This year, Lord willing, it's gonna be different. I'm growing my own little seedlings. And I'm growing my own dirt, to boot.
I found this amazing little growing greenhouse at Home Depot when we stopped in to pick up supplies to finish the LAST STEP for our electrical inspection (Hallelujah praise the LORD!) and thought to myself that this was a great solution to my forgetfulness during planting time.
Included with the cells, draining tray, and dome are these little compressed tablet things that you add warm water to and "grow your own" dirt!! I have videos of that process, and believe you me, it is vile to watch. Trust me.
The seeds are not included, so I bought "Better Boy" tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, colored bell peppers, zucchini and summer squash seeds. And potentially, I will have 72 little seedlings. I don't think I will need that many, so I'll have to find some homes for them in 8-10 weeks when the ground is ready for these little beauties.
The 72-cell greenhouse was $7, but if you don't have friends and family enough to share that many plants, or a half an acre to plant them on, or lots of kids to weed the garden, there was a 36 cell size for around $6 and several other sizes available too. All in all, I got the whole thing for around $13, which would probably have bought about 6 tomato and 6 pepper plants later on in the year. Hopefully I can easily recover the $13 in home grown produce! Who knows? I might get really adventurous and actually plant them in the ground this time instead of using last year's patio gardening method.
Are you planning on a garden this year? What do you like to grow, and how much?
6 comments:
Good luck on your gardening! I am looking forward to my garden this summer. Last year I put everything in the ground and watered ocassionally (avoided weeding). Even without doing all the work a garden entails we were able to enjoy fresh tomatoes, carrots, corn, squash, cukes, cantelope and beans. Just a tip to be able to avoid having to weed -- layer wet newspapers around your seedlings after you've planted them and then cover with mulch or dirt. This will prevent most of the weeds from coming up for about six months.
I would hold off on the zucchini and summer squash--in 10 weeks they would be about ready to deliver edible produce, I think.
Dad - the seed packet said to sow the seeds 8-10 weeks before planting, but I guess we shall see! They're already planted. Want a zucchini houseplant?? Hee hee!!
We usually plant a few tomatoes and hot peppers. My husband enjoys canning the peppers and seeing who is brave enough to try them. I'm not into hot!
What a fun thing for Aaron to watch the little plants sprout and grow little leaves! That's a pretty cheap 'biology project kit' anyway!
If those zucchini plants work out, you will need some recipes!!! There are currently 739 !!! recipes on www.allrecipes.com with zucchini as an ingredient! Yum!
We will have another big garden this year for eating, freezing and canning for ourselves and sharing with family. I will be posting our gardening progress on my blog.
Aunt Rosemary
I love to garden that is why we bought a acre of land and Eric is building 10 raised beds 4x10'.We have 4 built and 3 planted. I've planted peas, carrots,strawberries, lettuce,spinach,tomatoes, eggplant,many herbs,nastursiums.Some of these I've planted in the greenhouse because I'm waiting for the last day of frost. Today it's snowing can you believe it (the end of March) strange.
I find the local college extention service is very helpful for gardening in your local area as far as what does well and how much and when to plant.
I plant enough for ourselves and share the abundance with family and friends.
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