Garden (and life) updates!

Hello!

Life certainly gets crazy at times.  What started as a kitchen refresh since we had to address a plumbing problem turned into a full gut downstairs remodel.  There were a couple of structural issues found that resulted in removing almost all the walls on our first floor.  I keep telling myself that it's going to be beautiful when it's done...we just have to get to 'done'.  

We ended up having to stay at our lake place for almost a month.  Normally, I have no issue with staying at the lake but when you're well over an hour from home and your home has serious issues, it's a tad stressful!  And all I could do in the garden was watch it via the cameras!

My poor gardens!  Thankfully, we did put down weed barrier fabric so the weeds are just crazy at the edges.  Although it rained for days, we have great drainage in this garden as we're on a hill causing it to dry out a bit at times.  Even so, the garden is doing amazing!  

Check out these tomatoes!  I am almost 5'6" tall, that tomato plant is about TWO FEET taller than I am!  The tomatoes this year are so big and loaded with fruit that some of them are actually bending the larger tomato cages over!  I think next year I am going to plant them right up on the fence to help support the cages that are supporting the tomatoes!  LOL

Here are a few more random pictures from the garden!

Zuchinni

Tomatoes

Sugar Baby Watermelon - the squirrel let this one get big...he better continue to leave it alone too! 

Eggplants

Corn - a new variety I'm trying, it's designed to grow shorter and can even be grown in containers on porches...or so they say!

Cabbage, I used a row cover and am pretty impressed with the results. 

Beets

Cantaloupe, or the start of one

Peppers.  My garden book got packed, I must find it to see which variety these are, I planted several!  Note, it got so big that I had to put a tomato cage on it.

Tomatoes.  Hiding in the shade.

Acorn Squash, the first time growing it.

Cantaloupe, can't wait to see these ripen!

Cucumbers!  The first time growing them on the cow panels.

Green Beans, we're about to be overrun!

Spaghetti Squash.  A great substitute for spaghetti and it gets additional vitamins and nutrients in too!

You'll notice some of the leaves aren't perfect, but what garden doesn't have a bug or two? I've also planned some things to encourage the good bugs and bees too!  I intentionally moved some oregano to the openings in the cinder blocks of my raised beds away from the other herbs, and let it go to seed for the bees.

I even planted some flowers to attract bees in little pockets in the garden where plants didn't quite fill in.

So even though it was neglected for a few weeks, the garden is still doing well.  I am experimenting with cow panel trellis, MI Gardener has a great YouTube video on making one here.  We got the panels and T posts at Tractor Supply, they were very reasonable to purchase.  We were able to put six cucumber plants in an area that is roughly 5' x 6', the area where we would have had one *maybe* two plants vining on the ground.  This year we have these trellises for the Acorn squash, Butternut squash, Spaghetti squash and cucumbers.    Here's your laugh of the day, I have another one...I planted yellow squash around it.  Yellow squash does NOT vine.  I'll call it a blonde moment.  Next year that trellis will be for the pickling cucumbers.  LOL

The Eagle scout project was great in that all the infrastructure was put into place for the handicap garden.  We found a couple of issues that we will adjust.  The raised beds weren't built deep enough so we'll take those apart and correct that.  Minor in the big picture.  

It's about time to start our second round of planting.  Once we pull the rest of the beets and carrots, we'll plant another round in those raised beds.  We have one raised bed that is currently empty and I'll be planting more salad greens in that one.

So far, we've had 2 minor and 2 larger harvests and our donation amounts are up to 164 pounds of fresh produce and herbs.  We look forward to being able to do more.  

Remember to check on your neighbors! I know it's not winter time but when it's as hot as it has been, we should still check in on them to ensure they're ok!

Gram's Gardens...and so it begins!

 

For those of you who may not know, I was chosen as one of the Marion County Neighborhood Food Champions for the 2021 cohort!  I can't begin to tell you how excited I am about this.  

I kept telling myself that I needed to get back to writing in my blog but I believe I've shared before how much I struggled during my pandemic lockdown.  As one of my students said, I am seeing a light at the end of this tunnel and I'm pretty positive it's not the train!  I am fully vaccinated, my doctors are approving cautiously reentering public, I'm loving that I'm going to get to see my grandkids in person...those are some of my short people in the picture above!  In a few weeks, I'll even get to go to my new office on campus...I haven't even seen it yet!

Let me tell you about Gram's Gardens!  When I wrote my Food Champion proposal, I had broken the plan into four parts that would happen over multiple years until the plan was fully in place. 

*Phase one was expanding the donation garden.   

*Phase two is to create a handicap accessible (including wheelchairs) gardens.  There will be seating areas and accessible pathways.

*Phase three includes community plots that will be available to those without an area to garden (or want to learn from/with others while doing it), the donation for these plots will be low cost and we have supporters lined up who will help cover that donation if someone is in need of that.  The goal of this phase is that those who want to garden, can regardless of budgets.  

*Phase four is multi-faceted.  It includes an educational area so children from schools, scouts, etc. can learn about how to grow things.  It will also include volunteering so that elderly or shut ins who are unable to get to a food pantry/distribution can have it delivered to them.  This will allow volunteers who need community service hours to get them, an example of that being my son's school requires students to complete so many community service hours in order to graduate.  As a non-profit, we can sign off on those hours.

I'm so happy to share that we've expanded the donation garden to between 2000 and 2100 sq. ft.  Last year we donated over 500 pounds of fresh produce (less than 24 hours between picking and in the hands of the recipient) and our goal this year is 1000 pounds!

We're also able to announce that our timeline on the handicap accessible garden which will include the educational area has been moved up!  There is a Boy Scout who had his Eagle Scout project cancelled because of CoVid restrictions who is now taking this project on.  If you are so inclined to help him, please watch for a fundraising link for this as he has to do some fundraising as part of the project requirements.  We've been able to expand on how this will look as well.  There will be a raised bed (on the ground) that will be for flowers as I really want to include fresh flowers in the deliveries to the elderly and shut ins just to brighten their day.  We also have an artist friend who is going to help us include art in this garden, whether that is a changing art installation/exhibit or even a little library type of set up with art kits for children...watch for pictures of this!  This area, once it is available, will be experimental this season to work out any kinks in the set up.  We plan for it to be fully functional next season!

One major roadblock we are currently facing is in the form of a giant tree.  This tree is becoming the bane of my existence right now....

I'd like to point out that my husband is 6'4" tall.  I really, truly, honestly, dislike this tree!  If shading my garden area isn't enough, it's now been hit by lightening and really needs to come down before any more damage happens to it.  We'll be looking at possible grants to help with the removal of this tree.  

Anybody want any wood?  LOL

We'll be setting up "work days" to help get the garden ready and planted.  Sunday, we're finishing the building of the final three raised beds in the donation garden for lettuces, spinach, and peas, filling them and laying out the weed barrier fabric over the rest of the garden.  I'll keep y'all posted about work days if you'd like to join us for planting or harvesting as the season progresses!

Thank you to those who've helped and supported my idea to do this.  I can't wait to see what we can accomplish!

Please, feel free to hold me accountable for writing more consistently and to provide updates on Gram's Gardens!

Dee 🎕

Gram's Gardens!

 Hello everyone!

2020 has been quite the year, hasn't it?  I hope this finds you all safe and healthy!

I wrote about my husband suggesting I garden to help my mental state with being home and not being able to be social.  I often tell him, he's a genius!  His idea truly helped me psychologically and emotionally.  

I turned most of our backyard into a garden, about 1600 foot of it anyway.  I planted my normal garden things and I planted things I'd never grown before.  I experimented with ways of gardening I hadn't employed before.  It was therapeutic for me.  

I knew there would be far more than we needed to eat for our family so I'd arranged to donate the excess.  After what we ate, what I canned/dried/froze, and what we gave to family, we were STILL able to donate 521 pounds of produce.  I had a goal of donating 200 pounds, I had no idea we could more than double that!

I've often wondered why more people didn't garden.  I mean, I know I live in the city now but you don't need 1600 sq. ft. to garden to supplement your groceries.  I find a lot of people don't know how or are unsure how to start.  Many people prefer organics, the best organics you can acquire are those you grow!  When you grow your own fruits and vegetables, you know exactly how those items were cared for. Watching it all grow from dirt and seeds to a colorful sea of fruits and veggies is truly art in motion.

I've wanted to create a community garden for quite some time.  With my husband's encouragement, I've taken the steps to get things started.  I have created a non-profit called Gram's Gardens...yes, a play on my business, Gram's Jams, that I had to close when I got cancer.  To me, the name also harkens back to my own dear, sweet Gram.  She was a cook...in the old school sense of the word.  No one went hungry around Gram and there was always something homemade lurking somewhere in that kitchen of hers! She didn't have a huge garden (that was my wonderful Uncle Luke!) but she always had fresh produce.  I'm in my 50's now and some day, I will learn to cut a cantaloupe with the finesse she had!

Gram's Gardens will start by expanding and continuing the donation garden that we did last summer.  We also own an empty lot nearby that we will be turning into a Community Garden.  There are already some fruit trees there (apple, peach, and pear) and we will be expanding that and also planting some other fruits (strawberry, blackberry, grapes, and blueberries), probably some rhubarb too (even though that's icky...LOL).  I have to move a fence and have one large...really large tree taken down to open the lot up to the sun.  We'll then have plots for members of the community to be able to grow their own mini garden if they don't have their own yard.  I am also looking at a way to allow those with disabilities or others unable to garden on the ground to be able to garden.  I see built raised beds so those in wheelchairs can roll right up to them to garden or the elderly don't have to get on the ground to do so.  I remember when my Mom was in hospice, the highlight of her day was taking her outside to the raised beds, built so a wheelchair fit under them and she could garden from her chair.  More people need to have that available to them.  Fresh air and sunshine are good for everyone!

We'll be showing people how to garden in the Community garden and eventually, I want to make deliveries to elderly and shut-ins who are unable to go to the local pantry or the Farmer's market.

Our state paperwork has been approved, we have a Board of Directors, I've enrolled in Purdue Extension course on starting a farm (I know...but that is sorta what we're doing here) and I've applied for a City program that focuses on successfully running a non-profit to be a food champion...cross your fingers that I'm chosen!  Everything isn't going to happen in a day, or even in the first season, but we're on our way!  

I'm looking forward to getting this going and giving back to my wonderful community!

Wear your mask - Wash your hands - Social Distance - Be safe!

Closing the Garden

Hello everyone!  

Before we get into how to close your garden up for the Winter, I want to take a minute to ramble...

I've struggled a lot this Spring/Summer with the fact that I can no longer have a big garden.  My Asthma has gotten so bad that I just can't devote the time outside that the garden needs in the Summer time.  I won't lie, at first I was pretty angry about it.  I'm not a perfect gardener but I loved it.  It was awesome to watch the garden grow and progress over the months from seedling to produce.  Add to that the money saved at the grocery, the quality of fresh produce and the added benefit of fresh air and sunshine and it didn't get much better.  It was a somewhat bitter pill to swallow.  My husband, bless his heart, planted some tomato plants for me to be able to just go grab some fresh right before dinner.  

With my jam business, I was spending time at different Farmer's Markets a couple of times a month.  I would take a few minutes and wander around checking out things and talking with the other vendors.  I found wonderful produce, local cheese, flavored dried pastas as well as some other pretty amazing things.  We tried things that we wouldn't necessarily have tried had I been gardening and not taking the time to explore the various Farmer's Markets.  It took me a while to figure out how to "make the lemonade when I got the lemons handed to me" but I finally figured it out.  Talking to, and getting to know, the farmers helps you to figure out who really grows their stuff and who acts as a middle man for someone else.  You can learn about how things are grown, the processes used (organic or not, pesticide free or not, etc.) and where your food comes from.  It's fun, try it at the next market you visit.  You ARE visiting them, right???  LOL

Back to the garden...

A lot of people think that once your garden stops bearing produce that you're done.  You could be but if you take the time to "put the garden to bed" for Winter, you not only make your garden healthier but it sure does make the Spring easier to deal with.  Around here, it very well can be quite rainy and muddy in the Spring.  It's no fun to have to sludge through all that to pull last season's plants and get the soil ready for new plants.  There have been years where it is quite late before you can till the ground up.  Taking a little time right after the first good, hard frost will make the next Spring much, MUCH easier to deal with.

It's really not that hard to do either.  To start, just simply pull up any plants that remain in the garden, these will be great additions to your compost pile if you have one.  If you do have a compost pile, lay these spent plants aside for now, you'll add them to the compost pile later.  

Next, add some compost to the garden.  If you don't have a compost pile, you can buy it in bags or in bulk if you have a truck to haul it in.  This will add nutrients to the garden now and save you a little work next Spring.  Now, run the tiller and get the compost worked into the soil well.  This tilling also helps to eliminate some weeds in the Spring.  Personally, I'd go through at this point and rake it somewhat flat, if you're using border free raised beds (see the pic of how I used to garden in this blog post to see what I mean), rake the beds back into place.  At this point you can put the plants and things you pulled up into your compost pile, if you have one.

Then, you could plant "cover crops" like rye, clover, etc., but I have never done that.  I'll admit, it seems like a lot of extra work to prep the ground and plant something that I'm simply going to till under next Spring.  Since I've added compost to the garden before tilling it, I do something a bit different that does double duty in my opinion.  I cover the garden with straw, it's cheap and easy to toss on the garden.  In the Spring, you can rake it off the beds (or area you're going to plant in) and use it to cover walkways for the muddiness that tends to be Indiana Springtime.  Once Spring comes, it's nice to be able to go to the garden and rake away the straw and the garden is pretty much ready to start.

One final thing that I do is to review my Garden book.  If I haven't slacked over the course of the growing season, I've made notes that include what and how much of something I planted where (because crop rotation is important), what worked well where, if I had enough or too much of any one item.  I'll review these notes and make any additional notes or reminders for next year.  I know the book (just a spiral bound notebook for me) sounds silly, but I sometimes don't remember what happened yesterday let alone what happened with my tomatoes two years ago when they were planted near the fence.

Have a great day!

I'm still here!

Hello everyone!  I'm still here!  I got through the end of the semester and graduated with my Bachelor's.  I guess I'm a glutton for punishment as I am going back for Grad school.  Yikes!

I have had to come to face the fact that I can't handle the garden with my health.  By the way, Asthma and allergies suck a big one.  I was not going to plant a garden at all, but my wonderful husband did the work to get a small one ready.  He tilled the smaller of my two big beds and we planted a few tomatoes, some broccoli and cauliflower, cucumbers and we're using the containers again this year for lettuce and salad things.  It's not large by any means but we'll eat fresh stuff at meals.

I still intend on canning.  

This is where one thing I always tell people is going to come in handy.  When you go to Farmer's Markets or U-pick places, get to know  your farmers and produce vendors.  Make friends with them.  They'll be able to tell you how to pick the best produce, new ideas on how to use it and even leads to where you can find things they don't sell.  The farmers know each other, know of each other.  They can be great resources.  

We've met some wonderful farmers and vendors while visiting the various markets and I'm going to get produce from them.  I know their farming practices, know how they grow things.  I know where they grow them.  I will still be able to get quality produce in quantity to can, I just won't have to do the extra work in the garden.  I enjoy gardening, I just enjoy breathing a little more...LOL.

So, even though it is a little early for Farmer's Markets to have a full selection of produce in central Indiana, still visit them.  Meet the people.  Make friends.  You may find some baked goodies or some craft items while you're there!

Garden progression

Hello everone!  I hope you're all having a great day.  I'm working on more jams for the Farmer's Market that I'm involved with this year.  Today I'm de-seeding some raspberries and blackberries...I didn't shoot KitchenAid parts across the room this time either!  That's always a bonus!

I thought I'd share some of the progress of the new garden layout.  When it came time for the first weeding, it was relatively easy with the layout to do the bulk of it with the tiller.  These pictures are after just the tiller, I hadn't done anything else yet.

The corn.  Devon got a kick out of hearing that old farmer's adage of "knee high by the 4th of July" means a good corn crop.  Of course, I had to explain that they meant to an adult not a 10 year old!  LOL  They are planted with every 2 rows close together as my ex-Father-In-Law (a farmer) had shared with me that they need to pollinate with each other and have to be close enough together to touch.  

One extra hint on corn, if you have raccoons in the area, they'll know your corn is ready before you do and will snatch it.  You can interplant pumpkins with the corn, they don't like the feel of the leaves and they'll protect your corn.  Bonus, you get pumpkins.

I did lose one of these cantaloupe plants, I think we have critter visitors coming.  I'm trying to be positive and think it gives extra room for vines.

Cucumbers, my son's second favorite veggie in the garden.  In this area, I will probably go back through and hoe out those weeds between the plants.

Green beans.  I am not sure if I just had some that didn't come up or if it had something to do with the monsoon we had shortly after I planted them.  Regardless, I just went through at the two week mark and planted more beans in the bare spots as my succession plants.

The sweet potatoes.  I generally plant them in a circle so this row thing is new but they appear to be doing fine.

Peppers, the front are green (there are yellow and red over near the tomatoes) and the far ones are jalapenos.  I lost a couple in the center, I'll replace them soon.

Here is the cauliflower, it's a little small yet, but it will catch up.

And then there was broccoli!  Again, a little small but it will catch up.

Tomatoes!  We have Early Girl, Big Boy, Lemon Boy (yellow), Grape, and a beefsteak variety.  Devon also chose an heirloom variety that I can't for the life of me remember the name, but he wanted to grow it so we got it.

As you can see, the tilling between the plants isn't 100% (what weeding is?) but it's working so far.  

Here are the radishes that are ready to harvest, spinach is coming up behind them.  Once I harvest the radishes, I can plant more.  If you look closely, you can see that we have been regularly harvesting the lettuce.  It just seems to grow back!

The onions are coming along nicely.  I was honestly worried about them in a tub but so far, so good.  The carrots are looking great, it's time to thin them (and to weed it again).

Some of the herbs are coming along great, but some are puny.  I think they'll be ok in the long run.  I have gotten a new mint plant as it didn't survive the winter we had.  I plant mint in pots because if you don't, it can (and will) take over your yard.  

I've not included pictures of my strawberry bed or my blackberry bed, both of them need weeded.  I'm not looking forward to doing the blackberries because if any of you have ever picked wild blackberries, you know those thorns are horrible!  

Always watch the clearance areas of anywhere that sells plants.  When my husband was at Lowe's, I wandered the garden center.  They had a clearance area and there was a bigger blueberry bush that needed a little TLC and a lot of water!  It was priced wrong (not marked down) and when I asked the manager about it, he just marked it to $5 since it was the last one they had.  I wasn't mad!  And now I have the start of my blueberry bed.  One step at a time!

How is your garden?  Even if it is only a few things, grow something!  

Getting the garden in!

As I share this year's garden with you all, I remind you that this garden is different than in year's past.  Sometimes, I feel like I am harping on this but I really, truly want to show people that you can garden no matter what.  You just have to find the way that works for you.

In deciding how to do this, without having to spend a lot of money in building raised (off the ground) beds or giving up being able to grow enough to put some veggies up for Winter, I found that I have gone back to the beginning.

Sure, my family gardened but it was not at our house, more of a community garden for the family at my Uncle's place.  There were so many adults that we were usually relegated to playing with our cousins and such.  Oh, and shucking corn.  That was ALWAYS a job that was left to the kids.  A job that my kids now do.  

When I first tried my hand at gardening as an adult, it was an abysmal failure.  I had no idea about soil consistency and that it's extremely hard to grow things in clay.  Even the weeds wouldn't grow in the clay.  I was crushed.

When we moved to a different home, I had the luck of not only not dealing with clay soil but that there was already a garden spot at the home.  I thought if there was a very, well used garden spot that a garden must have been successful there.  

I still remember as I was working on that first garden, I had my first garden book out, carefully writing down what I planted in each row.  A neighbor stopped by and was so amused that I was writing things down in a book.  He'd never seen anyone make a book.  At the time, I had no idea what the plants looked like so I was going to improvise.  I looked things up in books and copied them and pasted them next to my notes in my book.  Hey, I didn't want to pull up the plants thinking I was weeding...LOL.  

I also planted the plants and the rows far enough apart that I could take my little roto-tiller to weed not just between the rows but also around the plants (I hadn't learned to work a hoe yet and had a habit of chopping down plants...LOL).  I would weave between the plants up one way and the opposite back down the other.  No weeding necessary.

Anyway, I decided that this year, I would go back to those basics.  I did so because if I can't get out there to weed, I can at least take the outside tines off the roto-tiller I have now and weed in the way I did in the beginning.

Also keep in mind that you don't have to plant the entire garden in one day.  As you saw in my previous blog about container gardening, I did a little at a time.  I started with the containers and even those I planted over two days.  

Here's how the big garden went in.

Day One

Tomatoes:  Big Boy, Early Girl, Super Fantastic (my son's choice), Yellow Jubilee (Hubby's choice), Grape (also son's choice) and a Beef Steak variety

Day Two

Cabbage, Cauliflower, Broccoli, Sweet peppers, Jalapenos and Sweet Potatoes

Day Three

Although you can't really tell it, this is a row of cucumbers, a row of cantaloupe and the rest of this bed is green beans and corn.  This took all day for me to get it in.  Getting this many seeds in the ground is hard on the back.

Day Four

The rains came.  With hail.  Lots and lots of rain.  And hail.

I was convinced that I was going to have to replant the entire thing.  I was sure the seeds would be washed away and the newly planted plants ruined.  I was sure.

One week later

Corn, it's about 1 1/2 - 2 inches tall

Green beans, about 1 1/2" tall

On the left are onions and on the right are carrots (they need thinned...LOL)

One the left are radishes and spinach (hopefully) and on the right are the lettuces.  

So, everything survived the monsoon and hail we had.  I've left enough room between everything so that if (when) I get weeds, I can just run the tiller over them.

I'm looking forward to dinner tonight, I am going to cut some of that lettuce, pick a radish or two, I have carrots in the fridge and I grabbed some fresh tomatoes and cheese at the farmer's market this morning.  I'll grill a steak and dinner will be grilled flank steak salad.

So, how is your garden doing?  It's not too late to plant some things.

2014 Container Garden

I know I've mentioned a couple of times that I have to change how I garden and my garden layout to make it easier on me.  I don't want to sound like I'm harping on this but I really do want to help others (and myself) to understand that just because I can't garden the traditional way doesn't mean I can't garden.  And it doesn't have to cost a small fortune to do it either.  You just have to improvise.

It's rained here for days so we've not been able to get the final tilling done in the garden in order to be ready to plant.  If the weather man is correct, we are going to have some nice days in order to dry out a bit and get that done.  I am hoping that I can plant by Tuesday or Wednesday.  We got out to my favorite plant farm, Cox's Plant Farm to get my plants and seeds, so I am ready.  I just need the weather to cooperate!

I used to have gladiolas planted on either side of my back deck steps.  A wonderful neighbor gave me some bulbs as he thinned his, assuring me I couldn't kill them.  What do you know?  He was right...LOL  As pretty as they are, I pulled up the ones on one side of the steps so that I could put in some containers for some veggies.  I put them on the far side so that they are less noticeable since I didn't go buy all new, matchy-matchy pots for my veggies.  I used stuff I could find around here.  

I started with some old toy totes we had in the back yard from when the kids were little.

This old green tote is 3 steps high compared to my deck steps, I put a mix of compost and some sand in it and that little bit of green you see are carrots coming up.

This old purple tote is just slightly smaller than the green one, in it is just compost and those dots in it are onions sets.

These two old metal wash tubs were formally used in an attempt to have flowers out front.  It was an unsuccessful attempt...LOL.  Now, the one on the left has Spinach int he back (it's not up yet) and radishes in the front.  Yes, I know, they need thinned, I'll get to it.  In the bucket on the right is leaf Lettuce.  Currently, it is about 1 1/2" tall and looking good.  I generally plant Mesclun lettuce but I was using up seed packets and this is still a yummy mix of leaf lettuce.  I can't remember the name but I like it because you can cut it with scissors before dinner and it will continue to regrow where you cut it.  An almost endless supply of lettuce!

I have also re-purposed several old flower pots in order to grow some herbs.

As you can see from my terrible attempt at labeling the inside of the pots after they were planted, these two pots hold Dill and Basil.  Dill is usually better planted in the ground but we're gonna give it a try in a pot anyway.

More flower pots of herbs.  The big green one is Parsley, the little green one is Oregano.  The bigger white one is Chives and the smaller white one is Thyme.  Thyme is new for me to grow so we'll see how it goes.  Around here, everything is an experiment!

The herb pots are on my deck on either side of the steps.  I did this so that they are waist high for me to weed or harvest and if I am having a really bad day, I can sit on the steps to do it.  The other pots with the other veggies in them are tall enough that it should be easy to tend too.  And again, if I'm having a bad day, a small stool sat next to the pots will allow me to tend to those easily.  It's all about adapting to what I need.  

I won't be able to grow as much produce as I normally have in the past but any fresh produce is great produce.  And it is that much less that I am buying.  All of the seeds and the onion sets used in the buckets pictured costs less than $10.00.  The compost was from the compost pile I had to move when we had to move a fence section...so it was free.  The amount of lettuce alone that I will harvest from these pots would have cost more than what I paid for all the seeds/sets.  And I will still be able to put up a lot of the herbs and some veggies to be used throughout the year.

I have the plan on how I will put out the other plants and seeds in order to be more manageable for me.  I will share pictures of that as I get it planted.