Old Organic Gardening Magazines

14 years ago

My grandma mentioned she was going to throw away some old gardening magazines. I freaked out and said no, you aren't! Now I have about 10-15 years of old Organic Gardening magazines now. I'll never throw them away, as I consider them antiques. As old as 1985 or older and I know as new as 2001. I'm 26 so 1985 is old; I was only 2. There's a lot of information in them. For instance, one magazine stated that flourescent lights are just as effective as "growing lights" at starting seeds indoors. The growing lights just make the plant look better. Is this true? I always thought you had to have the special solar lights.

Comments (11)

barbe_wa
14 years ago
Back in the days when I was using a greenhouse with lights, I used four-bulb light fixtures with warm white bulbs on the outside and cool white bulbs on the inside. This gave a very close approximation to sunlight, I think. At least I was pretty successful with it. Now it's wintersowing or the cold frame for everything, and I'm even more sucessful!
kqcrna
14 years ago
1985 is ANTIQUE? I was born in 1952. What would you label me? "older than antique"? ancient antique? I'd better go looking for a nursing home.

Karen
ramazz
14 years ago
Hey, Karen! You and me both!

Becky
annebert
14 years ago
Book Junky,
ha ha that's funny. Old to me is the small format mags from the 60s, which I remember reading as a kid. However, they are right that regular shop lights work fine for seed starting. half cool and half warm as barbe says. If you go to growing under lights there's lots of info.
tiffy_z5_6_can
14 years ago
I think there's a bunch of us here that could fill a few nursing homes. Can you imagine the gardens surrounding that place??? Oh it would be paradise to us all. Gosh!! What a great idea!!!

Bookjunky you are sweet! At 26 I was buying my first house, driving my first car, and managing my first restaurant. Thanks for the memories.

Ooops, just to stay on topic, never done lights. :O) I do have a LOT of old magazines, some dating to the 1960s.
pitimpinai
14 years ago
bookjunky, you really are sweet. When I was your age, I was living in an apartment trying to grow hot pepper on windowsills.

I used to use shop lights to grow seeds and rose cuttings in the basement for a couple winters.
After seeing my electric bill go up more than $10 a month I didn't think it was worth it. It was cheaper to buy plants from the nursery then.

My neighbor who used to work at the conservatory grew seeds under fluorescence light for many, many years. The seedlings were wonderful. I would hate to see his electric bill, though.

Karen, Becky, tiffy, we are going to celebrate our 53 bd at the same time? Wonderful.

:-D
kqcrna
14 years ago
Not me, Mone. I'm 57.

Karen
trudi_d
14 years ago
I'm not 53 yet, in August though I will be. Hey, the fifties rock, except for the crappy eyesight, cranky knees and daily bran muffins, yeah, the fifties are fine ;-(
pitimpinai
14 years ago
Hahaha. Karen, see? I don't know how to count either. I meant 58...will be 58 in April. :-D
Yup, trudi. The 50s rock. I had not felt content until these past years.
quilt_mommy
14 years ago
Lol* I have a bunch of them sitting on the shelf in the other room I got for free from a book sale. I'm not sure how old they are, I should check. Lol*
jessewo
14 years ago
I have heaps of garden mags & "someday I'll sort stuff out" Oh yeah! Several years ago when I was between jobs, I volunteered a lot of time with the local library book sale & enjoyed bunches of older garden mags before the sale. Gotta agree that age is relative-as I've entered my 50's there are some challanges, but you don't give a .... so much anymore about what people think, & that's kind of good too