Garden Bargains

May 4, 2009 at 10:07 am (Square Foot Gardening)

Listening to the weather Saturday night, the weatherman said that 16 of the last 18 days we had had some sort of precipitation.  Well, no gosh darned wonder I’ve had a case of the blues.  I need a few sun rays to actually hit my skin to make me feel good…that or a really good bargain.  I got a little of both yesterday.

The peas in the “hoop house” really need some kind of support, and I’ve been trying to figure out a no-cost, use-what-I-already-have solution.  Free Cycle to the rescue.  There was an offer of “26 tall three-sided tomato cages.”   I was picturing the three flat panels that fold into a triangle, and I figured I could unfold them and run them down the middle of the row.  The bad news is that they were not the three-panel fold-out cages that I pictured in my head, the good news is that these are heavy metal five and six-foot tall plant stakes that will last forever. 

Thank you Free Cycler Jeni!!

Speaking of bargains, I had some time to kill the other day and stopped in at Lowes.  I needed some small stones that I’m going to use in the bottom of my planters.  I found a bag that had been ripped and was half off.  They had some marked down mulch, and I grabbed a couple of bags.   At the checkout, I saw some seed potatoes and asparagus, so I grabbed one of each to give them a try.  My bill was just over $8.  That’s when I saw the potatoes and asparagus were half off…so I grabbed another package.

So, for the grand total of $10.14, tax included, I got:

• 1 six-pack of asparagus
• 2 ten-packs of seed potatoes
• 2 2.? cubic bags of mulch
• 1 bag of river pebble

Added bonus:  They’re already chitted, so I can plant them right away.  Hopefully I’ll have better luck than last year with the potatoes.    I had almost decided to not even try this year, but destiny stepped in.  First with the bargain on the seed potatoes, and then I saw this yesterday:

Looks like a volunteer potato to me.  The strange thing is it’s not even in the same bed that I grew them in last year.  The only thing I can think is that an eye from a potato peeling that went into the compost must have caught.  Sounds like destiny is saying, “Try again.  Grow them over here.” 

Now that I think about it, trying something new, I chopped up the veggie peelings in the food processor with water and poured the slurry over the bed thinking it would be an dinner invitation to the worm population.  If a potato can grow from that, nice pre-chitted seed potatoes ought to be fantastic.

The asparagus looks really dried out, but hopefully it’s just dormant, not dead.  I’ll give it a little time and we’ll see.

Speaking of seeing (nice little segway, huh), how’d you like to see this across the fence as you’re gardening?  World Naked Gardening Day was May 2.   No, I didn’t participate.  I don’t want to scare my neighbors too much.  This wonderfully informative information came from my Park Seed newsletter.  Ahhh, what goes through the mind of a gardener.

Happy (not naked for me) Gardening!!!