The Garden Project- part 1

After a lot of thought and contemplation, I decided to go ahead and plant a veggie garden at my dad's house.  Since I live in an apartment complex, I couldn't plant one here... but my dad has a nice size yard and I'm over there almost everyday as it is, so I thought it only made sense.  My biggest "BUT" s my dad's wife, whom I can only stand for so long... and I didn't know if I could deal with her EVERY SINGLE TIME I had to go to tend to the garden, but whatever.... I'll wear my ipod so I can't hear her! hee hee hee.....


So after some research and some pricing out of materials, I decided on Monday that I would do it.  So I started by ordering plants and seeds from my most favorite of sites... Park Seeds  I love them because they have an awesome collection and variety of plants, vegetables, fruits, flowers, herbs... you name it, they got it!  AND the best part is they guarantee their plants, sooo if you happen to kill them all they will send you replacement plants.  I know, I killed 25 strawberry plants once and they replaced them all for me!


So I started out by ordering the following:

Tomato Costoluto Genovese

 Pepper Sweet Rainbow Mix

 Lettuce Little Gem

 Squash Honey Bear

Squash Spineless Beauty Hybrid

Pea Super Sugar Snap

 Cucumber Moctezuma Hybrid

 Beet Detroit Dark Red

 Tomato Park's Razzleberry Hybrid

 Carrot Sweetness II Hybrid

 Broccoli Packman Hybrid

 Cabbage Park's All-Purpose Blend

Cauliflower Cassius Hybrid Organic

 Squash Park's Straightneck

 Watermelon Everglade Hybrid

Strawberry Mesabi™

Strawberry 'Earliglow'

Yes, I did go a LITTLE overboard with the seeds and plants, but I was invisioning all those yummy veggies on my plate, and those lucious strawberries... ce la vie!  I spent a total of $91.16 on everything with shipping and handling... unfortunately they do not ship eveything out together, so the actual cost was only like $66, but they have three shipments so they got me with the S&H... oh well.

These should all be here come monday, which is perfect giving me enough time to get the area ready and the dirt and compost prepped for the boxes.

Then I had my hubby take me to Lowes and Home Depot to price and purchase wood for the garden boxes.  Well,  the nice people in the lumber dept of both stores recommended Cedar as the best wood for the job, since it could withstand the elements and not rot.. and it was naturally resistant so no chemicals leeching into the soil hence contaminating my veggies. BUT Cedar is tres expensive... the two garden boxes would have cost me somewhere like $200!!!!  I soooo don't think so.  So I asked the nice fols what other alternitives would I have to the cedar... they told me that I couls use any other hardwood, but that I would need to treat it with a water sealer so that the wood would not rot out before the end of the summer.  I again told them it was for a garden, so they recommended a water sealant by Thompson's that is "green" environmentally safe so the soil would not become contaminated. 

I decided that I was going to make 2 8x4 boxes, so we purchased 6 1x8x9 pine boards, Thompsons water sealant, nails and some gardening gloves.  In all I spent $95.99... $56.87 on the boards and $39.12 on the rest of the stuff.   

I now need to go and buy the topsoil and fertilized soil that will fill the garden boxes, I estimated about another $50 on that to fill both boxes.  So that will a grand total of $250 +/- to get my garden up and running.  Not too bad when you think of all the yummy fruits and veggies I will be enjoying all summer and fall.  AND the best part is that I grew them myself... with help from the kiddies because they are super excited to help out too!

So that was Monday - Wednesday, I purchased and prepped the wood for the boxes.  Stay tuned for part II- the building commences.

:o)