Emily: There is nothing special about the seed I buy. Burpee, Hart, NK. These are the seeds that my local merchants carry so these are what I get. My soil is very rich because every Fall I bury tons of leaves in it, and I guess I get paid off with big plants. Raab is a temperamental plant. Early this Spring I planted Broccoli and Raab side-by-side, started indoors at the same time. Our Spring was cold. The Raab went right to seed, the Broccoli did fine. These are the imponderables that I (we) can never figure out. My strategy out of these situations is to always have backup plants, started weeks apart, to step in in case of trouble. Still....things happen. Steve: Thanks for the tips. Frank

Manual ways of reducing melon rinds and such involve a heavy knife, or, if you want to take out your aggression on the fruit, a machete. My mother had a manual meat grinder when I was a kid, and I've seen vegetable slicers of the same sort. If one of those can reduce carrots to slivers, it would do the same for melon rinds. Paper can be hand-shredded or you can use a paper cutter to cut it into strips and then cut the strips crosswise. Either way, it's a lot of work, and I don't know if most people are willing to put that much effort into it. Generally, if something requires a little personal effort and a little electricity, it's more likely to get done than if it requires a lot of manual effort and time and no electricity. If that were not the case, "labor-saving" electrical devices would never have become popular. To be completely honest, I do have a powerful blender with a container dedicated to compost. I tend to use it when I'm cleaning out the fridge and getting rid of all the leftovers that are growing green fuzzy things. I'll usually wind up with a bucket full of nasty slurry, which then gets dumped into the compost pile and covered with shredded leaves or wood chips. My blender can handle meat and bones as well as veggies, enabling me to compost things that are usually on the "do not compost" list by breaking them down into tiny particles which rot quickly before attracting flies. Most of the time, however, I just dump things into the compost without shredding. I think that the energy used in shredding is offset by the energy used in manufacturing a black plastic bag, using a big smoke-belching diesel truck to take the bag to the landfill (or the incinerator), and then using a big smoke-belching diesel bulldozer to bury the bag in the landfill (or using more fuel to burn it); either way the organic material will be lost to the ecosystem., and in the case of the incinerator, which is where my trash would go, the carbon is emitted as CO2. IMO, it's much better to have it in the garden nurturing the roses, no matter how it got there.

FYI.... seems to very much depend on the % of HCN... I dont know much about it, but some interesting reading... --------------------- ----------------------- EFFECT ON PLANT LIFE Seeds HCN applied in dosages effective ageinst insects does not affect the viability of seeds that are normally dry, with moisture contents suitable for storage. In a comprehensive study, the results of which were published between 1959 and 1961, Strong and Lindgren studied the effect of HCN in insecticidal concentrations on the germination of a wide range of seeds, including grain seeds, flax and small legumes. The variable factors considered were moisture content (8 to 14 percent), repeat fumigations and postfumigation storage. It wes concluded that germination of wheat, barley, oats, rice and flax seeds wes not impaired by one or two famigations with HCN. With the small legumes with a range of 5.8 to 12.2 percent moisture content (Ranger alfalfa, alsike clover, Ladino clover, Kenland red clever and Viking birdsfoot trefoil), all were tolerant to HCN in one or two fumigations, except aisike clover for which there was positive indication of impairment of germination. Among 80 varieties of grain, vegetable and flower seeds tested by Lindgren et al (1955), six showed evidence of reduced germination. These were pole beans, burnet, California black mustard, smilo, marigold and snapdragon. It may be concluded that HCN is a safe fumigant to use for seed treatment, especially for cereal grains under normal conditions, but with flower and vegetable seeds preliminary trials with local varieties are advisable. Growing Plants and Trees A considerable amount of injury, either temporary or permanent, may be sustained by actively growing plants fumigated with HCN. Because this gas is very soluble in water, special precautions have to be taken to reduce the amount of moisture on leaves and stems and in pots or soil balls of actively growing plants. Therefore, the plants should not be watered for one or more days before treatment. After treatment with HCN, it is necessary to wash the plants with water to remove any residual acid. HCN interferes with photosynthesis and other physiological processes (Moore and Willaman, 1917); for that reason, plants may be more susceptible to injury in daylight. Usually, treatments have to be carried out at night or in the dark. Also, following exposure, plants should be kept away from sunlight for several hours. In the past HCN was widely used for fumigating ornamental and glasshouse plants, but it has been replaced by other fumigants that are less phytotoxic. The use of HCN generated from calcium cyanide to control glasshouse pests is discussed in Chapter 12. HCN was extensively used for may years to control scale insects on citrus trees in a tent fumigation procedure (Quayle, 1938). In this treatment, HCN gas (5 g/m ) from liquid HCN, or evolved from a salt such as calcium cyanide, was liberated into a relatively gas-tight tent installed over the tree and maintained for usually around 45 mintues. A number of factors, including temperature, humidity, physiological conditions of the tree (such as dormancy, disease, cultural conditions, stage of development and others), have considerable influence on the tolerance of the trees to the fumigant (Woglum, 1923). Since different species or varieties of citrus trees show wide variation in response and the insects in different areas may vary in tolerance, the actual conditions of treatment usually have to be developed to suit local circumstances. In scale insect eradication work, where complete kill of all insects is essential, the tent fumigation treatment with HCN has been found to be a valuable technique (Fosen et al, 1953). HCN was used by Del Rivero et al, (1974) to control larvae and eggs of the woolly white fly on orange trees. While the concentrations of HCN required to kill insects may cause severe injury to growing plants, lower concentrations of HCN may stimulate growth and be useful in "forcing" growth in some species (Gassner, 1925). Dormant Nursery Stock HCN is still used in many parts of the world for the fumigation of the dormant nursery stock of deciduous trees, especially in quarantine treatments against the spread of scale insects (Ceder and Mathys, 1949; van de Pol and Rauws, 1957; Agarwala, 1956; Jen and Lai, 1959). As in growing plants, a marked stimulation has been noticed in some nursery stock fumigated with HCN (Cassner, 1925). Immediately following fumigation it is sometimes necessary to wash plants with water to avoid the burning of buds and new foliage. ---------- Cyanide production by rhizobacteria and potential for suppression of weed seedling growth. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11400067 Here is a link that might be useful: Cyanide production by rhizobacteria and potential for suppression of weed seedling growth.

It depends on the light, actually. For the most part, to be entirely honest (and I'm going to get a lot of argument, screeching, arguing, and people insisting they have a magic formula), it's just not as straightforward as Veg and Bloom. Nature does not work that way. The sun does not suddenly irradiate plants with oodles of blue or red light when it's time to flower or blossom, and indoor plants are no different. The vast majority of plants will want both settings on at most times for maximum energy output if the lamp can handle it and if the plant in question wants it. The Veg setting--depending on your lamp--ramps up the blue (or ramps down the red) by some amount. The flower setting ramps down the blue or ramps up the red. If it's reducing energy overall to below what the plant likes, that's a problem. Keep it at a higher setting overall even if the spectrum is a little too blue/red. If it's over what a plant likes, pull it back. Again, even if it's too blue/red. Note that this isn't usually a problem. And check the species in question. Some are more particular than others, and there are too many indoor crops to count. Most, frankly, simply don't care. What do I use? I use a mixed-spectrum of LEDs of warm whites, full spectrum, mid-white, and red. It covers the output from 395 to 800 nm with no gaps, including the allegedly "useless" yellow and green areas of the spectrum (they're not useless, they've been omitted due to historic reasons that are no longer necessary; plants do use them). The system in the room I'm sitting in has been designed to be not terribly unpleasant to my eye (which is extremely particular in terms of color; I paint in this room; the light has a noticeable red-violet cast to the white, but can be easily overwhelmed by my painting lamps and I've learned to compensate). It's assembled less by spectrum than light strength, and plants do beautifully under this one, the one downstairs, and the less-well designed one in the bathroom (very noticeably red). Flowers get sprouted, and blossom easily, every year under the lights in the cellar. Those are the cheapest fluorescent tubes I can source, 850 plants a year, raised from seed with no other significant light source. Most are budding to blossoming by the time they go outside in May. I just use 1 warm white and 1 cool white per lamp, 2 lamps per shelf, 6 shelves.