Garden can be cheap and/or it can be expensive at the same time. Depends on what you do with your space and what you plant. You can choose to invest once in only a handful of varieties of your favorite staples and just save seeds year to year to keep the cost down. Or if you're like me, who wants to try as many varieties as there are available - it gets very costly. Oh well. I always prefer variety so pay I will. So far for the next planting season I've ordered:
From Johnny's seed - Diva and Northern Pickling cucumbers,Butterbeans, Rocdor yellow bush beans, Red Noodle beans, Fordhook lima beans, Velour purple bush beans, Gita Yard long beans.
From Renee's garden - Sunflower Snack Seed; Beans - Bush Tricolor, French Gold, Pole Tricolor; Cucumber - Endeavor and Baby Persian; Spinach - Oriental Giant; Snow Peas - Oregon Giant; Poppy - Hungarian Breadseed and Heirloom Pepperbox (great for baking sweets).
From Jung Seeds - Candy Mountain Foxglove, New Millennium Stars Mix Delphinium, Honeoye Strawberry, German Porcelain Garlic
From Burpee - Blueberry - Chandler; Currant - Red Lake, Carrots - Big Top, Sugarsnax & Purple Dragon; Radish - White Beauty, Daikon Long.
Oh yeah, I also ordered row covers for both hoop house and for spring floating covers to avoid the bug problem I had this year.
I really need to keep out of the garden centers for a while to avoid buying anything else for the garden :)
Wow! You are on top of things! I think about getting my list made but then don't get to it! Happy dreaming of next year! Nancy
ReplyDeleteWell this list doesn't include previously ordered new tomato and pepper varieties, but yes, I'm already planning on next year. Let's hope it will be a good one.
DeleteOrdering seeds, yes I have done that several times over the last couple months myself. I am curious about the spring floating covers, how do they keep bugs out and what type bugs? I am going to have to google that and see what these are! Right now my green beans are being gobbled up by some type bug grrrrr. I was so excited I think every seed I planted just shot right up a few weeks back now half are gone. Something is eating the leaves off them! Just leavin the stem standing there. I have tried several things which have not worked, I am going to try sprinkling cayenne pepper on them this evening. See if that helps.
ReplyDeleteI saw Daphne using it on her plots and none of her greens got damaged this year so I ordered it for next spring. This year I tossed two rows of bok choy because bugs destroyed it all.
DeleteThat's quite an impressive list of things you ordered. I can give high marks to Diva cucumbers, Roc D'or, Velour and Renee's Bush Tricolor Mix beans. I also ordered the French Gold pole beans. Let's hope that next year is not nearly as challenging as this one!
ReplyDeleteI keep an eye on other's harvest to see how they rate and so far all these came with good feedback. Some of the other varieties I tried this year did not work for me at all - like Fortex that was the lowest producer of beans - so it's hit and miss sometimes. I do have french gold pole on the list so we'll see how it does. And yes, I do hope next year is much better and not as challenging as this one for everyone.
Deleteyour ahead of the game...we cant plant until the end of may here so I have lots of time, haha
ReplyDeleteI'm just planning ahead for next spring. Plus some of these like spinach will be added to winter garden for hoop-house.
DeleteOne good and fun part of gardening is we get to eat food which we can't get from our local market which why we spend buying so many variety of seeds.
ReplyDeleteThat is one of my main reasons - our local market is fairly limited in choices.
DeleteI keep track of my costs and the value of my harvests and I always amply cover my initial seed and supply purchases by mid year and then go on to earn "savings" from the garden. I do save certain seeds but I don't have enough room to properly isolate items to get true and viable seed - so I only do the seeds that are self pollinating and easier to do - like peas, beans, and tomatoes.
ReplyDeleteI know what my cost is for the year but I don't know how to get my proper totals for what was harvested translated into "savings".
DeleteI also need to avoid garden centers! It sounds like you will have an impressive and very tasty garden next year. Also, thanks for stopping by my blog and identifying my dark, warty mushroom!
ReplyDeletethank you, i hope that next year will be good one.
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