Starting Seeds on a Budget Start Your Garden Without Buying Supplies

Are you looking to start or expand your garden this year? Lets go down the check list of things we might need - potting soil, seed plugs, seed trays, grow lights, compost, peat, vermiculite, fertilizer, manure, pest sprays, raised bed kits, trellis, tomato cages, and on and on....... I remember the first time we decided to have a small garden in one of your flower beds. We started at the store buying seeds and dirt and all of the things we thought we would need and spent about $100. That year we barely had anything grow and forgot to have someone water while we were on vacation. Not a great first experience but we were determined to start again.

In our new home a few years ago we decided we were going to go big and year after year we are adding more and more to our garden. But we arent huge fans of spending $10 in supplies to get $5 worth of vegetables, anyone else feel like that when you are starting out? Yes, over time you get things that you can use over and over each year thus making it more and more worth while. But what about now, do we really need all of this stuff to get a garden going?



In my opinion most people (including us) spend way more than they need on gardening supplies and then are disappointed at the results their first couple of years. It does take time to get the soil just right, it takes time to learn what works best and when to plant and harvest. Gardening is not something that you can just go out and throw some seeds in the ground and have an awesome garden your first year. It takes time and in some cases a small amount of money. I have found that you have a choice in many cases, time or money.

We are expanding our gardens over time as to lessen the impact on our wallets and allow us time to develop good soil as we expand. We have also learned that while we are not going to win any awards for the prettiest seed starting operation you can get started with little to no money invested at all.

We started saving any containers with clear plastic lids last year and have saved up quite a few of them by now (probably more than we need!) These make the perfect tiny greenhouse seed starting containers. Instead of buying a heating pad and seed starting trays just use the things you already have. We have found these to be the fastest way to get your seeds started! This year in fact most of our seeds were already popping through the soil in the first 48 hours.

The next thing you need to get your seeds started is soil, there are a lot of different ideas with what works best here but again I just use what I have to get going. Last year we made a mix for our square foot gardens of our compost, vermiculite, and peat. I grabbed a bin full of this soil and brought it in as soon as it was no longer frozen. I sifted through and got out any large pieces (leafs, sticks, etc.) and then filled my containers. The only down side to using this type of soil is that you might also germinate a few blades of grass or something from last years planting so just be carful and pay attention to what sprouts. If one of these things is not like the other, pull it out.

Seeds are pretty easy to come by and dont be fooled by expiration dates on those seed packages. With proper care there is no real expiration to most seeds. Germination rates might be lower after a few years but I wouldnt worry too much about that. Look for seeds during the off season in the fall or winter. Most stores have clearance sales at this time and you can get your seeds for as much as 75% off. You can also save seeds from your plants year after year. This is a skill I have not yet mastered but will be trying some of this year.

There are many ways to save money on gardening supplies and still have great results. We are all tempted to go out and buy all the best stuff, shovels, and rototillers, etc. But that is mostly not needed. Check a garage sale this spring and you will likely find all kinds of gardening tools for dirt cheap:)

I hope that this has inspired you to get started or add on to your garden this year. Follow along for more tips and tricks this coming spring and summer and lets all try to feed our families a little more from our garden each year.

Simple Suburban Living General Store

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Hydroponic Automatic Watering System Build a Backyard Aquaponics System with our Step by Step ! Learn more

Step-by-Step How to Build Your Own Aquaponics System See more

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What Would be the Most Suitable Fish for Aquaponics

Aquaponic farming can offer you great satisfactions: tasty and low cost vegetables and legumes as well as healthful fish for the duration of all year round. Nonetheless, as a way to acquire the best benefits you may first must have some simple details about what aquaponics implies and how are you able to make the the majority of it.

Aquaponics is actually a new sort of farming which relays on the symbiosis among the plants along with the fish. This implies that the fish supplies the plants the needed food whilst the plants, by feeding on the fish

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Hydroponics Makes use of For The Accomplishment Or Failure Of your Plants

Hydroponics is useful in two major ways. Very first, it gives a far more controlled atmosphere for plant growth than soil thereby removing several unknowns from experiments. Second, a lot of plant species make much more in much less time and occasionally of greater good quality, which under specific economic and environmental situations, makes hydroponics growing more profitable for the farmer.

With hydroponics there are no soil-borne ailments, weeds to pull, or soil to till, and plants could be placed very close to one particular one more. This permits a large volume of meals to become made within a little level of space. Hydroponics can also be extremely water-efficient as it makes use of containers or closed loop systems for the recirculation of water, and for that reason calls for only a modest fraction of the water employed in classic farming.

These qualities combine to make hydroponics helpful wherever men and women want to develop plants in a non-traditional manner. Science fiction writers have lengthy speculated that hydroponics would permit space stations or spaceships to develop their own food. Precisely the same qualities make hydroponics best for all those who wish to grow plants with maximum handle more than circumstances, and maximum density.

The environment, or climate, in which your plants are grown, is among the most significant variables affecting your finish results. The temperature and humidity have to be correct for the type of crop youre raising; the lighting has to be of sufficient intensity and duration for the stage your crop has reached. These and numerous other elements have to be considered just before youll be able to hope to grow a wholesome and productive crop.

Lets appear briefly at the various aspects involved. Expanding plants indoors implies that youve got to create equivalent situations to these outside. This could look clear at first glance, but is it correct? Ask oneself what the advantages of Hydroponics gardening are. The outside climate is extremely varied and will not constantly perform for the plants benefit. As an example a undesirable storm or even a late frost can harm or kill tender young plants.

One of the key benefits of hydroponics gardening is the fact that it is possible to manage the climate within the develop space. This implies that you are able to provide your plants together with the perfect circumstances for their healthy development, throughout their lives. This ensures an excellent healthy yield along with a bigger profit margin.

Getting decided upon which form of hydroponics method to use, you now have to promote the best expanding conditions. All wholesome plants demand a great supply of water and balanced nutrients. They need the correct type of light, for the right period of time, daily. Your plants will need some type of support for their structure, especially as they mature and develop heavy with harvestable generate. Like outdoor plants they also need the temperature to be within a certain variety. As well cold as well as your plants is not going to thrive, but stay poor stunted things. Also hot and they might properly dry out, then their leaves will wither as well as the plants die.

The addition of Carbon Dioxide gas (CO2) may possibly be advisable to promote Photosynthesis inside the green leaves of the plants. Ultimately some form of clean fresh air circulation is required to ensure that your crop can breathe. Like you, your plants need Oxygen for life. They breathe it in through their tissues and like you, can turn out to be sick if it really is dirty or contaminated. So, taking these variables one at a time, how can we generate the optimum circumstances for our plants?

Firstly water along with a excellent supply of balanced nutrients are vital. Which nutrient to purchase and how you can use it? This again is a significant query to some individuals. My advice to youd be to go with a nutrient that you simply can understand and are comfortable using. As you acquire expertise and self-assurance youll be able to experiment with other strategies and suppliers at will.

Lighting is an additional crucial area that appears to cause newcomers an issue. The kind of light and also the variety of daylight hours are determined by the species of plants you happen to be cultivating and their stage of development. Young seedlings and cuttings, for example, need considerably softer light than do plants about to flower. Equatorial plants will usually want a higher light intensity for a longer period than will plants from the regions exactly where days and developing seasons are quick.

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Chicken Coop Sliding Door

I have had  a few questions about the sliding door for the chicken coop and so I thought I would do a quick video since I have not really shown the details previously. The design I came up with for the door is very simple and easy to setup and can be done with scrap wood left over from building the coop.

For the door itself I used some poster board to free hand a egg shape that was of suitable size for the door. I then traced it into place on the chicken coop siding and used a jig saw to cut out the opening. Once we had your hole I screwed in 2 2X4s on each side of the framing for each side of the door on the inside of the coop.  This will act as the guide for the sliding door. These guides protrude about 1/2" out from the framing. I used some scraps of 1/2" OSB and nailed them to the front edge of the 2X4s to keep the door from being able to swing inward. I then cut a piece of left over OSB to fit in the track I had created and screwed in two eyelets tot eh top edge.

I am using some nylon rope I have lying around but you can use whatever you have available I tied off the rope through the eyelets in a triangle to leave one main rope centered on the door leading straight up from the center of the door. Directly above the door on the ceiling I screwed in another hook (better to use a full eye here)  this servers as the lift point for the door and routes the rope over to the side top edge of the coop. I drilled a hole through the siding between the framing and roof joists and routed the rope through. The outside of the coop has a small hook and the rope has a loop tied in it to hold the door open.


This setup has been working pretty well for the past year and a half but there are a few improvements I will probably make. I wish I would have used larger gauge hooks and eyes for this project since I have had a couple of the bend and pull out. Not a big deal but just something I had to fix. I would have left a larger gap on the tracking so that the door had more room for expansion and contraction depending on the humidity and temperature as sometimes it can get a little stuck in the summer months. I also would have left a gap at the bottom of the track so that any bedding or chicken mess could not get stuck in the track.

Simple Suburban General Store


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Thankful For Our Simple Life

To me, Thanksgiving is the beginning of a very special holiday season.  When I think about my childhood, this time of year sticks out to me more than any other.  It’s Thanksgiving and Christmas that we get to see lots of family, play with new babies, and laugh together. 

This Thanksgiving, Todd and I are thankful for our simple life.  When I say “simple” Im not talking about Simple Suburban Living, although we are very thankful we get to share our life with others through this platform.  Simple has nothing to do with anything we do, but rather why we do what we do.  We have purpose now and that purpose drives everything we do.  When you know your purpose, it makes decisions easier.  Simple also doesn’t mean we move and get things done slowly.   In fact, we get more done now because we are passionate about what we do!  We are focused on the most important things instead of a bunch of things that don’t really matter. 

So what really does matter?  Jesus.  Jesus, plain and simple.  Everything else falls into place once you have accepted Jesus into your heart.  You were made so God could love you.  He sent Jesus so He could be with you forever.  Now that we know that, our life has purpose.  Does that mean we’re doing everything perfectly?  No, we know that we are sinners in need of a savior and we are so very thankful God sent us one.  It’s just that simple.

 

 Friends, my hope for you is that you find your purpose, too.  Please do not hesitate to contact me if you need prayer or have any questions.  My email is sslfamily5@gmail.com

Happy Thanksgiving!

Lisa - The SSL Family Mom



 

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Cloning Tomatoes

Just a quick video on how I clone my tomato plants.  Only one plant was grown from seed in the greenhouse and everything else has been cloned.

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Groundbreaking for the dome

After many delays, we finally got the foundation hole dug for the greenhouse. Things should start moving along much quicker now!

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The end of the normal growing season

Today marks the end of the season for the “sustainable” greenhouse. Last night was the first night the heaters needed to run to keep the plants from freezing. (The heaters are programmed to turn on at 36F). My outdoor growing season ended just shy of 2 months ago so I’m still quite pleased with the extended growing season!

My definition of “sustainable” for this project is not having to add extra heat or lighting for the plants to grow, The other electricity for the pumps and automation is an integrated part of the greenhouse Aquaponics system and I classify that as part of the normal functions. ;-)

I still have peppers, tomatoes, and lettuce growing which should survive for the winter. Of course the cost to keep these plants alive will now skyrocket in electricity costs, but it’s still a nice treat to get a few fresh veggies during the winter.

Already looking forward for spring!

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