Why Thin Vegetable Seedlings?

Vegetables need space to grow, but many times it’s just not practical to start seeds off with the desired final spacing. Plants started in pots are usually not a problem. You can separate them when it’s time to transplant outdoors. Plants that are direct seeded in the ground and especially seeds of root vegetables, are another matter. These plants will need to be thinned out.

Thinning seedlings produces healthier plants and higher yields by:

1. Allowing room for proper growth
2. Reducing competition for water and nutrients from nearby plants
3. Allowing for good air circulation between plants

Some larger seeds, like radishes and parsnips, can be spaced at planting, but you don’t always get 100% germination and you could wind up with spaces within your rows. Some seeds may look large, like beets, but they are actually little clusters of seeds. Even spacing these out will result in overcrowded seedlings.

When to Thin Vegetable Seedlings

• Seedlings are usually thinned once they have 1-2 sets of true leaves. Most will be 2-3″ tall by then and easy enough to grasp and pull.
• Thinning while the soil is damp will help you pull just the excess plants while leaving the ones you want to keep.
• Thinning in the evening gives the remaining plants a chance to adjust before being exposed to heat and sunlight.

How To Thin Vegetable Seedlings

Plants like flowers and leafy vegetables like lettuce and spinach can be thinned by gently pulling the unwanted plants. If you are growing in blocks, not rows, you can try simply running a flexible rake through the seedlings. Plants won’t be perfectly spaced, but it will open more space for them to grow.

Root vegetables, like onions, beets and carrots, can be more sensitive to thinning because disturbing the roots while young can cause deformation. Transplanting long rooted vegetables, like carrots and turnips, will cause them to fork. You’ll want to pull one seedling at a time or try cutting the unwanted seedlings at the soil line, instead of pulling. Spacing will vary by varieties and whether you want your vegetables to grow to full size, but in general, leave the anticipated size of the mature vegetable plus a couple of inches on either side. Your seed packet will list optimal spacing.

Vegetable plants that need thinning include:

Beets (3-6″ spacing)
Carrots (2-3″ spacing)
Lettuce (18-24″ spacing)
Onions (3-5″ spacing)
Parsnips (3-6″ spacing)
Radishes (2-3″ spacing)
Rutabagas (8″ spacing)
Spinach (2-6″ spacing)
Turnips (2-4″ spacing)

It can be rough to sacrifice so many vegetable plants. Some seedlings, like lettuce, beets and spinach, can be harvested and tossed into you salad at anytime, so all is not lost.

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Originally posted at: Lafayette Real Estate News

How much can you sell your home for? Probably about as much as the neighbors got, as long as the neighbors sold their house in recent memory and their home was just like your home.

Knowing how much homes similar to yours, called comparable sales (or in real estate lingo, comps), sold for gives you the best idea of the current estimated value of your home. The trick is finding sales that closely match yours.

What makes a good comparable sale?

Your best comparable sale is the same model as your house in the same subdivision—and it closed escrow last week. If you can’t find that, here are other factors that count:

Location: The closer to your house the better, but don’t just use any comparable sale within a mile radius. A good comparable sale is a house in your neighborhood, your subdivision, on the same type of street as your house, and in your school district.

Home type: Try to find comparable sales that are like your home in style, construction material, square footage, number of bedrooms and baths, basement (having one and whether it’s finished), finishes, and yard size.

Amenities and upgrades: Does the comparable sale house have full A/C? Is the kitchen new? Is there crown molding, a deck, or a pool? Does your community have the same amenities (pool, workout room, walking trails, etc.) and homeowners association fees?

Date of sale: You may want to use a comparable sale from two years ago when the market was high, but that won’t fly. Most buyers use government-guaranteed mortgages, and those lending programs say comparable sales can be no older than 90 days.

Sales sweeteners: Did the comparable-sale sellers give the buyers down payment assistance, closing costs, or a free television? You have to reduce the value of any comparable sale to account for any deal sweeteners.

Agents can help adjust price based on insider insights

Even if you live in a subdivision, your home will always be different from your neighbors’. Evaluating those differences—like the fact that your home has one more bedroom than the comparables or a basement office—is one of the ways real estate agents add value. 

An active agent has been inside a lot of homes in your neighborhood and knows all sorts of details about comparable sales. She has read the comments the selling agent put into the MLS, seen the ugly wallpaper, and heard what other realtors, lenders, closing agents, and appraisers said about the comparable sale.

More ways to pick a home listing price

If you’re still having trouble picking out a listing price for your home, look at the current competition. Ask your real estate agent to be honest about your home and the other homes on the market (and then listen to her without taking the criticism personally). 

Next, put your comparable sales into two piles: more expensive and less expensive. What makes your home more valuable than the cheaper comparable sales and less valuable than the pricier comparable sales?

Are foreclosures and short sales comparables?

If one or more of your comparable sales was a foreclosed home or a short sale (a home that sold for less money than the owners owed on the mortgage), ask your real estate agent how to treat those comps.

A foreclosed home is usually in poor condition because owners who can’t pay their mortgage can’t afford to pay for upkeep. Your home is in great shape, so the foreclosure should be priced lower than your home.

Short sales are typically in good condition, although they are still distressed sales. The owners usually have to sell because they’re divorcing, or their employer is moving them to another state. How much short sales are discounted from their market value varies among local markets, so you have to rely on your real estate agent’s knowledge of the local market to use a short sale as a comparable sale.

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Originally posted at: Lafayette Real Estate News

Have you restarted your computer lately?

Closing the lid on your laptop without hitting the off button could be causing you a host of issues.

Although it’s faster and easier to simply send your PC to sleep, not turning it off can lead to infuriatingly slow performance and problems with your Wi-Fi. This is because over time, your operating system, apps and programs begin to accumulate some leftover digital mess. These include temporary files, disk caches, page files, open file descriptors, zombie processes, and more.

In addition, applications you thought you’d quit weeks ago can end up hogging valuable space in your memory. This can then cause rival apps to run significantly slower than usual.

If that wasn’t reason enough to hit the off button there’s also another issue. If you have any driver crashes or software hiccups, you can experience problems with your Wi-Fi connectivity, too. Putting your laptop or desktop machine to sleep or enabling hibernate mode will not solve the issue; sleep mode still sips enough power to keep the computer’s state in memory. Other parts of the computer are shutdown to save battery, but the disk caches, zombie processes, memory leaks, and more, will remain intact.

Windows’ hibernate mode is a similar affair. This mode saves its current state to your hard drive – dumping the contents of its RAM into a file on its hard drive. YourPC will use about the same amount of power as one that’s shutdown, but the same troublesome processes are saved.

Fortunately, shutting down your computer every once in a while can give your machine a fresh start. 

Different computers and OS’s are not all equally affected by this phenomenon. Generally, a computer with a lot of RAM can go for much longer than a computer with only a little RAM. A server, on which you just start up a few programs and then let them work, will be fine for much longer than a desktop computer, where you’re constantly opening and closing different programs and doing different things with them. Plus, server operating systems are optimized for long-term use.

It’s also been said that Linux and Mac OS tend to run for longer than Windows systems, although that mostly depends on what programs you use on them, and not so much on any differences between the kernels of the operating systems themselves.

If you notice that your computer is slogging through some simple tasks – and you find yourself struggling to remember the last time you shutdown your PC – it might be time to reboot.

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Originally posted at: Lafayette Real Estate News

Today, 100% Absolutely Positively Do Not…

 

1. Complain. 

It doesn’t accomplish much and it’s annoying to everyone else. It’s one of the more counterproductive habits that humans develop. Not doing it will do wonders for your social life and your well-being.

 

2. Focus On Negatives.

This post focuses on negatives, ironically, but it’s generally a bad idea. Given that our lives are full of blessings and curses at all times, it makes sense to focus on the blessings for greater happiness and satisfaction with life. You’re always going to have problems, which is comforting in a sick way.

 

3. Think About The Past.

Thinking about the past is unproductive. Even dwelling on old memories is a poor substitute for creating new ones. The past is all we know, so it’s hard to avoid, but the present moment is all we have, and that’s a profound truth.

 

4. Overeat

Have you ever put in too many pieces of paper in a shredder, watching it struggle and groan to process the load? That’s what it’s like for your digestive system when you overeat. It can cause acid reflux. It can add pounds where you don’t want them. By not eating optimal portions, you’ll have less energy. Don’t eat too much today – that full feeling is there for a reason. 

 

5.  Be Too Serious

There was a time recently when I realized I had not laughed in a while. When you focus on your problems or all the stuff you have to do, enjoying the ride can become a lost art. But what a huge mistake it is! Laughter is great medicine for the mind, body, and soul. Life is full of serious, sometimes tragic, events and situations. Laughter is humanity’s brilliant coping mechanism, and it’s extremely effective. Make it a point to laugh today.

 

6. Waste Time

Wasting time is not necessarily the same as “doing nothing.” More accurately, to waste time means that you’re not consciously deciding to do something. If you decide to watch TV for an hour to relax, it isn’t a waste of time. But if you watch TV for an hour because you haven’t decided to do anything, you are wasting time. Make sure that whatever you do today, you have a reason for doing it.

 

7. Keep To Yourself

Some people need alone time, but ALL people need “others time.” Put a person in isolation for 40 years and I guarantee you, they’ll lose their mind. It isn’t healthy to be separated from fellow humans long term. Take the social route today and enjoy people.  

 

8. Receive More Than You Give

If being happy is important to you, then giving is automatically important to you. Giving is the secret to happiness! I believe it has a lot to do with contribution. It is fulfilling to feel useful to the world. When you give to others, you’re having a direct, positive impact on the world, and that’s something to be happy about.

 

9. Expect The Ordinary

Expectations are the glass we use. Low expectations are like using a shot glass – even at overflowing, you can only see having so much water. It’s an artificial cap on your potential. And when you expect greatness, it’s like having a giant 44 oz. 7-11 cup. You may fall short, but you’re choosing to believe that today is full of potential. It’s only when you believe something is possible that it becomes possible. Expect great things today, act accordingly, and you just might meet those expectations!

 

TRIPLE BONUS: Don’t watch TV or use Facebook today. Those things are life replacement tools.

Have a great Monday!

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Originally posted at: Lafayette Real Estate News

One pot meals will change your life if you haven’t already been enlightened. They take less time and energy, require few steps, and dirty a minimal amount of dishes. There are hundreds upon hundreds of one pot meals out there, and my family always loves to try new ones.  This one pot pizza pasta has been a recent obsession of ours. You just can’t go wrong with cheese and pasta!

This may not be the most extravagant dish you’ve ever eaten, but I think everyone likes a good comfort food dish every now and then.  Plus, it’s a recipe that comes together in a cinch on those extra busy weeknights, and it’s sure to be a big hit with the kids!  Parents happy, kids happy, and dinner ready in 30 minutes flat. It’s a win-win-win scenario. Pair it with a glass of Syrah.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 8 ounces turkey Italian sausage
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup pepperoni
• 2 cups tomato basil pasta sauce
• 2 cups water
• 8 ounces rotini
• salt and pepper
• 2 cups Italian blend cheese

 

 

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Heat olive oil over medium-high heat in a over-proof skillet. Add sausage and onion; cook breaking up the sausage, until the sausage is cooked completely and the onion is soft and translucent. Add garlic and cook another 30 seconds, until fragrant. Add pepperoni. Add pasta sauce and water and stir until combined.
2. Stir in rotini and bring to a boil. Boil about 10 minutes or until most of the liquid is absorbed and the pasta is cooked. Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir in the cheese. Serve immediately.

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Originally posted at: Lafayette Real Estate News