Saturday, March 28, 2009

Garden Spending

It's early in the season, but I've already spend some money on what will be my vegetable garden. So far I've just had 2-3 expenses:

Seeds- $15.00
I went in with a group of ladies to buy vegetable seeds. We came up with a list of what we were interested in, one person ordered it all online, and we did an even cost split. The other day we had a seed party where we planeted seeds that need time to germinate and took others home in baggies.

Jiffy Seed Starter Greenhouse- $8.00
I thought I'd use eggshells, paper towel cores, and other hacks I've seen around the internet. The original plan had been to split the seeds into containers and plant at home. But once they were in some of the seeds were so tiny the lady in charge reccomended planting at her place. The seemed like the easiest way to plant then transport without getting dirt all over my car.

The kit has 72 peat pellets that expand when watered. Netting that will eventually decompose holds it together. Each pellet gets a seed or two and the lid + warm environment provides the humidity to get seeds going. Though it's made of plastic, the outer part of the kit (tray & lid) can be reused for years to come. This was a little less, $6.99 + tax, but I bought a lot of things on this trip and can't don't want to spend the time to figure out tax.

Vermicompost bin- approx $30
I started this project last fall and can't remember exact prices. I used 2 rubbermaid bins, a borrowed drill, and $10 of worms to get started. This project was all start up costs. Shredded newspaper/junk mail with banking info/paper towel cores/cardboard (all already in the house) make their bedding. Our fruit and vegetable scraps are their food. All in all it's been an easy, non smelly process that will reduce costs when I buy soil.

Still to come:
Lumber- $30-50
Nails & such- $20-30
Soil-$20-30

1 comment:

Alger said...

Thanks for the push. I'm going to get started on this myself today.