Sun or shade? Water?

I really can't wait for January (which is when I'm going to plant -- after the holidays) -- I just can't wait!

I save my pennies for good potting soil and seeds. I try not to spend a lot on the "extras", but use what I can recycle & find at home.

Shoot, I'm STILL planting out wintersown seedlings (not any more) plants!

Carrie,

It is really adding up here for me, too -- postage for swaps, round robins & trades (and the little baggies for seeds I've traded); seeds I *want* to buy; the heated exacto knife; potting soil (and that's a biggie!) and maybe other stuff I've forgotten about....it all adds up!

I'm not sure how my creative accounting is going to work it all out in my mind, but flats are $15.00 here for 40-48 plants, and even at the best garden centers, the selection is not that great. I have systematically been getting rid of most my perennials to only have annuals and annual bulbs like dahlias in my garden for the next couple of years. My point is that I have a lot of ground to cover with annuals and if they are $15.00 a flat and I need 20 flats, then that's $300.00. I suppose I have spent, or will spend cause I'm still ordering seeds :), about $150.00. But it will be stuff I want to grow or have always wanted to grow -- like poppies that I can't even find at the garden center.

The numbers for perennials are more staggering than annuals, especially when you consider that a cheap place like Bluestone, to use Brent's example, is selling those $3.00 plants from seed that every single swap and round robin on DG has in its offerings -- Prairie Cone Flower, Dianthus, Hollyhocks, Foxgloves....they are cheap, easy to grow seeds. If you buy or trade for more exotic seed, then the price of your perennial goes waaay up. Parks was selling little baby Echinaceas in those different colors for what was it? $12.95 or something? I got some -- they were pathetic. I saw a lot of threads where a LOT of people lost them as soon as they planted them in the ground. I killed mine, and yet I could get a fair amount of seed right here on a trade.

I'm thinking my postage is sort of pocket change or leftover grocery money and the exacto knife and seeds are things I wanted to buy anyway. The POTTING SOIL is the most annoying thing to me -- about $11.00 for 64 qt bag and I bought 4 of them, then used one to actually repot some houseplants so I only have three for wintersowing.

Maybe I'll justify my expenses by saying gardening is my hobby and hobbies cost money.

Or maybe I can justify it by how much I have learned? If so, I have gotten my money's worth and then some!

How about entertainment value? A movie is $10.00 for 2 hours, so $5.00 an hour. Reading about swaps, perusing trade lists & choosing things I'd like to grow -- I've spent a LOT of entertaining hours!

If the million seeds I have and plan to wintersow actually get planted in the ground -- and I don't mean if they germinate and grow, but if I have the time and energy to get them from the milk jugs, to the flats if they need it, and to the ground, AND if they bloom by June, it will be the equivalent of probably 45 flats. NOW multiply *that* by $15.00 and I will have saved some serious money and my garden will be unbelievable. I will be able to cut fresh flowers every single day and it won't make a dent in the garden. LOL!

Long post -- Can you tell I've given this a little thought?

Suzy

I figure that gardening it is my passion. Your passions are what make you happy and keep you healthy. So any amount of money I spend on my passion (my happiness & health) is worth it.

:-)
carol

Actually, I agree with most of what's been said above. WSing sounds like it will keep me out of trouble. And the prospect of growing as many annuals as I want; well, that's a lot more than I usually plant that someone else grew. I am not like Happy - I DO spend money on clothes, but now that ColdwaterCreek's 60% off EVERYTHING sale is over, I don't need to spend any more!

xxx, Carrie

I don't know about anyone else, but I'd be buying new seed anyway. It's a compulsion, can't seem to stop once I see something I want. I may put it off for awhile but it will eventually end up in my seed box. I lost so many seedlings trying to start them indoors that even if I only get A plant out of WS it will be a 100% improvement on my past record. Yup, not one of my indoor sown seeds ever made it outside. I'm going with the gallon jugs and 2L bottles and if I over sow, I have plenty of people to give them to. Oh, and I never cut flowers, they were way too precious and I never had enough. With WS I just might:)

The seed trading and swaps here are great too. In most parts of the country retail seeds are sent back or disposed of around the end of June or early July and aren't seen again until Feb-April.

I'm pretty excited about this because this past spring/summer I fell back on perennials and bulbs for pretty much everything and I really missed the variety I usually have.

The folks at HD (when I rushed over in July to buy seeds to wintersow) explained that if they send the seeds back to wherever they came from, they get credited. If they don't, they don't. I guess it's like selling consignment, or something! I like the variety of mail-ordered seeds, but I really miss the pretty pictures.

xxxxx, Carrie

Oh, how well I know about the seed returns. I work at a WMart and go through the last minute seed shopping spree when I see the boxes of seeds sitting in our Claims/Return/Recall area. =) I think I'm going to hit the Garden Center Dept Mgr up for an early deal on the fall planted bulbs this year. WMart will hang onto bulbs for such a long time that they will start to rot and actually disappear in the packaging. I'm going to start dickering early this year:LOL:

I like the photo reference on the packaging too, sometimes it helps to remind me what I got especially if its some odd or new variety for me.

I was more thinking of the beautiful watercolor or somehow drawn pictures that are somehow more beautiful than anything I could ever grow! We failed seed-sowers have such an inferiority complex!!!

xxx, Carrie


This message was edited Oct 30, 2006 8:17 AM

There are still a few companies that use the pretty sketches but not enough:) There are a few seed packets I wish I had saved, I could have had them enlarged and framed:lol:

Could you have them enlarged, really? You think they'd come out ok? I would have framed some myself. Somewhere on this site are templates for home-made seed packets, but I can't remember where...

x,c

The templates are under the "Extras" tab at the top on the home page

Oh, thank you, Darius!

xxx, Carrie

I've taken things to Kinko's and had color copies made and you can have them done up in different sizes for whatever it is you need. The seed packets here are cute too.