Garden Frugality

I read an article in one of my organic gardening magazines (a free subscription, no doubt) a few months ago about a family planting their garden on a budget of like $50. I was intrigued because after all, what good is this garden thing if I can't pull it off frugally?

One thing I had going for me was the fact that a neighbor tills the garden for us each year. While I am always tempted to find $300 to pluck down on a manual tiller I accept the annual till and then use old fashioned elbow grease to keep the weeds out for the rest of the year.

Next up: plants. My plan to grow tomatoes from seed failed. I find tomatoes difficult to grow, like some mystical experience I just can't quite master. I don't know why but I've yet to have any success. Instead I took $20 and went off in search of nice healthy plants last weekend. The rules: stay under $20, get as many varieties as possible, and buy all local (and locally grown, hopefully).

Between Mount Eden Nursery, Cheeks Produce, Polk House Plants & Produce, and Garden Gate I picked up the following for $20:

Tomatoes

1 Giant Tree

1 Mountain Fresh Hybrid

1 Manalucie Red

1 Chuck's Yellow Beefsteak

1 Razzleberry Hybrid

2 Pink

1 Celebrity

1 Floramerica

1 Big Boy

1 Green Zebra

1 Persimmon

2 Cherokee Purple

1 German Johnson

2 Yellow Jubilee

1 Better Boy

1 Grape Tomato

1 Beefsteak

1 Big Beef

I already had at home: 2 green pepper plants, 1 red pepper plant, and a jalapeno plant.

At the house I had planted: zucchini, straightneck and crookneck squash and pickling cucumbers. I also have white half runner beans leftover from last year and several packets of other green bean varieties bought during a buy one get one free Earth Day sale.

Which means all I needed were burpless hybrid slicing cukes and okra. I already had seeds for both at home.

Be frugal!

So, I planted a tray of Okra and Cucumbers. They started sprouting a couple of days ago when this thing showed up:

And burrowed itself in the middle of them. It's been there two days now and seems to show no sign of leaving. Meanwhile in the overgrown 'bird retreat' there are a dozen baby frogs hopping around. It seems the pond has brought all the creatures to the yard.

At least I had good intentions.