Frugal Friday Gardening

Being sick for a few weeks, I feel that I lost much of my garden prep time. When I started feeling more myself, it suddenly dawned on me that it was time to start planting early seeds and I had to hop to it!

This is our first year planting most things from seeds, so I didn't have any of the "equipment" ready to do so.

So I improvised. Using whatever little pot I'd kept from buying small plants in years past. But mine certainly doesn't looks very tidy, and it took a lot of dirt!

I wanted to give some seeds to a needy family that is starting in gardening this year, but they didn't have any little pots and absolutely no money to buy any.

I'd researched many different things that could be used, from egg cartons to toilet paper tubes, and then I found this:

A VIDEO THAT SHOWS YOU HOW TO MAKE SEEDLING CUPS FROM NOTHING BUT SOME NEWSPAPER AND A GLASS!

You end up with these little newspaper cups that are so perfect for your seeds. It was exactly what I was looking for. If it would only work.

Looks simple! So I tried it. And guess what?








It's as simple as it looks!

For more frugal ideas be sure to check out Crystal's Blog!

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Another Garden Update

We are really new gardeners. We just started last year. We're trying new things and adding different things and I just want to chronicle the progress (or lack of) here.



I should have made a picture of the whole strawberry container beds. We had planned to get them in the ground this year but it just didn't happen. I feared that we wouldn't get a single strawberry this year because we had a late freeze (which is almost unheard of in south TN) after they had bloomed. But it seems that we'll get a few after all.





So of course I had to get a rhubarb plant to go with the strawberries. Truthfully, I've never cooked with rhubarb in my entire life. The plant was an impulse buy. I didn't know a thing about it when I bought it. Since then, I've educated myself just a teeny bit. Hopefully we'll have some rhubarb to go with the strawberries next year. And as an aside, how do you not love an edible plant that's a perennial? I mean really. You plant it, leave it alone, and get food for years.





This is curious (to me). If I remember correctly, I grew this sage from a seed pack. I ended up with 3 healthy plants that I grew in a container until the fall of last year and then put them in the ground. Two of the three have these really pretty purple flowers on top. The other one, as you can see vaguely in the background is different. Though they all came from the same seed pack. I've not dried any yet (or used fresh). I'm curious if the taste will be the same.





Here is the wild looking tomato bed (that also has some squash and peppers). It looks so unruly that I'm tempted to tame it a little, but last year we tamed and agreed that this year we'd let it do it's own thing and see which was better. Of course we're still attaching them to the poles. This picture is made less that one week from when the last garden update pictures were made. Six days to be exact.





I made this picture to show how a few of the cucumber plants are starting up the trellis. Last year one cucumber plant survived and it looked unbelievable pitiful. They're not the healthiest looking plants in our little box garden, but they certainly seem to be doing better than last year.





This is my poor little scrawny banana pepper plant. It's only been planted since Mother's Day, so I'm trying to cut it some slack. There are two more just like it.





This is the huge monster zucchini/squash plant(s). I have no idea why this little area has had such prolific growth. And not so much fruit! It's still pretty amazing to watch. Mike made the comment that we could probably sit and watch it grow. I'm curious to see if it will be better fruit that the smaller ones or not. And I wish I could figure out why this one is so much bigger.





This is just the same end shot that I always make. Just for comparison.

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Garden Update

I've got to say that I've been amazed at what our little square foot garden is doing so far. Mike had some ideas for changing the soil and drainage system this year and it's been amazing! I feel so blessed that he puts his energy into this kind of thing.

Just last *week* the garden looked like THIS . Literally. One week ago.

This is the tomato bed with a couple of peppers and a squash and zuccini plant (I think, I may have gotten the squash and zuccini confused when I was planting them and I can't tell yet!)

Here is the most dramatic change. This is 3 of the squash/zuccini plants. I can't believe how big they've gotten. And we've even got some teeny squash on some of them!

This is another shot from the onion end.

Mike is even talking of building a couple more boxes for me! I'm sure I could find some things to plant in them!

I ended up filling the last few feet of extra garden space that I had with banana peppers! Mike found some at the local fruit stand and brought them home to me yesterday. I'll try to include them in my next garden update. I also need to do an update on the things growing in the yard.

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