Frugal Gardening – Starting Seeds Indoors
Starting seeds indoors is great fun for both the beginner and the experienced gardener. But it can lean toward the expensive side of things if you go for all the wonderful gadgets and devices meant to aide this activity. But if frugal is your aim, it is not a problem to forgo buying a full spectrum lighting system, specialized trays and containers, and warming pads to place under the specialized trays and still have great success starting your seeds indoors. All it takes to start seeds indoors is a well lit window sill, good soil, and appropriate containers.
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Frugal Gardening – growing ‘expensive’ vegetables
Are you still deciding what to grow this coming season?
Mid-April may be a bit late to finalize what edibles you’ll be growing in your garden this season, but then again, only seasoned and well-organized gardeners tend to be on the ball on this task. For the rest of us, including myself I must admit, we often only start to think about our vegetable gardens once the ground starts to thaw. So, if you’re still wondering what to plant, I’d like to make what might seem to be a odd suggestion: plant the most expensive vegetables you can.
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This blog
News of the doings of Alice Greene & Co., its authors and others associated with the development and marketing of our books can be found at alicegreene.com.
As part of a site dedicated to Easy Edibles, this blog is about vegetable gardening and in particular using organic methods.
End of another growing season
Almost. The first frost has yet to arrive, but some plants are already cleared and most crops collected. There are still some tomatoes (beyond the dahlias at the back of the photo) and the kale and especially the chard are still going great. The potatoes have all been dug up, and look fabulous. The squash didn’t make it and we didn’t care for the variety of beans we planted. The cucumbers were good and the beets were amazing (when prepared with the recipe in Easy Edibles!). We’ll probably make some changes for next year, but 2010 was pretty good. Sun and tomatoes
I’ve been asked recently if tomatoes can get too much sun. The answer is yes, especially in the late summer and early fall when the sun can be quite intense, the rain levels low, and the nutrient level of our soil is often somewhat depleted.
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Anyone for chard?
Another month on with the plot and everything seems to be having so much fun growing! Or more accurately, the plants are lapping up all the rain we’ve been having. This photo is pretty much from the same place as the last one, still kale (and chard) in the foreground, potatoes to the left, the beans have run all the way up their teepee already and the cucumbers are halfway up their trellis. Behind them we have all the stakes in for the tomatoes and they are starting to weave their way upwards. We’re already overwhelmed by the amount of chard – been eating it for a few weeks already and now we are taking a lot of it out to the food bank (Food Gatherers).
Where did this grass come from?!?
Seems we had been doing a lot of traveling this spring and never got out to the plot until the end of May. Oh wow! Grass was growing everywhere. It took us over a week to properly clear it so we could begin planting. Happily all the starts I had done in the basement took to the outdoors immediately, even though it took us another week to get everything in. This photo is another couple of weeks later, showing some kale in the foreground, potatoes down the left and tomatoes in a line (two lines) across beyond them. Back to the basement
I did get my half-plot in the community garden again, so over the weekend I began starting seeds in earnest. After much consideration, I started loads of seeds, knowing that the surplus would be welcome. Plus, I’m going to grow more flowers this year (including “Outhouse Hollyhocks”). I have some new ideas about how I want the garden to feel – I want lots of color as well as the vegetables.
More surplus vegetables
Ann Arbor’s Interfaith Peace & Social Justice organization hosted a Faith and Food meeting tonight. Having grown tomatoes as a benefit in previous years, and thinking about the possibilities for growing specifically for donations to food banks, I was eager to hear what everyone had to say about their experiences.
Read MoreIt’s springtime in my basement
These were actually started a week ago in our basement, on the workbench, on a heating pad and under a fluorescent shop light. These are leeks and kale, two plants that can be planted early, while others need to wait for the ground, and weather, to be ready.