GardenHacker: not your typical seedy site...

Let the Games Begin!

Hard to believe it's almost the end of April! Started the snow peas outside earlier last week, they're starting to poke through the soil. Keeping them under row covers and keeping the mulch hay nearby in case of frosts. Using PlanGarden up 'til May at least. I like it, as it's handy for jotting down notes, but I'm not thrilled with the interface as of yet. We'll see if I go for a full three years, give it a good run for just one year, or go back to my excel spreadsheet.

Started two beds that will be facing off this season: one "Lasagna Garden" plot of 3.5ftx3.5ft (1.1 meters by 1.1 meters, give or take), and a comparable "square foot garden" bed. The "Lasagana Garden" will have approximately 18" (46 cm) of materials layered according to the book, substituting hay and compost for those layers, and the "square foot garden" is set up with the square foot garden mix of 1/3 peat (couldn't get coir nearby), 1/3 compost, and 1/3 vermiculite.

I was curious as to what it would cost to build a square foot bed "from scratch" by buying the materials from the store. If you were living in an apartment or a condo that forbade digging in your strip of the lawn, you'd need to make a patio garden, and probably buy the materials. Glad I decided to just do a small plot instead of a row:

1. 2 cu ft (.06 cu m) of compost: $12.90
2. 2 cu ft of sphagnum peat: $ 9.95
3. 2 cu ft of vermiculite: $19.95 - ouch.

So - to fill a 3.5ft x 3.5ft raised bed with "square foot garden mix" it cost $42.80 plus applicable tax. To put that in perspective of my whole garden, that would be &183.43 per row, or $1467.43 plus tax for the whole garden (eight rows, 360 sq ft, 33.4 sq m). Of course - if you were going to buy all of that, you'd buy in bulk, so it would cost less. I'd gotten a quote from someone down the street for "seasoned" horse manure (has sat outside, hasn't been fully composted) of $50 for 48 cu. ft, so two loads would cover the compost needs, etc.

Each raised bed will have two tomato plants (Rutger's Hybrid), Two peppers (1 sweet, 1 hot, don't know which ones yet), Cilantro, and onions for a "salsa garden". The garlic I'll get elsewhere. The yields will be counted and hopefully by then I'll have found a better way to show the information for the two.

Gardening Online - Plan Your Garden at PlanGarden.com!

This didn't really fit any of my categories, but it's worth noting. A 45 Day no risk trial, $20/Yr or $36/3 Yrs, you can plan your garden online, share your plan with others, critique and share ideas. Great idea, but the 1 yr subscription should be lower, say $14.95. At $36 for three years, that's a dollar a month - not a bad price, but they'll have to prove themselves first IMHO, as $36 is a lot of seed, quite a bit of fertilizer, or a third of our weekly grocery bill.
The program is layed out very nicely, giving you grids for square foot gardening, start and transplant dates for veggies, harvest information and more. The interface is quite good, though I'd like to see the ability to move blocks of information around (say, grabbing the whole plot and moving it over, as I'm going to be rotating crops and moving each veggie's going to be a bit of a pain).

Hoping the best for this program, and hoping to find enough in my budget to utilize it this year. 4/3/08 - Update: I have to say, I like it. It grows on you (pardon the pun). Should be able to schedule my plantings easier than using the Excel Spreadsheets I've been accustomed to using.

Cold Weather Hack

Been posting mostly to my gardenhacker.ning.com site, but I haven't abandoned this one. There's a good little article that has a nice hack for those of us who recycle more than they buy gadgets. No slight against wall-o-waters, many friends swear by them. This one could take place of them in case one of yours breaks or you need something extra: "...Ed just sets a bottomless bucket over each plant and, when the weather is cold, snaps the bucket's lid in place. If unseasonable cold threatens, he adds insulation -- crumpled newspapers stuffed in the empty spaces..." full article here.