Trip to the Nursery

When I was in Southern California yesterday I went to the nursery with my mother.  She likes to garden and takes great pride in the little container garden that she has.  For a gift we got her a raised planter.  She wanted to pick out some vegetable plants for it so I went with her to the nursery before I headed back home. 

We walked up and down the rows of plants.  I explained the different types of vegetables and fruits that they had available.  For example, she has a strawberry pot with some strawberry plants.  She wanted more plants.  Do you want June bearing that give you a heavy crop at once or do you like the plants you have that give you three or four strawberries a month.  She got the June bearing so she can have a handful in June and then one each week the rest of the year. 

She also wants an artichoke plant.  There is room for one of those in the yard.  It will grow year round where she lives but she should cut it down to the ground in the winter for it to refresh itself in the spring.  She also wants to plant asparagus.  That won't go well in her raised planter either but I will give her some starter plants when mine start growing in the spring. 

She did pick out several types of lettuce, kale, and sugar peas.  She's going to have a great time with her garden.  It's not going to sustain her in any crisis but it makes her feel good. That's about as much as she is capable of.

Me on the other hand.  Going to a nursery is like taking a drunk to a bar.  I love looking at plants and buying them if I had enough money.  I buy new fruit trees each year.  I have over forty here.  It's still not enough.  I will never have enough!  I need to buy several for the bug-out place.  It doesn't have any fruit trees at all.  It's not quite bare root season here or there.  Give it another month. 

I am just about ready to start planting the survival seeds I got from the contest I won at http://modernsurvivalonline.com/ .  Although they are supposed to be for a future emergency, I'm planning on planting them now.  I have a shelf unit that I'm going to put in the front yard on a south facing wall.  I'll cover the unit with plastic to make a small "greenhouse".  I've seen these with zip up plastic covers for way too much money. 

If you need large pieces of plastic for your own greenhouse, you can buy a drop cloth, or if you want thicker plastic you can use some heavy duty clear trash bags.  Or, for those of you who want to make it cheap or free, go to Lowe's or Home Depot and right by the door they have a roll of plastic that you can tear as many sheets off as you want and it's free.  So's the twine right next to the plastic.