What do u spend on garden plants and seeds?

[flowerbug]

I spent about $450 two years ago on a good amount of seed for prairie wildflowers & grasses \that I want my land filled with instead of giant foxtail and canary reed. I chose 5 plots across the land to cut to dirt and spread the seed mixed with a substrate of manure. Ideally they'd all bloom and spread seeds from their sections. A few of the plots have shown life, but not all. I have gone out and collected some of the seeds to help spread around. I'm hoping to see the second season version of some of those this year. Come on Rattlesnake Master!!!!

there is quite a bit of knowledge and technique to prairie restorations.

and aside from that if you are talking about wildflowers many of them will not do that well in good soil because they cannot outcompete other plants that will do better. they do better in poorer soils or specific places they've acclimated to for those reasons, because other plants can't do as well.

some plants may need soil disturbance and/or fire to get going again, some may take several years to get big enough or only bloom once every other season.

these are the kinds of things that take some time to research, but it can be a fun thing to do.

any chance you can figure out how to get the plants to grow in pots then you can take those specimens and plant them out after a few seasons when they have a bigger root system and they can survive a bit more competition instead of trying to get a seed to grow and survive in the competition. and of course deeper taproot plants will need taller pots.

i don't really like seed blends because i've gotten burned rather badly by a few that have cost me hundreds of hours of weeding to get the introduced plants under some kind of control (and it's not even close to being finished) and also some seed blends are not clean of other weed seed contamination so you can end up with things you really don't want at all.

 

[SprigOfTheLivingDead]

there is quite a bit of knowledge and technique to prairie restorations.

and aside from that if you are talking about wildflowers many of them will not do that well in good soil because they cannot outcompete other plants that will do better. they do better in poorer soils or specific places they've acclimated to for those reasons, because other plants can't do as well.

some plants may need soil disturbance and/or fire to get going again, some may take several years to get big enough or only bloom once every other season.

these are the kinds of things that take some time to research, but it can be a fun thing to do.

any chance you can figure out how to get the plants to grow in pots then you can take those specimens and plant them out after a few seasons when they have a bigger root system and they can survive a bit more competition instead of trying to get a seed to grow and survive in the competition. and of course deeper taproot plants will need taller pots.

i don't really like seed blends because i've gotten burned rather badly by a few that have cost me hundreds of hours of weeding to get the introduced plants under some kind of control (and it's not even close to being finished) and also some seed blends are not clean of other weed seed contamination so you can end up with things you really don't want at all.

It just so happen that I actually have a lot of friends in ecological restoration and naturalist roles at a city, county and National Park Service level and have worked in executing prairie and woodland restorations projects for the last decade . I'm even in talks with a professor I know to go back to school for a MS in aboriculture but am holding off right now due to my wife doing classes and waiting to see if they do away with their GRE requirement for acceptance.

On your plants in pots topic my friend, who heads up a lot of the growing for a local county park system, invited me our to their greenhouse to see how they're utilizing "cone-tainers", which we've used to grow grasses for prairie work since it allows for nice deep root growth in plugs . I don't have any of them yet, but I had asked her about sourcing them so she said "come on out and see" , so I'm doing that over lunch today.

https://www.greenhousemegastore.com/deepot-tree-pots-cn--ss--dp

Yeah, the seed blends are hit and miss. They are worth the money, but the results can be spotty if you don't have fresh prepped (fire, composted, tilled, grated, ...) soil and certainly take a few years to see real results. I don't have the cash for a controlled burn at this point but I did buy a tiller this year that I plan to attack some areas with to chop up the canary reed and thistle as it's starting and then spreading coneflower seeds I collected. I am also taking to chem treatments for the thistle after spending the last two summers trying to hand pull and just not seeing my effort make enough of a difference. I want to spend time with my wife and kids, not yanking thistle in the rain.

 

[flowerbug]

...I am also taking to chem treatments for the thistle after spending the last two summers trying to hand pull and just not seeing my effort make enough of a difference. I want to spend time with my wife and kids, not yanking thistle in the rain.

pulling won't do it. if you can't get the roots out to dry in the air they're going to keep coming back.

i dig down and hunt the roots down and then leave them in the sun to dry out. it usually takes two rounds to get them all out, but it does work, but yeah, work is the key word there. i dig up the clods of dirt with roots in them and then beat them apart with the shovel and four pronger and track down all the parts i can find.

the simpler method for non-chemical control is to deep plow it and rake any parts you can from the surface so they can be isolated and dried out, then repeat it a few weeks later to get what you've missed. and again about three weeks later. if your soil is sandy/loamy you can get most of the roots out and then you're down to the spot cleanup of what you've missed. each time it gets better.

smothering is even easier. two layers of cardboard under black plastic if you really want to be sure no light at all is ever getting through there for a few years. also the cardboard protects the black plastic from getting holed by stems of plants or people walking on it until everything under there is gone. fold the seams over and weigh it all down so it doesn't blow away. you can do a very large area for less than it will cost to do herbicides. if you have time to top it with wood chips to a good depth that can last as a pathway for about four to five years before you should see much weed action in the wood chips start up. mushrooms you may find quite a few of. interesting varieties too.

after five years you can take the plastic up and from then on you're dealing with the soil seed bank which has remained and that the worms and other creatures haven't finished off. usually this is crab grass and other longer term grass seeds, but if you keep it scraped regularly you won't have weed issues.

even in the area where i have to dig thistles out by hand the more time i spend on the first pass the less time i have to spend after that. i can usually get them cleared by hand with two rounds.

for any areas you can't dig, till, smother keep mowing it regularly. even if there are some thistles in there as long as you can keep them from going to seed at least you're not rebuilding the soil seed bank for those weeds.

 

[ducks4you]

Dunno, maybe $300.00/year ???
Good idea for me to track this year. Should be easier, since I had a $K Christmas check and I used it to buy from High Mowing, Jung and Stark Bros, so I have the receipts. Yes, I have picked up seed packets here and there--ya know, "eye candy"?--but I don't think I have spent more than $30.00 on those. I am being realistic, BUT, I paid cash for that.
I guess you could call the new mower I am getting soon a $3.600.00 garden expenditure, AND I am making $365.00/month payments on my Kubota compact tractor, WHICH I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!!
The mowing keeps the yard/pastures in good shape, the horses contribute to the gardening through composting.
It's the circle of life.

 

[seedcorn]

Curious what flats of plants will cost this year. Favorite place to buy them went out of business.

 

[SprigOfTheLivingDead]

Curious what flats of plants will cost this year. Favorite place to buy them went out of business.

The place I would get them they are equivalent, but I could see boutiques charging a bit more

 

[ninnymary]

How much have I spent on seeds? Well let's see. First of all some of you may know that I hate to spend money on shipping! haha. So I really only order from Baker Creek because of their free shipping even on one packet of seeds. Plus it's a nice surprise to get that free package of seeds with every order. Even if it's cabbage seeds which I will never use, haha. So I would say under $30.

Now what I really spend money on is that fancy soil Titan farmer told me about. Plus organic fertilizers, more potting mix and some annuals. I also spent $15 on some 6-7ft metal stakes that I found on Marketplace which I'm using for staking my tomato plants with. Also spend money on a grow light, trays, and grow bags.

So most of my gardening money is spent on accessories.

Mary

 

[Zeedman]

So most of my gardening money is spent on accessories.

Yeah, those material or mechanical investments can dwarf the cost of seed or plants. Fortunately, those are usually one-time expenditures.

 

[seedcorn]

Didn't want to be include other things otherwise my garden is very expensive-hand tools, tiller, UTV to haul with, shredder, hand sprayers, shed to house everything, lights, electric, etc.

 

[digitS']

At one time, I would come home to a large garden. It began about 50' from my backdoor.

Then, I moved to a "single family home sized lot." So, I ventured afield . Across the alley! (Actually, the neighbors had closed the alley so , part of the alley itself, was part of my garden.) About this time, I became a community gardener. Those community gardens were about 5 miles away. As the marmots began to run off other gardeners , my generous plot (+-600sqft) expanded 4-fold. Now, I began to have surplus produce.

In for a penny, In for a pound. I found additional gardens (and was able to leave the marmots behind myself, after 6 years). And, the garden production became a source of income from a farmers' market. No way could I have made any $ if it had been a wholesale enterprise. In fact, when gasoline prices began to spike at the beginning of the Great Recession, the entire effort seemed to be for the benefit of the energy corporations (& personal exercise ).

Surviving recession, enjoying Recovery, the marketing came to an end with the Global Pandemic ... Downsizing occurred but not quickly enuf. Can the gardening continue to be justified by economics?. Probably so, although there's so much transportation expense to having a distant garden. Still, an enormous amount of food is available. The exercise may have been halved but the ability isn't 100%, either. Decreased to what we have just here at home and I would have to take up yoga ...

Steve