Which plants are cheap to buy in 6 packs? Tomatoes, peppers, and other warm season plants to me are cheaper to buy as small seedlings instead of starting your own.
When it cost 10 cents just for the jiffy pellet, the only reason to start your own is if you can't buy the seedlings.
Last year all the tomato plants I bought had some type of blight/problem. The ones I did myself had tomatoes, that's it. This year I'm not buying any plants.
My seedlings have three leaves. It's just fun to do my own.
I'm not sure what is the cost but the pay off is fabulous.
Kimberly
That's ridiculous. If price is your concern you would be hard pressed to beat the price of a supermarket tomato, or even a farm stand tomato. The prime benefit of growing your own is to have something that's not only fresh, but also to have varieties that are different from the commercial varieties. This year I've decided to grow heritage tomatoes. I'm growing a bunch of commie varieties, Paul Robeson's, Orange Russians, Alaska's, plus one Italian variety. The tomatoes that you get in flats are always the same few varieties, Big Boys, Early Girls, Romas, and a couple of others. They are very reliable and they have huge yields, all good characteristics if you are a commercial farmer or you are relying on them for survival. But I'm not a farmer and I count on the supermarket to provide my basic needs. I also have a farm stand on the corner so I get get produce that's just as fresh as anything I grow myself. So I've decided that this year I'm only going to grow varieties that I can't get elsewhere. I don't care about yield, last year I grew from flats and I had hundreds and hundreds of tomatoes, if this year I end up with just
10% as many I'll still have more than enough.
I am not much of a gardener, but there might be an advantage to starting your own from seed. When I was a kid my mom saved some cherry tomato seeds and started them from seed. In each progressive year the tomatoes got a little bigger and tastier.
Buy started plants, choose from a selection of possibly 12 varieties. Start your own, choose from hundreds of varieties.
Ross.
Andy comments I understand your position, and with tomatoes costing upwards of $2 a pound at Walmart, growing our own is very attractive... There's something intangible about seeing one's growing plants and knowing that we started them from seed. .... more to it than just the money saved...
That being said, I do a little of both. As a beginning gardener, I plant about 10 times as much as I need, to assure myself of at least "something" coming up. The "six-packs" of Celebrity that I buy from Home Depot seem to do better than my seedlings -- almost certainly due to my inexperience, and that may change with time --- but I don't mind paying the 1.98 as insurance that I will be able to see growing things in a couple months...
From a practical standpoint, buying canned vegetables would be more cost effective. But, we wouldn't get the same feeling as we do when we eat a nice salad, and know that it only cost us a few dozen man-hours of garden work to gather ourselves.... .... Seems silly, but I really like that feeling.....and the more I do "myself", the better it feels...... Heck, I can afford to throw away a couple bucks a year to get up my learning curve.....
Andy in Eureka, Texas
(who is now planting lettuce, cukes, tomatoes, and cantalope)
And it is worthwhile to avoid the big box stores with their low quality higher priced plants. Around here we get much better quality plants for a lower price at the mom & pop places.
For most gardeners, I don't think it's the 10 cent pellet or the $3.00 seeds...
Every Sep/Oct, when I start cleaning up the previous summer's garden "mess", I vow that I'm not doing it again. Too much money, too much work, the price of tomatoes is now $.50 lb/$12.00 bushel...green beans are free for the picking and people will pay you to haul away their zucchini and yellow squash...
By Nov, I'm looking at the back yard and everything is brown and dead. My straggly house plants have become my best friends.
By Christmas, I've overdone the decorations, just so I can see something GREEN!
By January, I've convinced myself that you can't leave your Christmas greens up too long...until the first seed catalogue arrives. I toss it aside, remember all the work of the previous summer and make plans to go to a 12 step program. I'm told that I can't bring tomato sandwiches to the meetings.
By February, I'm asked not to come back. Someone noticed potting soil under one of my fingernails. Plain brown envelopes begin arriving in the mail. I don't know anyone named Burpee or Parks. I shake them, it sounds like.....SEEDS! Embarrassed, I hide them in the basement.
By March 1, I remember that there are a few peat pots left from the previous year. What harm could be done by potting a few seeds?? I tell myself that they look lonely....They need little more little friends...I need MORE!
By April, there are glass shelves in the windows, bright lights mounted next to them, black trays full of tiny plants everywhere, more seed catalogues... just in case...I black out and order some tomato varieties I don't have...They arrive too quickly. I call in sick to work and rush to Lowe's for just a few more peat pots and a pass through their garden section...Wrong move.
May 1, everything is out of control!! My neighbor has dared to add another 2 feet of space to his pitiful little garden plot. I whip out the mother of all rototillers and add 3 feet to mine. I have no intentions of planting all of this space, but I want him to see that mine is bigger. The little plants have to come out of the house and into the ground. It should only take a day of work. I'm not planting much this year. I'll give away the extra seedlings and let the grass grow back in that extended 3 feet I tilled.
May 10, Scratch the previous plan of cutting back. I'm almost done with the planting. I just need to find a home in the ground for a few more of my babies. We've bonded, I can't abandon them.
June...I wait...I water...I watch...I go to the grocery store and purchase fresh salt, fresh pepper, new shakers, and only Hellman's mayonaise. I check the price of tomatoes..."Vine Ripened" my a--!
July, August, September, October...Roadside/Store bought tomatoes...3 pounds $1.00...MY tomatoes...PRICELESS!!
But I'm not going to do it again next year......
There are several things that motivate me to garden, but cost is pretty far down the list. I am sure that if I took the actual cost of the garden that I could buy more frozen/canned produce than I harvest from the garden.
But there are two things that stand out -- taste and satisfaction.
There is just nothing that compares with fresh asparagus. I mean REALLY fresh, as in get the water boiling before cutting it. Another example is tomatoes -- the commercial varieties are bred for good shipping and consistency, not for taste. Farmer's market produce comes close, but the taste of stuff fresh from the garden just cannot be beat. (Then there's the experience of picking the raspberries off the bush and popping them directly into the mouth.)
On the other hand, there are things that I can grow in my garden but don't because I don't consider them worth the effort. Cauliflower is an example -- I can buy frozen cauliflower at reasonable prices and the taste compares favorably with what I can achieve by freezing it myself. I just don't consider the incremental improvement worth my time to plant, tend, harvest, and process it.
I do get satisfaction from growing my own food. I enjoy my vegetable garden, but it's only one of the activities I enjoy in the summer. I try to do two things to avoid burnout. First, I make an effort to limit how much I plant. Second, I try to develop techniques like mulching that reduce the amount of time it takes to maintain the garden. The idea is to avoid standing in the garden in July, overwhelmed by the amount of work that is needed to maintain it.
You're BOILING your asparagus?
Try steaming it instead.
Andy writes:
Yeah. De acuredo !! I live in a heavily forested area and have all the oak leave I can carry..... This year, I am going to clear off most of Texas to try the mulch thing since there are few things I would like to avoid more than an aerobic workout with a hoe........ Never tried cauliflower, but thanks for the tip.... I'll buy it.... However, tomatoes are expensive here,.... comparitively, and if I buy $5 worth of plants from Home Depot, I can grow $100 worth of tomatoes...... Unfortunately, I can only eat about $25 Another hobby I think I'll take up is making salsa, or some kind of dip, that I can "process"..... I hate to throw them out when they go bad.... and my neighbors won't answer the door in the summertime if they see me coming with a sack......
Still, I enjoy the hell out of it......
After 40 years as a "technical dude" before retirement, this gardening thing is a welcome pastime..... even with the labor involved...
Andy in Eureka, Texas
Um, maybe he's steaming it over the boiling water???
Priceless.
Been there, am there, will do it again.....sigh.
Charlie
Your steaming your asparagus? Try grilling it for 3-5 minutes per side. There should be little discolorization marks from the heat when you turn them. Disregard, if you like them mushy.
- Bill Coloribus gustibus non disputatum
You're GRILLING your asparagus? Try eating it as it's growing, on your hands and knees with your hands deep in the good, loamy earth, and the warmth of the sun on your back. Now, THAT'S good eatin'!
You're grilling your asparagus? We snap them off and eat them raw, standing in the garden. :)
I've gotten so few spears so far, we do exactly that!
Too tempting to wait. ;-d
Dang, outflanked. I sit corrected. But, while we're on the subject, where does the vinaigrette or the hollandaise come in?
-Bill Cloribus gustibus non disputatum (mostly)
I use lemon butter personally. ;-d
Who's kidding who? Forget the asparagus and eat the hollandaise sauce directly.
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