[Contrary Housewife]

The seed catalogs have started to arrive. I'm not going to go nuts with ordering this year. I don't have good luck starting from seed, so I'm thinking I'll buy plants from the community garden and local nurseries this year. Except for radishes and lettuce, and other greens, which seem to do okay if I can get them in at the right time in early spring. Hoping nature cooperates and we have just the right amount of rain.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Hikr, we bought an automatic timer for the garden. It attaches to the tap. We can set it to water for a certain time, daily, weekly, etc as needed. It has helped so much. We have found that the more expensive ones (~$30) are much better than the cheap ones, which tend to break in less than a year.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Hikr, we had one of these for a few years, and then we got a similar style from ACE hardware:

Orbit 62061Z Single-Outlet Hose Watering Timer, 1, Green

Buy Orbit 62061Z Single-Outlet Hose Watering Timer, 1, Green at Amazon. Customer reviews and photos may be available to help you make the right purchase decision!

www.amazon.com

DH suggests you do not attach it directly to the house tap, but make a short length of adapter hose. Otherwise it leaks from the pressure of the timer pulling down on the tap.

Also we take it off at the end of the season, keep it inside during winter, and get fresh batteries in the spring.

We set ours to go off early in the morning, at or before sunrise. That gives the water a chance to soak in. Sprinklers need to run an hour or more in order for 1" of water to soak in. Tomatoes need 6" of water per week, so pretty much daily watering.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Jetts, it can be tough to get good results from containers without a lot of expense and effort. The large pots or barrels you need cost a lot, and the high quality dirt you need costs a lot, and they take daily maintenance. IMO, pots dry up too fast, miss watering on a summer day and stuff dies.

Considering the cost of seed these days, I think I'm better off buying plants this year.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Hikr, I think of the old farmer's rhyme when I plant seeds:

One for the worm, one for the crow,
One to die, and one to grow."

And then plant 4 seeds for every plant I hope to have. (But not in the same pot, you don't want them competing for nutrients)

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Hungry deer will jump a 6-10 ft fence anyway. I'd suggest looking up plants that they don't like, and ones that are deterrents, try a mix in your garden.

Unless you want a guard dog.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Our community garden opened on the first. I'll get over there sometime this month. I want to put onions in again this year. Thinking about starting peppers and tomatoes indoors soon. Have a lot of seed left from last year.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

We're not out of the cold yet, but these are in my front flower bed.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Deer are welcome to eat the cedars here, they are invasive and suck water away from native species.

It was 74 today, DH and I pruned out 1/3 of the overgrown Burning Bush in our front yard. DH was also able to use the saw on some pesky trash trees in my wildflower bed on the side of the garage. It's supposed to get cold and wet later this week, with temps in the 30's by next Sunday, so it's good we could do this now.

I'm looking through my box of seed from last year. I have:

2 kinds of tomatoes
bok choy*
sage
coriander
a giant pepper I did not try last year (was a freebie)
beets*
snap peas*
3 zucchini/squash (dated 2021, may not grow)
2 radish*
chive
another tomato
chamomile
spinach*
lettuce*

* denotes seeds I can plant after March 15

I can go tomorrow, get my membership card with the community garden, and see if they have onion sets. Those can go in soon, too.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

I forgot the seeds I had in the kitchen. Some of these did not get planted last year.

pickling cucumber
bush beans
giant snow peas*
swiss chard*
shishito pepper
cucumber
rainbow beets*
mesclun (lettuce mix)*
thai basil

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Got my garden membership today. It comes with 10 free packs of seed, but they did not have the lettuce yet, and that is all I need right now. I bought enough onion sets to do one row. I got my free bag of chicken poo fertilizer. Also took two free buckets from the big pile that had been donated.

We have several days of rain coming, so I reminded DH to weed-and-feed the grass, but I'm sure he'll "forget".

 

[Contrary Housewife]

It may be a couple of weeks. I can go in anytime during the growing year, they give us a punch card and just mark off when we use our benefits. Next month I'll be able to buy a certain number of seedlings for reduced prices. Considering how expensive plants got at local nurseries that is a big help.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Redspruce, that's a good collection. Many I have never heard of, and probably wouldn't grow here.

I've got a lot of flower seeds I am debating planting. I've had fabulous sunflowers in the past, last year was a complete bust, and I can't grow zinnias to save my life, even though everyone says they are easy. But the pretty seed packets always catch my eye.

I think I got rid of everything from 2020 and earlier, but I'll have one more sort to be sure.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Well, the 2020 seed might come up, or it might not. If it doesn't, then I've wasted two weeks. So I try to buy new seed every 2 years. I think some seeds just last longer, and some have better germination rates to begin with. I had a lot of seed last year that simply did not grow, and it was all from one brand.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

The price of seed went up dramatically after 2020. Some companies started offering less seed in order to not have to raise prices. Sometimes, if a variety is very new the amount of seed is limited, too. There's been a few times I've been surprised like that.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Onions are in. Man, am I out of shape. I got winded digging a shallow 8ft trench, I'll never be able to hide bodies if this keeps up.

Garlic is up all over, as are strawberries. Some had to be sacrificed for the onions. I also weeded a bit and pulled last year's asparagus canes.

I'll try and remember to check the community garden for lettuce tomorrow.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

I almost bought leek starts today at the community garden but decided against it. They need so much water and it gets so hot and dry here in the summer. Picked up a packet of "salad bowl" lettuce seed. The clerk at the garden said they were expecting their blended multicolor lettuce seed any day now, but that's what they told me last week...

I may try to plant these tomorrow. We're expecting a storm tomorrow night, so they'll get watered in good.

Stopped at one hardware store looking for dirt, they still have ice melt out front. I think I'm getting low on potting mix, too.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Thought this might be useful to someone:

Grow Food In 5 Gallon Buckets - 15 Fruits & Veggies That Thrive

A 5 gallon bucket can be an incredible useful thing. There are many ways to use them around your homestead. One of the most obvious ways to use these reclaimed containers is to grow food. There are

www.ruralsprout.com

Grow Food In 5 Gallon Buckets – 15 Fruits & Veggies That Thrive

 

[Contrary Housewife]

All you guy's seedlings look great. Maybe too early and cold here but I found a coupon for the hardware store and I think I'll go tomorrow or Tues to get some potting soil. I can at least get it mixed with last year's dirt and start getting it into starter pots. I don't have room indoors to keep many of them and the grow lights and grow tent last year was a complete disaster. I'll have to put things out for sun once they come up.

I also want a bag of dirt (or three) for each of my raised beds. We didn't start with much, plan was to add more each year.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Bought potting soil and topsoil today. The topsoil actually looked pretty good, had organic material in it (better than our yard). Hard to believe 1 cu ft is so heavy. Dumped one in the strawberry bed and spread it a bit. The plants will grow through it, and the rain this week will help. Put lettuce and spinach seed down in my other raised bed, dumped the other bag of dirt on top. Voila, seed planted. Put the 4th side on the strawberry bed. Still have some aggressively weedy tree seedlings to prune out before it will sit in place properly.

Our local area ACE hardware has seeds 4/$1, though the selection is not very large in the brand on sale. I got chives, basil, sunflower, and a sweet pepper blend.