The Cheap Vegetable Gardener

Gardening with kids

18.1 years ago kids

The appeal of working in the garden has always been natural to my daughters. But then again what could be better than going outside playing with dirt and water. I do have a few tips I have picked up that might make it a little extra fun for the young ones:

• Let them have their own garden, not only does this give them their own space to play but also protects your own garden from their desire to keep digging. I made a little 2 foot square garden with one 8 foot length of 4X4 and a few long screws. Was the perfect size where she could reach everything from any side.
• Buy them their own gardening tools. Otherwise you might be fighting to get your claw and trowel away from them and also that little plastic watering can works great for gently watering those newly planted seedlings.
• Pick seed that work well with their little fingers. Some of my favorite seeds are peas, radishes, sunflowers, pumpkins, and cilantro.
• Start some seeds indoors. A little Dixie cup and some coconut coir works great and they can keep a close eye on it several times a day.
• Go to the nursery and buy some flowers. It is hard to be patient a $0.99 primrose can definitely hold the sprouts over while wait for their own to grow.

Not only can this be fun activity to together but also can be educational. I recall during a preschool planting activity where many parents were very impressed as my daughter teased the roots before she carefully placed her plant in her very well loosened soil.

Tags: cheap, cilantro, garden seeds, outdoor plants, vegetables

Strawberries in the PC Grow box (FINAL UPDATE)

18.1 years ago indoor growbox, strawberries

Okay, I promise this will be the last time I talk about our strawberry plant in the grow box. After a little more than a month in the grow box our plant went from a small lifeless plant to one that looks like will bear about 10 strawberries. We are planning on moving it to the garden with the rest our strawberry plants later this week to make room for the growing tomatoes.

How strawberry plant looked when we started 40 days ago.

Picture of my daughter showing off her strawberry before she ate the first one.

I sampled on the strawberries and must say I do miss “local” strawberries, looking forward to the rest of them in the next couple months.

Tags: cheap, growbox, led, outdoor plants, strawberry plants, tomato plants, vegetables

What is a lumen?

18.1 years ago indoor growbox, lumen

Lumen is a measurement of the intensity of light; one lumen is equal to the brightness of a candle at 1 foot away. Just to get an idea on a clear summer day by the time the light from the sun hits reaches us on earth it has an intensity of up to 10,000 lumens. If you wanted to simulate sunlight in your house you just need to hook up 6 (100 watt incandescent or 29 watt CFL) light bulbs and stand one foot away.

Fortunately plants only need 100 to 4000 lumens to sustain vegetative growth depending on the variety, so indoor growing can be setup fairly inexpensively. For example, with our strawberry plant in a grow box experiment we can get away with just 2 CFL bulbs and provide enough light to provide the 1500 lumen required to allow vegetation and flowering. All of this for about $1.00 a month of electrical usage, at $5.00 a pint for strawberries maybe I can make this profitable.

Tags: cheap, growbox, outdoor plants, strawberry plants, vegetables

Going on a worm hunt

18.1 years ago kids, worms

We had a good rainstorm the night before and my wife was returning from a neighbors house and noticed a bunch of worms crossing the street. Since she knows me and our girls so well she grabbed a couple Ziploc bags and we proceeded to have a worm hunt. Our older daughter didn’t want to touch them that morning but I was really proud of my wife who procedded to help collect some worms. Lets just say she normally is not a worm person.

Just for some history, last fall my oldest daughter wanted to have pet worms, I opted to suggest making a worm bin instead. Since I am a cheap vegetable gardener I wasn’t about to spend $20 for a pound of red wrigglers (Eisenia fetida) we spent a few evening catching our own.

After the worm hunt ground has finally thawed so took my daughters out to help take care of some of the weeding in our front garden beds. My 3 year old even started singing a gardening song. I believe it went something like “We are gardening, we are gardening”

Tags: cheap, vegetables, worms

Vegetable gardening may not be financially profitable during your first season

18.1 years ago kids

I was thinking back to my first vegetable gardening experience in suburbia a few years ago. After many trips to the local home and garden store I accumulated the following:

In the end of the season we probably grew about $5 worth of tomatoes and fresh flowers but doesn’t even compare to the quality time spent with my daughter watering and as she would say “picking food” which made that season especially profitable.

Tags: compost, garden seeds, organic vegetables, tomato plants, vegetables

Starting my first seeds of the season

18.2 years ago germination, indoor seed starting

My two daughters and I could not take it anymore and had to get our hands dirty and start some seeds indoors. Cute to hear my 3 year old say in the dead of winter “Can we garden now?” when it is 20 degrees outside and 4 inches of snow.

Given that our last frost date is March 15th and I don’t have a good southern facing window I might regret the early start but I always have my grow box if the steps start to get leggy. I was also thinking that my grow box would be a decent way to start hardening off young seedlings with wind and temperature a little more in my control.

I normally start my seeds with netted peat pellets, but this year for environment concerns and because I am cheap I went with coconut coir. I must say I love this stuff it retains water very well, which is great for those little seedlings. The kids also got a kick out of watching the little brick expand to half fill my 5 gallon bucket after adding the 5 quarts of water. Now one lesson learned is to cut that block up into small pieces especially if you are not doing all of your planting at once.

I was planning on starting some cucumbers, lettuce, and tomatoes but apparently I didn’t save any tomato seeds from last year so looks like I am stuck with the local seed selection this year. I didn’t have any small pots around so grabbed some of my kids’ water cups and cut a hole in the bottom and filled them full of damp coconut coir and let the excess water drain and put them in a strawberry container which may work as a nice little greenhouse. If you look close enough you can see some little sprouts already starting from the lettuce in just one day. I also cut the top off a 2 liter bottle to top off one of my terra cotta pots which I planted lavender.

Tags: cheap, garden seeds, growbox, led, outdoor plants, strawberry plants, tomato plants, vegetables