Garden Update

See those lovely green sprouts? Those are the basil and parsley that I planted and placed on my kitchen windowsill. According to the seed packets, these herbs do not have to be started inside, but I thought that I would plant some outside and keep some plants inside to just snip and throw in food.

Unfortunately . . . none of the rest of my seeds look like this. None of my other ones have sprouted! I was keeping the rest on top of the refrigerator, since someone had told me that they didn't need direct light in order to germinate. Well, I think this was incorrect advice.

On the advice of a friend, I'm now setting those seeds outside each day to get some sunlight. I also moved whichever ones I could fit to my windowsill, but they won't all fit there. I'm a little disappointed, because I've lost the time advantage I would have gotten by planting these several weeks ago.

Also, at this point I'm a little nervous about our garden for other reasons. First of all, we have dug up part of our lawn to use for this. It's not really a big plot, but we have a town house and a small yard. I don't want to take away too much play space from my daughter and her friends. Also, we have now invested - gulp - about $140 into the garden this year. Most of that went towards gardening tools that we can use year after year; the rest was seeds and soil. Even so, I estimate that I only spend about $40-$50/month on produce. At that rate, we may not recoup too much of our investment this year, although it could pay off in subsequent years.

All this being said . . . there is definitely more worth in a garden than merely saving money. Whatever our success rate is, it should be a fun family summer project and a great learning experience for my daughter. No produce tastes as good as fresh-picked garden produce, and I'm hoping it will actually get us to make up more of our diet from fruits and veggies.

So, I guess this is our frugal experiment for the year. We'll see how it goes!