Vegetable Gardening is a winner in the recession
15.8 years ago cheap, grocery store, indoor seed starting
Well I have been talking about the financial benefits of vegetable gardening for quite some time now and looks like US News and World Report agrees with me. They have given “Home Gardening” the number one winner of the recession.
They tout statistics such as Park Seeds and Burpee showing 20-25% sales growths and the Burpee research that found $50 worth of seeds and fertilizer can yield $1,250 worth or produce. I must say 2500% is a pretty good return on investment, especially in today’s economy.
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, vegetables
Vegetable Gardening Software Review
15.8 years ago computer, garden planning
When it comes to planning my vegetable garden I must say this is definitely one of my weaknesses. I make a good attempt to map things out on graph paper ahead of time only to decide to add/remove a crop and eventually resort back to my memory and then get a surprise when I find I planted carrots and cilantro in the same place.
Given I am required to spend around 10 hours a day in front of a computer my first thought was to find a solution online in the form of some sort of vegetable gardening software. I tried some trials of several products and got so frustrated I was about to create my own when I came across GrowVeg.com. After signing up for their 30 day trial within 15 minutes I had my gardens planned out and saved for future reference.
Now if when I change my mind on planting preferences I can easily modify my plan to the new desired configuration. When I see easy I really mean it, it completely passed the “I am a man and don’t read instructions” test but there are some helpful video tutorials for those with more patience. I can honestly say it is so easy a 4-year-old can do it. She saw me “playing” with my garden and asked if she could “play” the gardening game as you can see below.
Once my daughter was done with her garden I proceeded to check out some of the other features. The next feature I came across was by clicking on any of the plants it would return helpful plant information from how to plant, how to harvest, and even how/when to apply fertilizer.
Definitely the feature I was most impressed with was the planting schedule it automatically generates after you have added plants to your plan. Not only does it tell you when to plant but also when to expect your harvest. What I love about this is, if you are like me, you can’t decide what your frost date is, you can simply change it in the settings and the schedule automatically updates. Now if you are forgetful like me, there is even a feature to notify you by email when it is time to plant your seeds.
Once you have built your history of garden plans throughout the years, the program will use this information my warning you if you are planning on planting the same type of plant in the same location you did before. This enforcement of crop rotation can significantly help reduce the accumulation of soil borne fungus/disease.
For more information see GrowVeg.com
Tags: cheap, cilantro, garden seeds, outdoor plants, vegetables
Make your own supplemental LED grow light
15.8 years ago cheap, indoor growbox, LEDs
I never got a round to making a hydroponic system out of my Cafe Steamer, but I did use part of it to create a supplemental red LED light. The construction of this was very easy and you can do the same thing with an old string of LED Christmas lights and some soft plastic (margarine or frozen dinner container) from your recycling bin.
Take the plastic and drill evenly spaced holes through the plastic. Make sure to do a few test holes with a few different bits to determine which will allow a snug fit but not causing you to force/break the bulbs. Once all the holes are drilled, carefully slide in all the bulbs, plug it in, and your project is done.
I am adding this one to my computerized grow box as a little supplemental light for my peppers plants, which I am planning on growing completely indoors this year.
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, grow lights, growbox, led, outdoor plants, pepper plants, vegetables
Last frost dates are not the same
15.8 years ago last frost date
It came to my attention it seemed every time I see my average last frost date it comes up as a different date.
| Average Frost Date (Seattle, WA) | Location |
| 3/10 | The Old Farmer’s Almanac |
| 4/20 | Victory Seed Company |
| 3/22 | Ed Hume’s Seeds |
| 4/15 | USDA Zones |
| 5/14 | USA Gardener |
| 3/25 | Clyde’s Garden Planner |
| 3/24 | Garden Web |
Now the humorous part of this is I didn’t go out trying to find as many non-matching dates as I could, these came in order from my Google query for “last frost dates”.
Under conventional wisdom, this number should be simply an average of the last frost dates for the past 30-40 years to give you about a 50% chance of avoiding frost given past history. So it seems really strange why these numbers vary so much.
Then I came across U.S. Climate Normals this site includes no only the dates but the probability of them being true. So if you are a betting man/woman (or just impatient) you can press your luck and plant with variable odds.
For my area (Seattle, WA) I have the following options:
| Probability Level | |||
| Threshold (°F) | 90% | 50% | 10% |
| 36 °F | Mar 27 | Apr 11 | May 18 |
| 32 °F | Feb 13 | Mar 10 | Apr 22 |
| 28 °F | Jan 01 | Feb 25 | Mar 20 |
From the information above, only The Farmer’s Almanac had the number I was really expecting. But given the information above and how late frosts have “bitten” me in the past I think I will give myself a couple extra weeks and plan on my last frost being Mar 24th to hopefully avoid and hard frosts for tender seedlings.
Tags: garden seeds, outdoor plants
Free tomato seeds and save a farm
15.8 years ago free, seeds, tomato
If you want to get some free tomato seeds head over to Campbell’s Help Grow Your Soup site. After simply entering some numbers on the bottom of a can of soup they will send you a free packet of tomato seeds. Seems like a pretty good deal to me, as an added bonus they donate 100 seeds to the National FFA Organization just for making your request.
Be sure to check out there site because they have some good basic gardening tips on the site.
If you want more sources of cheap/free vegetable seeds check out my Cheap Vegetable Seeds post.
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, tomato plants, vegetables
Protecting your seedlings when your weather does not cooperate
15.8 years ago cold season crops, outdoor seed starting, sieve
I like to push the envelope my luck when I decide to start seeds outdoors and this year is not an exception. Just yesterday I posted about planting the rest of my outdoor seeds where karma responded with a freak snow storm and freezing temperatures.
I am not too worried about about the new seeds I planted since many have been sitting dormant in the refrigerator for almost 12 months so few more days in about the same temperature shouldn’t be too traumatic for the lettuce, carrots, and cilantro.
The plants I have concerns with are the spinach seedlings which have just started to break through the soil. Fortunately spinach are pretty cold tolerant but weight of the snow on top of them is not a great way for them to start their time in the world.
After a quick search through the garage I found a great solution, a plastic storage tub, which fit perfectly over the irregular rectangular space I planted them.
Tada. If I wanted to get all fancy, I would add some holes for venting/etc but I chose to set a small cinder block on top and call it good. After a couple days, I should be able to remove it until the next freak storms comes our way.
Stupid groundhog…
Update: This is what the tub looked like after a few minutes in the sun (instant humidome)
Tags: cilantro, garden seeds, outdoor plants
