Pricing nonsense

Just back from H. Depot and W-Mart. I wanted to buy some garden fertilizer and a patio tomato. For 10-10-10 fertilizer the price was just $20.00 for a 40 lb bag (or $0.50/lb) in each store. ISTM that the price has taken a huge jump this year. IIRC the last time I bought fertilizer (two years ago) it was about $0.10/lb. Is my memory correct?

For a single patio tomato W-Mart wanted $3.48. The clerk was dumbfounded when I told her to take it back. My logic goes like this...If I nurture this plant and it grows well, and sets fruit etc, I can expect to get about three pounds of fruit from it. This will occur at about the same time that the Jersey tomato crop comes in and they sell for about $0.39/lb. So my $3.48 investment and work will return me about $1.00. Does this seem to be good sense to you?

Could it be that because people cannot afford food the stores are gouging of gardening stuff? Your thoughts??

EJ in NJ

Reply to
Ernie Willson
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UPSIDE Good exercise Improving the environment by making topsoil Tomatoes with flavor (not grown for shelf life) Picking tomato fresh when you want it No insecticide residue to add to the chemical soup inside you Good ol' American independence from the system

DOWNSIDE Buying at infamously employee-unfriendly Wally World (buy from local nursery instead, keep the money in town)

Reply to
Billy

Where I live they're all carrying the expensive, over-priced Bonni veggie plants. Since I have a hobby greenhouse and a sunroom, I start my own veggies for a fraction of the rip-off prices stores charge. I use to start them in a large south facing window. They do fine.

Yes, fertilizer has gone up in the past 2 or 3 years.

Reply to
Hedda Lettis

Try buying organic fertilizer ( I just can't make enough compost for my needs). A 40 pound bag of Plant tone (5-3-3) is 23.98 here. I usually buy about 200 pounds. It's a must have as I refuse to use chemicals on my land.

Late last summer I went to buy some cabbage plants for a fall crop. The price was 3.49 for a 4 cell pack of plants. That's just obscene. I built a rack large enough to hold 4 flats of plants ( 2 flats on each of 2 levels). I bought 2 4 foot shop fluorescents and 4 full spectrum tubes for less than $50 and I'm growing my own plants. I've already planted 4 dozen cabbage, 6 dozen lettuce, 4 dozen broccoli, 2 dozen cauliflower and 2 dozen bulbing fennel in the garden. I currently have under the lights 1 flat of rhubarb, 1 flat assorted heirloom tomatoes, 1 flat peppers and 1 flat peanuts.

I've probably got less than $75.00 invested including seeds and the rack & lights should last for years. Steve

Reply to
Steve Peek

Makes absolutely imperfect sense. If you were growing for $ profit, you wouldn't be in the position you are now by having to get a plant from a retail outlet. So, explain again your goals in the past and now, and why those 2 might have changed or ignored the current market if not changed...

Corporate America will make a profit off those not independent enough to anticipate their moves. Last warning for those anticipating growing for thier own seed...

Reply to
Dioclese

Amen Brother, I've been preachin' this for years and I ain't been hearing much agreement, 'cept from the few of you.

Charlie

(kinda sorta related, attitudinally anyway)

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Reply to
Charlie

Translation from the Chamber of Commerce: You snooze. You Lose.

Reply to
Billy

This is one of those "fractional entendre" thingies, isn't it, Dave?

Who or what is hiding?

What numbers?

What politicians?

A mind is a terrible thing to lose, Dave.

Reply to
Billy

In article , Charlie wrote: Jabbering by Dioclese -----> ?

talking about how the Romans went back to a subsistent, self sufficient society, just before they went down the tubes. We gotta get all these smart guys (and gals) together to hash this out before they start sending mixed messages. Uh, yeah, too late, huh?

And in closing, let me remind you of where Willie Sutton found money. Slowly, I'm thinking that an unregulated, armed mob, might get some to sit up and pay attention (not that I would ever advocate that).

Second night in a row that the temps are plunging towards freezing. Schlept up all my seedling and brought them inside. Gets an ol' man to wheezing, up and down this hill. Looks like warmer weather from here on out though. April 15 is or AVERAGE last freeze.

Reply to
Billy

Uh, yeah...I fear so.

Yeah, there might be hell to pay in urban areas. That scenario could likely play out and I'm damned glad I am pretty far removed from many of the potential hot spots. What is the figure? Off the top o' me head, doesn't something like eighty percent of the population of the US live within two hundred miles of a coast?

Tired of it we are, no? I was nearly asleep the other night and remembered that I had some plants toughening up and had to scamper out in me skivvies and barefeet and haul them in. That old hill is keeping you truckin', old friend! Shoot, our average last frost date is May

  1. Sheesh.

Charlie

"Success in any endeavor requires single-minded attention to detail and total concentration." -- Willie Sutton

Reply to
Charlie

Reply to
Dioclese

Sounds similar to your take on soils with some significant carbon in them you recently posted. You're still confused by facts and at loss of use of common sense in making sense of it all. Its okay to be scared, Nancy.

Reply to
Dioclese

It's OK everybody. It's just nutty Dave.

Reply to
Billy

It's OK everybody, it's just Dave, the right-wing nut case, equivocating as usual. No facts. No logic. Just a sock puppet regurgitating what he was told to say.

Tea Parties Forever

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crop of nuts though.

Anybody you'd like us to call Dave?

Reply to
Billy

He said it was fun too ;O)

Reply to
Billy

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Reply to
Charlie

Tea Parties Forever

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>

Nice crop of nuts though. We got Dave (Dioclese) and Hedda.

Been buying organic almonds for years. Never had a problem. I can see both sides, though. Seems if people are informed, it's their right to make a choice. The organic label is the only assurance that we are given, that we aren't buying frankenfood. I can see this as a ploy to make all food, standardized factory food. Isn't that what we've been pissing and moaning about, lo these many years?

Now, my feet have gone to sleep and the rest of my body is following. Buenos noches, amigo.

Reply to
Billy

Si`. It's either grow yer own, or.......

En la manana, hermano. Carlito

Reply to
Charlie

I couldn't agree more. Fresh food is well worth the extra cost, and if you can get your initial plants from a local nursery (which will likely be more expensive than Wal-Mart), then you are helping the community as well.

What I would do is buy a 6-pack of tomatoes instead of one plant. They are a lot cheaper in the 6-packs, and you'd get more food from them.

--S.

Reply to
Suzanne D.

space depending you could get a mobile chicken coupe.

chicken muck is fantastic fertilizer, and where ever chickens are the following year the soil should be good.

not only that but you get eggs and sunday lunch too :)

i keep toying with the idea of getting half a dozen for my back garden.

Reply to
bigmike20vt

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