Spend your gardening time and money wisely
George Washington said “Bad seed is robbery of the worst kind, for your pocket-book not only suffers by it, but your preparations are lost and a season passes away unimproved.” He makes a good point. Often you’ll find that those ten-packs-for-a-dollar seeds don’t germinate very well and there usually aren’t many seeds in them. You’ll end up buying new, better quality seed if it isn’t too late in the season by the time you figure out your mistake, or else just giving up on the project. I’d hate to think that someone thought they lacked a green thumb because they made the mistake of buying bad seed.
The same premise holds true when you buy gardening tools. Buy the best quality tools you can afford or you’ll be replacing them every year. A dollar store trowel will soon bend and you’ll be back at the store for another. If you’ve got clay soil, a cheap digging fork will look like a whirlygig after a few uses. An even better idea than purchasing new high quality tools is to shop at yard and estate sales. The older tools are the strongest and best.
Another way that money and time is wasted in the garden is when the gardener is gung-ho in the spring and plants a huge vegetable garden or installs a big flowerbed full of plants that are going to need a lot of maintenance over the growing season. Then life interferes, the garden chores fall to the wayside, and weeds overtake. Soon the weeds are so prevalent that just thinking about beginning to clear them out is overwhelming.
Avoid this mess by making a commitment at the start of the season to see your plans through. Be realistic. You know how much time your other obligations take, and whether or not you can count on family members to help out in the garden. Scale plans back at the start and you’ll be much happier with the entire project. You can always add on later in the season or next year if you find that you have extra time to devote to the garden.
If we don’t get sufficient rainfall, your garden is going to need supplemental water. Unless you’ve installed an irrigation system, this will also take some of your time. Don’t waste money on beautiful plants that you then allow to die for lack of water. Even worse is buying too many plants and never getting them in the ground!
Perhaps the worst waste of resources is the unharvested vegetable garden. You’ve worked all season, weeding, watering, mulching, monitoring for pests, and then you’re going to let it all rot? If you’ve lost your ambition at the end of the season and just can’t can, freeze, or dehydrate any more produce, please donate it to a local food pantry. For most of the year, food pantries distribute only non-perishable food items and their patrons are very happy to get fresh produce for the short time it is available in Wisconsin.
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