To Seed or Not To Seed

Grow your own organic produce - it is simple and economical!

We are planning for this year's garden and grappling with a question. Start our plants from seed or purchase seedlings from the local garden center? Here is what we determined. Start from seed! There are two compelling reasons to start from seed; cost and quality.

Cost ~ A good reason for growing your own plants from ‘scratch’ is the cost savings. If you purchase seedlings from your local garden supply store, you can expect to spend at least $3.50 per plant. Based on our own seed starting set up, we determined starting our plants from seed provides about a $2.50 per plant savings.

Having a variety in the garden is important to us and that means lots of seedlings! We purchased two 72 cell seed starter trays for $10 each. This year we went with Rapid Rooters. We found some locally for $0.25 each. We have used coir in the past with success, but we read about the Rapid Rooters and decided they were worth a try. As an alternative growing medium you can use coconut coir. Coir bricks run about $3.00 a brick and expand to make 5-7 quarts of growing medium. You can make our own mini pots from newspaper slated for the recycling bin (aka: free!).

To help our seedlings grow up to be big and strong we added a grow light for $10.00. Our seeds are all organic and most are heirloom so we can harvest seeds for the following year. Average price per seed pack is $3.00 or ten cents a seed.

Cost for 144 self started organic seedlings:
2 – 72 cell desktop greenhouses $20           144 – Rapid Rooters  $0.25
1 – Grow Light $10                                    24 – Organic seed packets $72

Total for 144 plants: $138 OR $0.96 per plant

The following season will net a lower cost since the greenhouses, light and seeds won’t have to be repurchased!

Quality ~ The second and equally important reason for starting your own vegetables from seed is quality. When you start your seeds instead of buying the garden supply center’s inventory, you know exactly when and how it was started. It is critical that plants have a strong start in order to fight off disease and insect attacks throughout the growing cycle. Personally, we prefer to know that we are tending a purely organic garden and the only way to do that is to start the plants ourselves.

Starting your own veggies from seed is the way to go! It is economical and healthy for your plants and you! We’ll keep you posted on our progress. We would love to hear how your garden grows. Until then…happy gardening!

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Welcome!

We want to live a sustainable life! What does that even mean? A great deal more than dragging a tote of recycled cans to the curb – that much we have learned. The purpose of this blog is to reflect on and share our experiences while striving for a more sustainable life.

The dictionary defines sustainable as; 1. able to be maintained  , 2. maintaining ecological balance . Our interpretation delves a bit deeper. There is absolutely no doubt that we should be able to live on this planet and not destroy it, but being sustainable also means being self-reliant. While we are obvious fans of technology, we also realize our level of dependency upon it. This made us uncomfortable. Skills that past generations have earnestly tried to pass on are being lost.

The big awakening came when we decided to garden with a purpose rather than for folly. We were, and still are, extremely concerned about what has happened to our food supply. Between the toxicity of pesticides and the genetic manipulation of our seeds we were not comfortable eating. Period. Gardening organically, especially in Florida, is - to say the least - a challenge. Once we got our hands really dirty and had some success, we started looking at other areas of our lives that could benefit from a sustainable perspective.

This sustainable perspective washes over into every facet of our lives: physical, mental and emotional. It is about sustaining our way of life and living responsibly to ensure a bright future for generations to come. We hope to share our experiences of success (and failures J) in gardening, preserving, natural health and a variety of DIY projects. There is a fabulous feeling from doing it on your own – no matter what “IT” is! We believe being self-reliant is akin to being responsible and if Jerry and I are nothing else – responsible we are!

If you are interested in living a more sustainable life then this blog is for you. Maybe you will find inspiration to start that project you thought too difficult to tackle or maybe you will inspire us to do the same. Either way, we look forward to sharing our adventures with you. Welcome to our little slice of cyber space! Thanks for stopping by….see you soon!

~Joni

Freedom is the greatest fruit of self-sufficiency. ~Epicurus

DIY Seed Starting Pots

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Why pay for seedling pots when you can make your own? It is simple and you can use items you have on hand. No fuss – no muss…well, almost. Just look around your recycle bin and I’m sure you have a greenhouse in the making.

Newspaper – A few folds, twists and bends result in a perfect potting solution. Here is all you need:

·         Empty glass jar or can (size is up to you, but for seed starting think small and short).

·         Newspaper (black & white only - because it is generally made of soy ink and harmless to plants and the environment.)

·         A little bit of time and patience.

Take one full sheet of newspaper and fold it in half lengthwise. Fold it in half lengthwise a second time. This should give you a long narrow strip of paper.

Starting at one end, roll the paper around a glass jar. Push the ends of the paper into the glass jar. Then remove the glass through the open end. Push the bottom of the glass into the newspaper pot to squish the bottom and flatten it. Take the glass back out and you have your finished pot. All that is left is to fill with soil and plant your seeds.

Egg cartons - Used egg cartons are perfect for raising seedlings. Make sure it is clean, poke holes in the bottom for drainage, fill with seed started mix and pop in a few seeds. Shutting the lid on a plastic egg carton results in your own homemade mini-greenhouse. Cardboard-carton pots can be transplanted straight into the ground. The cardboard will eventually decompose in the soil, allowing the roots to poke through.

Toilet Roll or Paper Towel Tubes – Extremely easy, a great way to recycle and save some cha-ching!$! With a pair of scissors, cut ¼” wide strips all around one end of the tube. Fold each strip down. The strips will start to overlap each other making a bottom that will hold your soil. Fill with potting mix, pop in a seed and water.

Yogurt/Pudding/Cottage Cheese Cups - Wash and save the single-serving-size cups, poke a hole in the bottom-center of each container, and fill with seed-starter mix or a sterile all-purpose potting soil. After sowing the seeds, cover each container with a piece of perforated plastic (cut from newspaper and magazine baggies, then punched all over with a needle), held down by a rubber band, to maintain the moisture and humidity that promotes seedling growth.

The beautiful part – other than the cost – is how your organic pots will break down in the soil when it comes time to add the seedlings to your garden.

Give it a try!