That's the inside of the trunk of my car. This represents the beginning of the 2021 gardening season. I'm going to take a bit of a different approach this year, taking cues from my neighbor who is a master gardener from what I can tell.
I can already tell it's going to be more expensive to garden this year. These 2 cu ft bags are priced 30% higher than last year. However, it's a national brand. I'm hoping the Amish keep their prices stable. We'll see.
I usually start these threads with a pic of my garden turned up. It's wet and cold and expected to stay that that way for a couple weeks anyway. I picked these up today because there was a President's Day sale and they put them in your car for you. Tractor Supply.
Anyone else getting in gear?
So far I've bought seeds and started looking up portable gardening options. The seeds I got came from the Dollar Tree and Home Depot--as a novice gardener, I don't want to work with expensive seeds at first. Plus I may be giving away some of these seeds if I run into neighbors, family members, friends, etc. who want to or need to grow food and can't buy seeds. (Last year I heard there was a seed shortage because everyone and their brother was putting in gardens, and the seed companies weren't ready for that. In case that happens again, I'd like to be prepared. LOL)
One thing I have to take into account is that there's a small rabbit that likes the visit the front yard and deer that visit the backyard. So I'm looking at options like grouping vegetables together with herbs in the same container--herbs that deer and rabbits don't like. Or surrounding my container gardens with marigolds. There are no fences and this isn't my property, so I have to look at non-barrier options. See why I bought cheap seeds? LOL If the animals get so hungry they'll do anything to get at the vegetables, there's a farmer's market around the corner. I won't starve.
Oh yeah, another thing I'm doing is opening and emptying my used K-Cups. Basically I peel the foil cover off, empty the coffee grounds in the trash (they can be saved for compost or soil amending but I'm not there yet). Then I rinse the cup out while gently to wash out any remaining grounds. The mesh filter stays in.
https://www.deathwishcoffee.com/blogs/news/k-cups-plant-seed-starters
I saved an egg carton to hold these K cups as I collect them (yes, there are people who have fished all their old ones out of the trash for this! ? )
I am doing a “Garden Leader Training” on Zoom, with a couple other ladies from my community garden. It’s a series hosted by the food bank garden project in my state. It’s been great so far! Informative and inspiring. It’s more centered around tools for community organizing and group leadership. It’s cool to hear about what other gardens have been doing in other areas of the state. This training series was previously hosted in person in an urban area, so I wouldn’t have attended or even known about it. Thanks to covid, it’s now being offered on Zoom, and we can tune in from the sticks. Silver lining, I guess
Also getting into gear with planning and starting seeds for my own garden at home. This will be my 5th season growing food for myself! It gets bigger and better every year.
I just cracked open a Hubbard squash that has been sitting in my basement since September. It stored perfectly well, and is a welcome shot of color at this point in the year! It’s not super sweet by itself, but it is simple and easy to prepare. I really wanted to teach myself pressure canning last year, and I thought that squash would be the perfect food to start with, but I didn’t have the space in my kitchen, and time ended up being an issue as well. Anyway, I came up with some solutions for that this year. And the cool thing about winter squash is that they preserve themselves. Now that I broke it down into chunks, I just put the extra in my freezer. I have plenty to go around, so I will be sharing. I also saved the seeds - rinsed then and set them out to dry for a few days. My community garden group decided that we will host an event in May to recruit new gardeners, and we will create a small seed bank to get people started. Seeds are addictive so I figured that’s one way to get people hooked