2022 costs

 Well, last year turned out to be a total bust. Turns out a heart attack doesn't mix well with gardening, even if it's a recovery garden. At least not until AFTER the bypass surgery (which wasn't until October). This year, I can garden. Carefully.

So I'm starting with just a few plants. A six-pack of grape tomatoes, a six-pack of banana peppers (what is it with fruity veg?), a basil plant (or three, can't tell if it's one with three stems or three with one stem each), plus radishes and greens and strawberries growing in planters on the deck. And a new rosemary plant to replace the one that I'd had for a decade or more but was crushed by a falling branch last fall. 

Spent about $50 on the plants plus compost. (Compost has gone up in price by 50%, probably due to transportation costs, so it was $30 for three bags instead  of $20). ETA: just ordered floating row cover to protect the strawberries from birds, so add $10 to the total.

Last year's alpine strawberry plants are doing well, although I'd better get some bird netting soon if I want to have a harvest. Rhubarb plants are bigger and more productive than ever before, although I couldn't find the third plant when I was out checking on the garden this evening. 

I never got around to planting garlic last fall (see above, heart attack and bypass surgery), but fortunately there are at least a dozen plants growing from bulbs that didn't get harvested during the summer. I did pull a few last summer (from planting in 2020), but with not feeling well, apparently I didn't get all of them, and they'll be this year's crop. They're even nicely spaced, since I must have harvested all around them.

The plan for this summer is to focus mainly on yard work, dealing with overgrown areas, more than the garden itself. Things have been let go for too long, and it's time to deal with them. Plus, I need the light exercise as part of my post-surgical rehab. I don't have high expectations for the harvest, just taking a no-stress approach, with gratitude for whatever the plants produce without worrying about maximizing productivity.

Weather has been insane -- colder than normal (but frost-free from an early date) and then suddenly in the 80s, so the tatsoi, that I planted nice and early, didn't grow much in the cold, and then pretty much gave up after a week of August-like weather, and sent up seed stalks. The lettuces and radishes seem less troubled by the crazy weather.

2021 costs

I'm investing a bit in container gardening this year, so the costs will be a little higher, but they won't need to be repeated for another few years. 

 $16.99 Grow bags (two, divided into 4 cells each) 

   22.35 Seeds (lettuce, basil, Alexandria strawberries, tatsoi) 

   20.72 composted manure 

   12.99 potting soil 

     6.50 onion & potato starts

     6.75 assorted seeds: lettuce, radishes, swiss chard

    20.72 composted manure (second set of 3 bags)

I overwintered two banana pepper plants, but expect to buy some bell pepper plants and tomato plants.

If I can find some seed potatoes locally, I have a large planter to put them in. Last year's experiment with left-over grocery store potatoes showed promise, but real seed potatoes and a larger pot would be better. 

I recently cooked some butternut squash and saved the seeds. I haven't had luck with squash lately (critters plus drought), so I'm just going to toss them into a corner of the garden and see what happens with survival of the fittest. 

I also got a flame thrower (okay, flame weeder), mostly for the saplings I'm trying to stop sprouting, but it's sort of for gardening too. 

I planted tatsoi seeds four days ago, because we're having insanely warm weather for March. I'm a little concerned they'll sprout and then regret it when we have some below-30 degree nights this coming week. They're in a planter, too heavy to bring indoors, but I should be able to cover them. I've really missed having tatsoi the last couple of years when I failed to save seed. It should be ready for harvest before regular lettuces. The lettuce did so well on the deck last year that I'm expanding the planting area this year.

Addendum 4/7/21: found cheap seed potatoes and red onion sets, along with  black-seeded simpson lettuce and some random radish and ruby swiss chard (not sure if I have any northern lights left). They may or may not be any good, but I figured it was worth the small cost/effort involved. Not included in the total above is a deck planter for the Greggs, which I plan to fill with lettuce and basil. Maybe an onion or two. I should probably put radishes in it too. But now I need more composted manure first.

End of season wrap-up

 Successes: 

• Planting potatoes in a tub. I didn't get much (drought, using left-over market potatoes), but I can see how it would work well if I did it right! 
• Grape tomatoes -- got a zillion of them from outside the garden for easy access
• Transplanting banana peppers indoors at end of season, so I'll have two (maybe three) really solid plants to go outdoors in the spring
• Thyme is thriving in the bucket in the garden and is at easy picking height
• Black-seeded simpson lettuce grown in a planter on the deck, which never bolted

Not so good: 

• Critters ate all the yellow squash plants
• Drought prevented the banana peppers from producing more than 3 or 4 small peppers
• Drought also killed the dill
• Swiss chard just doesn't like container growing and did terribly

And now it's officially the end of the season. I've brought in all the non-hardy perennials (rosemary, geraniums, peppers) and the sage (just because it was growing in a pot, which might make it non-hardy). 

As the final project, I planted a bunch (twenty? forgot to count, some larger than others) of garlic seedlings that I'm hoping will go straight to full heads next year. They sprouted from bulbils near my deck, and I didn't want to lose them when I was clearing that area over the summer, so I put them in a pot, and they grew exuberantly. It's a little late in the year to plant garlic, but they had such amazing roots that I think they'll be fine and should be off to an early start in the spring. If not, I haven't spent any money on it (and barely any time), so it's no big deal. But if it works, I may do it more intentionally in the future, because those roots were really amazing. More than they can grow in a few weeks from an October-planted clove.  Probably too labor-intensive for commercial growing, but may be just right for home growing.

Over the winter, I plan to cut down a bunch of weedy saplings (in the garden, as well as too close to the house), and then next spring, I'm getting a flame thrower (okay, just a flame weeder), in part to deal with the weedy saplings to stop them regrowing, but also for the garden, so I can reclaim it a bit. I'm also toying with putting a couple raised beds in the side/front yard where there isn't morning sun, but lots of afternoon sun, probably more total than in the back yard. One for growing tomatoes/peppers/basil, and one for squash, onions, and swiss chard. Oh, and green beans. I miss home-grown green beans. The latter bed will need a critter-proof top. 

Late, but not really

Memorial Day weekend is the traditional planting time for warm-weather crops like tomatoes and peppers, so the nursery was almost out of plants when I went today. Except it's not really late; it's just that Memorial Day was early. It's probably better to say that these plants can safely go into the ground the last weekend of May, which is the next two days. So I'm right on schedule.

Or I would be if I'd done any bed prep before now. The weeds have pretty much taken over.

I'm not planning a big garden this year. Just half a dozen each of grape tomatoes and banana peppers, some lettuce and swiss chard and herbs (in containers), plus some yellow squash if the critters don't get to them, and maybe some butternuts (ditto on being subject to critters). I've also got, for the first year since planting 3 years ago, lush rhubarb plants. (Forgot to get a pic; will try to remember and edit tomorrow.) I'm also experimenting with some potatoes that sprouted in the kitchen. I remember reading that they're treated to prevent growing, so I'm about to find out if it's true. They're planted in a bucket, so I can keep topping it off as (if) they grow, and, in theory, have a whole bucket full of potatoes in the fall.

So, yesterday I got some dill seeds, since it's been a while since they self-seeded, and planted them in a bucket with some pre-existing thyme. Today I bought six-packs of grape tomatoes, banana peppers, and yellow squash, for a total of a little less than ten bucks.

I'm expecting rain over the next 24 hours (ridiculously humid weather since yesterday), so no watering yet. I'm hoping to plant the banana peppers (the only seedlings left) tomorrow in between showers.

It should be a cheap growing year, since I already had two bags of compost. I bought some potting soil for the outdoor containers, so that's another five bucks or so. I've already got copper fungicide for the tomatoes. Oh, but I bought a new lopper and a new rake, so that's another fifty bucks or so, but they need to be amortized for the next ten years or so. I may also decide to get some mulch, but I'm not sure I'll need it. There's a pile of grass clippings I can grab, and that may be enough for the small beds I've planted this year.

A different kind of recovery

Lots of people are thinking about starting vegetable gardens this year, and it seems like a good time to get back to my own garden. This recovery won't be a financial one (despite the economic crash and hardships) but more like a recovery of our footing, after such a massive upheaval in our normal lives from the novel coronavirus.

The last couple of growing seasons weren't great, mostly because ever since contracting Lyme disease from ticks in my own back yard, I hadn't been particularly enthusiastic about spending time out there. I think I'm ready to venture out again.

I was out puttering around in the garden today, the first nice day in what feel likes six months. Two (of three) rhubarb plants are looking better than ever, so I weeded around them and added a bunch of composted manure, and will toss some mulch around them the next time I'm out there. I also transplanted the third plant (which broke into two, so now there are four plants, albeit small ones), which wasn't doing well in another location. It too got a bunch of manure to be followed by mulch.

I expected the asparagus to be up, because I keep hearing of other gardeners in the state starting to harvest the spears in the last two weeks. I must have a different microclimate (maybe they have raised beds, and I don't), because they usually sprout in early May for me. It is early May, but apparently still too early. Or else my neglect has finally killed them, but I tend to think that every year, and it's just me being anxious for fresh asparagus. When eaten directly in the garden, or within a few hours of harvest (as opposed to days) it's excellent uncooked. Sweet and just a little crunchy.

Ironically, last fall was the first time in probably 20 years that I didn't get around to planting the garlic for this year's harvest. We won't be deprived though, because I have millions of volunteer plants. The heads will be small, because they're too crowded to grow to full potential, but perfectly edible. At some point, I'll transplant them somewhere with better spacing, to be next year's main crop.

Garlic for 2019

Planted 79 cloves (all Russian, I believe) today. Also somewhere between 100 and a 1000 bulbils (also mostly Russian), although "planting" may be an exaggeration -- more like tossed them all on a lightly dug up patch of ground and covered up so no one could see the evidence of the mess. Except next spring, it's all going to sprout and look like a little rectangle of newly seeded lawn, so my laziness won't be invisible any longer.

The bulbils are intended as a nursery for future plants. I'll transplant them in the spring, most likely, but not plan to harvest them until 2020 (when my garlic farm cozy mystery is released!).

Costs for 2018

This is going to be a sparse planting year. I'm having trouble getting inspired after last year's encounter with Lyme-carrying ticks. Plus, the garden area has gotten increasingly shady as trees have grown around it.

So, I'm keeping both planting and costs down.

So far:

Onion sets:  $3.99
2 tomato varieties (grape and San Marzano), red sails lettuce, swiss chard bright lights, banana peppers, basil, at $3.19 each = $19.14

Total: about $23

The lettuces, swiss chard and some of the basil was planted in the "annex" next door.


Updated to say that the investment was largely a net loss. Except for the garlic crop, which was pretty much the same as past years, except a higher percentage of the Russian variety compared to the German variety, everything else was essentially a loss. Got maybe a handful of grape tomatoes, a dozen or fewer banana peppers, no swiss chard (planted in a planter with unexpectedly terrible soil), no onions (due to drought at key growing times). Got some basil, which was frozen with olive oil for perking up winter meals.