Go, go gadget garden.

So I'm not really a green person (as my excessive use of ziplocs has probably indicated) but I love fresh tomatoes, and the idea of having a slew of veggies out my backdoor which can be saladed, side dished, frozen, sauced and whatevered makes me super, super excited.  So I am on to my first real attempt at gardening.  Tried last year but car accident, combined with crazy weather got things off to a bad start.  

My cute little greenhouse.

I am a nutcase and therefore am growing a lot of stuff.  I got one of the seed starter kits.  I found it at big lots for $4.  Lesson learned, get the Jiffy ones or make double sure the one you have comes with the pellets I had to run out and get some dirt.  Hoping that the little seeds are happy in the dirt or I will be bummed out.  I did find a really cool little greenhouse for $20, there though.  I like the greenhouse because it gives me a place for them to hang out while seeding, that rain, wind and dogs won't take out.  The greenhouse is really, really light weight and since I just have the seed tray and a strawberry grow kit in it I made sure to toss a bag of soil on the bottom to weigh it down.

Problem? = Super sandy soil.

 Now my biggest hatred when it comes to the gardening idea is having to buy pots. I have terrible super sandy soil in my yard, trees which are dropping leaves like crazy and other reasons that make me scream container garden.  But why the heck are the dang pots so pricey??  And then you have to buy the dirt to go in them.  Poo.  So I decided to be extra creative.  I was reading up on sizes and things for containers and something mentioned "growing potatoes in a potato bag".  Ding!  I hopped up grabbed a tape measure did some maths (impressive I know) and decided I had my solution to the pot problem and they were $0.59 a piece and a size of about 15 gallons.

Solution? = The IKEA bag!

For those of you not familiar with this little blue multi-tasker this is the IKEA bag!  IKEA is the bomb diggity for those of us trying to do things cheaply.  And the IKEA bag is no different.  It measures about 22" long x 15" wide and 15" high. (from memory)  That gives it about a 15 gal measure and means I need about 2.5 cubic feet of soil per bag.  Not to shabby all in all.  Big Lots has a surprisingly decent potting soil available for $7/ 2 cu ft bag.  Which makes pot and dirt significantly cheaper than similar sized pots alone.  I am hoping that it works out well.  I started carrots and green onions in this bag setup.

Compost bin

 Another thing I wanted to get set up was a compost bin.  A Rubbermaid tub with some holes poked in the top, bottom and around the top edge works great for a small scale cheap bin.  (So says the internets).  The trick is to remember to turn it frequently (no shovel needed just roll the thing over a few times) and to keep a high ratio of brown to green (ie when you add veg that has gone south or scraps add some leaves shredded junk mail and a bit of dirt at the same time)

Holes in top

I drilled holes in my bin with a power drill and a drill bit that was 3/16 or the next one up.  You want air to get in, but hopefully nothing that wants to crawl around too much.  The holes in the bottom are necessary to let water out.  There are all sorts of great sites out there that will help you figure out your composting needs.  This is a pretty cool list of what is a good idea to toss in the bin. 

So now just wish me luck!