, too.
If you plan to mix a huge amount of fine bark into a bed, consider supplementing it with some nitrogen source or composting it first. It will consume a little nitrogen as it breaks down over several years, but this nitrogen deficit is nowhere near as severe as that caused by sawdust. Bark contains a little nitrogen, and it breaks down slower than wood.
