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
How to determine your own personalized last frost date from local weather station
15.8 years ago computer, last frost date
There was a discussion in comments on my previous average last frost post on how to determine an accurate last frost. A great point was made by Daphne where every garden can have its own microclimate so the date you find online or in a book could be many weeks off for your microclimate in neighborhood.
To be able to predict your last frost date accurately it takes some history, if you have lived in your current residence and happened been capturing your temperature data accurately by memory or paper you may the information to predict your last frost date.
For people that are relatively new to their residence, like myself, I felt there I had very little information to determine an accurate prediction of my last frost date. This was until I remembered Weather Underground which logs results of schools or private individual that register their weather stations.
After a quick search I was able to find someone who had a weather station in my neighborhood. After doing a custom query of the full range of the of the weather station, which in my case was a little over 4 years, I had all the information I needed. By carefully adding a horizontal line at freezing using a graphics program (Microsoft Paint) I could easily see where the low temperature dipped below the freezing mark.
From a quick glance at the data it appears that the first week of April is a pretty safe date for past few years. But if you look the the irregular low temperatures we have had this month this might be harder than I thought.
Now of course your neighbor may a different microclimate than you, but should get you in a better ballpark than the generic number you find fro your city. You could always spend $500-$1000 on your own weather station to get some better accuracy, but for me seems close enough to me. Though the weather station would be a really cool gadget to have.
Tags: cheap, vegetables
Growing with hydroponics in the grow box
15.8 years ago cheap, hydroponics, indoor growbox, tomato
There has been some major changes since I started the plants above in my cheap DIY hydroponic setup about a month ago. Since then I have added a couple of pepper plants I saved from thinning. I must say the plants are doing better than I expected. I am still using the same homemade nutrient solution, 2 pumps of liquid plant fertilizer and half a teaspoon of Epsom Salts.
The sickly plant on the bottom left is a cloning experiment which is not going great but the plant is growing roots and apparently surviving.
Some views from below:
Tags: cheap, growbox, outdoor plants, pepper 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
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
