Have a great week.

Have a great week.

The first task of the season is to clean our old seed flats and cell packs. You did keep them from last year right? If you are careful and take the time to find durable packs and flats, there is no reason that they shouldn’t last many growing seasons. To clean our flats, we wash them and then we treat them to a little dip in a diluted bleach solution.

It is usually very cold this time of the year in the Columbus Ohio area so I needed a way to clean my flats without making a huge mess. My solution this year was down and dirty and involved a couple of shower curtains that I had lying around. I just used a couple of screw in hooks and looped the shower curtain over the hooks and let it hang into the utility sink. Our utility sink has a short hose that I have connected a spray wand that has a trigger grip. This is perfect for blasting off any old soil hanging on to the flats. With the shower curtain, I could even stand the flats on end without flooding the utility room.

After your flats and cell packs are thoroughly washed, we need to give them a short dip in a diluted bleach solution. A 10% solution of bleach to water is plenty strong enough to kill anything camping out on your cells. The most common problem with plants grown from seed is damping off. This refers to many ailments caused by fungal disease. Keeping your planting equipment clean can easily prevent these problems before they get started. What I do to sanitize my flats and cell packs is to dip them in the bleach solution which I have put in a concrete or mortar mixing tub. I have found that this tub is the perfect size for this purpose as well as watering my seedlings as they grow. After I dip the flats, I re-stack them on top of each other and leave them for an hour or so. I then lastly fill the mortar tub with water and give them a rinse whenever I get around to it.

Most documentation says that 10 minute contact time with a bleach solution is sufficient to kill most bad bugs. However, I believe this is overkill in this case. 15 or 20 seconds should be sufficient to sanitize your equipment if it is clean before sanitizing. The flats and cell packs aren’t porous making easy work for the bleach solution. By stacking my flats, the bleach solution is held between the flats until I can get around to rinsing them.

Gather up your flats and cell packs. Spring planting is right around the corner.

Have a great week.

One Monday of this week, we listed our favorite deals of the week at our local grocery stores. In that article, we listed multiple detergents and multiple sizes, even though we normally would only list one product that was our favorite deal. So what was the best deal? Let’s look

Tide 150oz  $17.99 , $0.19 / load
Tide 2x  $5.99, $0.19/ load
Tide 100oz  $12.99, $0.20/ load
All  $3.50, $0.11/ load
All Mighty $3.75, $0.12/ load

The normal version of All came out on top. When comparing prices, you really only care about how many loads of laundry you can wash. Brand loyalty aside and assuming no coupons, we can simply divide the price by the number of loads in each bottle of detergent.  Be wary though if you are used to looking at the unit price like any good shopper should. In the case of detergents, the unit price sometimes lists price per ounce and others list the price per load. Here are some examples from three major detergent manufacturers. Happy shopping.

Have a great week.

So what gives? Did I give her bad advice? Maybe.

It depends on how you look at the plant and what type of orchid you are growing. Phalaenopsis orchids very often will re-bloom from the same flower spike. Some will even bloom for years from the same flower spike. Most other orchids commonly found in homes do not however re-bloom from the same flower spike. Most orchids will only flower once per year. It is their normal cycle of growth to grow new plant growth, usually in the form of new bulbs and then bloom. Keeping an orchid in bloom for long periods of time can affect the long term health of your plant. Just use common sense. If the orchid is large and healthy then there is little reason to not enjoy the blooms as long as possible.

So in the end I wasn’t completely wrong. If in doubt, look at the flower spike. If it stays firm, green and healthy, then leave it for a while. If it is brown and brittle, then there is little opportunity for new flowers from the same flower spike.

Once again our favorite deal this week has to be Kroger’s save $5.00 when you buy 10 participating products. Just use tally marks to keep track of your items or just grab 10 Easy Mac cups for $0.50 a piece!

Have a great week.



Just place the hurricane in a small saucepan of water and gently bring the water to a simmer. In a few minutes the wax will melt to the point that you can remove the melted candle from the candle holder.

A few tips

1. Place a washcloth or small towel in the bottom of the saucepan. This will prevent the glass from rocking and possibly breaking.
2. Start with cold water. You don’t want to place a delicate glass hurricane in boiling water as the temperature shock may once again break your hurricane.
3. Resist the temptation of turning turning the hurricane upside down once the wax is partially melted to remove the wax plug. This will just result in melted wax all over the inside of the hurricane walls. Just reach into the hurricane and grab the wick or possibly spear the wax with something like a fork to remove it.

Lastly, if you have gone through all of this trouble, prevent it from happening in the future. Fill the bottom of the hurricane with sand and your problems are gone.