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It's time ~ the garden goes from hobby to necessity

32K views 548 replies 57 participants last post by  peanut 
#1 · (Edited)
Just returned home from my Dollar General coupon day (spend $25 - save $5...do it right, spend exactly $25 & it works out to 20% off everything you buy. That's all those $1 items now costing .80 cents)...My DG lets me do as many 'deals' as I want and I calculate them right to the penny of $25.... $25 worth of goodies for $20!!!

But this story is not about DG - so anyway, as I was driving home I noticed that gas has now gone up to $3.79 gal (that's 10 MORE cents since yesterday)....this is not good folks!

The weather is breaking and I have been staring at my garden plot in the backyard for the past few weeks, saying to the DH that I will once again plant a garden for us (Dh laughs hysterically at this comment every time. Where is the moral support here)...

Every year I plant. Some come up, most don't. The ones that make it above the dirt I somehow kill (by lack of water or weed takeover - I admit it...I kill them).

This year must be different. This year I can no longer call the plot my hobby that I can abandon at will when I grow tired of it. This year a garden is going to become a necessity everyone. Prices are going thru the roof and I see no end in sight.

You may say that not everything has gone up but let me tell you. I work in a grocery store. I watch items come in everyday that are now much larger packaging but have reduced contents inside and the prices are still the same. The manufacturers are playing with us consumers and your prices are very much going up on everything!

We need to do every tiny thing we can to keep as many of our dollars in our pockets as possible. A garden is one of the greatest ideas ever invented. It's very little outlay and a boatload of sweat equity. But the rewards can be stupendous!

I have a girlfriend who has a canner & the knowledge to use it so I made a deal with her the other day that if the garden has a bounty this year she comes with her supplies and shares the knowledge and I will share the bounty and we will can, can, can till we can can no more....
 
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#246 ·
Pam, there's also something to knowing where your food came from, who handled it, how it was grown and with what fertilizers and chemicals if any, and the pride and satisfaction of a job well done when you bring in a good harvest. Those things can't really have a price put on them, but that doesn't mean they have no value.

I don't know if your question was rhetorical, or maybe addressed to Scott alone, but I'll answer anyway. We do many things that can't be justified just in dollars and cents. We live on seven acres on a beautiful 2,500 acre deep-water lake. We could live elsewhere for a lot less, but we like the lake. It's like a beautiful picture that changes every five minutes. We love the wildlife here. We love laying in bed at night and listening to the wolves howling and the loons calling to each other on the lake. We also like to travel. We travel relatively cheaply by towing our pop up camper, but the initial set-up costs are expensive and have to be counted in the cost of each trip, even though the trailer is paid for. The trailer may have paid for itself by now though, in savings from hotel rooms we didn't stay at, restaurant meals we didn't eat because we could do our own cooking, and gas we didn't have to buy to drive to attractions from a hotel vs. staying at or near the attraction in a campground. At any rate, we get nothing from our vacation dollars but fantastic pictures and memories, things it's hard to put a dollar amount on. Those are our biggest splurges with little or no monetary return. Although I guess from an investment standpoint, our home will probably turn out to be a huge financial gain for us if the value keeps going up like it has been.
 
#247 ·
Really think about what organic costs at the grocery store. An organic green pepper here costs $7. I bought almost 18 plants for that! Yes i have extra water bill but i would never know what it is because i use so much to water my animals anyway. I did spend for the compost, and 30 hanging baskets. I will be able to reuse the hanging baskets. Compost will have to be gotten again next year.
 
#248 · (Edited)
A friend of mine built his wife a greenhouse and spent in excess of $1300 and she brags how much money she is saving by not buying at the local nursery.

Well, she brags until I point out the cost of her greenhouse, the cost of heating it for 2 months, the electric to run the pump to water the plants.. etc etc.

Then I tell her I'm jealous and sometimes think about building one.

It's all about what you want to spend your money on. I think we all know we're not saving a ton of money, but I also think most of us know that's not the only point of gardening.

Mine is simply because I enjoy it and have done so since I was a young boy.
 
#250 ·
I enjoy getting the fruits and veggies from my garden, but also the mental therapy I get from planting, pulling weeds, and tending my plants is priceless. I can be stressed to the max, but after an hour pulling weeds, I'm tired, but relaxed again. Gardening allows my mind to rest.
 
#252 ·
Time is not a consideration in the whole thing for me because I am an unemployed housewife anyways. I do it because I like it. But I DO like it to pay off. And as the OP mentioned, at $7 for a green pepper, it doesn't take much.

DH uses it as stress release, so I encourage gardening for him, and I don't care how much it costs. It's cheaper than a psychologist and a shrink.

Most of our plants are acquired free online through a swap group we belong to. This year I am waiting for the annual tomato plant give away.

I prefer to put food producing crops in our space, just to make good use of the land. Also because I know a lot of people who don't have enough food to put on the table, and I like to contribute a bit every now and then.
 
#254 ·
Part of the reason that we garden is to give the guys something to do. I have teen boys. Boys aren't known for their, um, best choices if left to their own devices.

They also like to eat what is grown. I give a child a bowl and tell him to go pick tomatoes. Later on, the bowl is sitting empty on the table. I then ask whomever had the chore to do his chore again and I get a little sheepish grin from the child and him saying that he did it and that he ate all of them. People think that I am a freak for planting like 20 tomato plants, but that is the only way I get any into the house to use for meals. And, with that many plants, I still only get a handful that actually make it into the house. I think I got three "batches" to the house last year and that was only because one of the times I had to do the "mom death threat" because we needed the tomatoes for dinner (BLT's).
 
#256 ·
Sounds familiar, Zakity. I once had our kids pick a five-quart ice cream pail full of cherry tomatoes to take on a camping trip. We lived in Minneapolis at the time, and I found out later none of the tomatoes made it past the northern suburbs.

They were pretty tasty that year... :)
 
#257 ·
Zakity, i am just going to dry the leaves. The stem has no sweet in it. I am going to dry mine then use it just like sugar. You can use this for anything in place of sugar.
 
#259 ·
When you are substituting stevia for sugar in your recipe, keep in mind that stevia is almost 10 times sweeter than sugar! This means that you'll need to use significantly less stevia than you would sugar.




A basic rule is as follows: 1 cup of sugar = 1 teaspoon of stevia.







Stevia is available in powder form or liquid form. Here is a basic conversion chart:
Sugar ------------ Powdered Stevia------------- Liquid Stevia
1 cup--------------1 teaspoon-------------------1 teaspoon
1 tablespoon-------1/4 teaspoon-----------------6 - 9 drops
1 teaspoon---------1/16 teaspoon----------------2- 4 drops
 
#260 ·
The strength of the stevia depends on the brand and type. I use 1/2 tsp. for every cup of sugar. The brand I use is the NOW white powdered stevia extract. I find 1 tsp. enough to bring out the bitter taste in the stevia. I'm not fond of that.

The sun has finally come out! Kind of...There are dark clouds all around. I think I'll wait a bit before sallying forth into my garden for a look...
 
#261 ·
Just got done planting more impatient seeds in the front. Was also able to plant some basil, italian parsley, and romaine lettuce. Am happy to say the spinach is sprouting. Just hope I didn't wait to long to plant it.

Really hope the seeds do well this year. My little potted garden will hopefully help with the grocery bill. If not it just gives me something to do.
 
#262 ·
I use stevia too. And, yeah, the different brands are way different in their sweetnesses. I use both the liquid and the powder.

I tried the ground up leaves in my tea but had to add so much in to get it sweet that it was more like drinking "grass" than tea.
 
#264 ·
Well I stopped by the nursery today to look at things. Their pot liners are $40 for a 5' x 2' sheet of moss!!! And their hanging tomatoes are all gone. In fact, most of their hanging vegetables are gone already. I'd like to know where people are putting them when it's freezing overnight here still. Hmm...still got to check out the other nurseries.
 
#265 ·
They were dry, ground up leaves. I put them in my hot tea to sweeten it and it just sort of sat on top and didn't really sweeten it. And then, when I drank it, well, I gagged. The powder stuff just sort of sat on top and didn't mix in. I went back to the processed stevia stuff.
 
#266 ·
crafypam, i am drying what i picked today. I have never tried it before since this is the first time that i have grown it. Also I tried growing from seed, i planted 40 seeds and none came up.
 
#267 ·
I had to buy a plant. And, it is supposed to be an annual, but mine doesn't die. I have it in a pot and I bring it in for the winter. When spring comes around, the old stuff dies off and the new stuff starts sprouting.


Ok, just googled, apparently is an perennial, but only in the right place.
 
#268 ·
Thanks freebs and zakity

peanut; I planted the upside tomatoes if that is what you are talking about. In my experience there wasn't much yield. If that is what you want to grow; you can get a terra cotta pot and macrame hangers and make them up yourself. I found the hangers at resale shops and walmart.
 
#269 ·
Thanks Craftypam. Not what I was thinking about. I was thinking about the tumbling tiny cherry tomatoes. So good on salads, and to eat out of hand. Also last year they sold some hanging cucumbers, which were very good. Didn't see any of them there either this year. Oh well...we'll make do with what we can find.

DH was out working in the yard today. He is gradually getting rid of the fence. He's saving some to edge the flower beds, and some to make a firewood bin, and some to make a table vegetable bed for me, I hope.

Tomorrow is supposed to be nice and sunny. I plan on joining him out in the yard. We have a lot of work to do...
 
#270 ·
My local green house sold the hanging baskets with the the tomatoes in them but they had a certain tomato in it to make a great hanging basket, they trailed instead of grew straight up. I need to fnd out what kind it was as i would like to sell some next year!

WTG on getting things done Peanut~

EVeryones gardens sound like they are coming along great!! I had my first garden harvest yesterday!It wasnt alot but it was nice to see it starting to produce!!
 
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