http://www.cornucopia.org/2014/12/investigation-factory-farms-producing-massive-quantities-organic-milk-eggs/

What do you want most in all the world? More money, a new car stereo, a vacation? To lose ten pounds, to get home from work in time to see your favorite sitcom? Or is it something more than that, something harder to define?

Maybe you've given up on ever realizing your true dreams, and you settle for smaller things because they, at least, seem possible. Maybe it never occured to you to ask yourself if the goals you've been pursuing really are what you want…

Here's an exercise to try at home. You will need a working stopwatch, or another timepiece that measures seconds. Before you begin, seat yourself in a comfortable chair and loosen your clothing.

Watch the second hand as it passes around the face of the clock. Picture the moment of your death, perhaps many decades in the future, or perhaps only a few years or months (who can know?). Wait for the second hand to reach the starting point at the top of the…

Well it seems like I’ve been having the same/similar conversation here in the village with a lot of folks lately that goes something like this…

“Gee Vlad how did you know dot…dot…dot…”

“Well, I read it in a good book/study on the topic” (and if applicable, tried it out to see for myself).

“Ooh, I don’t have time to read”!

“Do you watch T.V”

“Yeah, who doesn’t”?

            “Well, if you…

Just because I said in some thread or another, that I would follow up on my results, here it is. The deal is...

I love hot peppers, but hate how long it takes for certain seeds to germinate (sometimes over 2 weeks). This often results in a lot of nail biting, and constant checking moisture levels, temps etc...So the thinking here was that many varieties of hot peppers evolved and proliferated mainly due to birds. Birds, not having taste buds that react to the capsaicinoids that…

Ok, so basically what I’ve found is that using the set-up described in the previous blog, is that I was able to obtain a 9-12 degC difference in air temps, in a 2.4 m3 space using just the heat off of the T-8’s, which were left running 24/7. This increased to 20+ degC when the 250MH kicked in (from 12 midnight till 7:30am). I was able to sprout over 100 plants split between 3 different cultivars. COS Romaine, Spinach, and a local variety of red/green lettuce. After sprouting, which took…

Ok, so everyone has to buffer their pH back up with something, right? Slaked/hydrated lime (CaOH), Potassium Hydroxide (KOH) (usually reserved for the big leagues, UVI, Neslon Pade type systems, and rightly so. KOH can be dangerous to work with as it is highly caustic and a very powerful buffer). With most folks by now settling on alternating between CaOH and KHCO3 (known to most folks as Potassium Bi-Carbonate, here, in this country, it is referred to as Potassium Acid Carbonate as…

Here is an idea that I originally saw in on one Chris Smiths posts (Chris seems to be full of practical and useful ideas, thanks Chris)...Originally I wasn't going to sprout my seeds in a hydroton only media, but after trying  this, this past summer with 50 or 60 different plants (from various leafy green types, to tomatoes and peppers), I saw that it works great. Every seed I planted sprouted as good or even better than in all the different cocco coir, vermiculite, perlite, worm casting,…

I'm just kinda throwing this out there...in the hope that it might be of some use to someone, somewhere...

What we're looking at is a 4'x8'x32" high seedling table that I built in the greenhouse. I've velcro-ed bubble foil wrap around the table so that I can open and close and get in there with relative ease.…