The funny things about seedlings... they have to be planted!

"Too much of a good thing can be wonderful." - Mae West

Previously, I was concerned about seeding too early. But I was SO GOOD. I had my lil spreadsheet, tracking projected last frost dates, I did the things, I followed the rules. But here is the thing about a person with a lack of restraint, showing great restraint... It's coming out one way or another. So while I was quite responsible with timing, I apparently blacked out and lost ALL semblance of control over QUANTITY.

Responsible timing turned into:

• 13 varieties of tomatoes (it's worth noting, I thought I'd ended up with nine, but went to my sheet to count... It was worse than I thought!) for a total of SIXTY-FREAKIN-TWO plants

• Three varieties of radishes, in some unknown quantity of each

• Two varieties of beets in a similarly unknown quantity of each

• About 12 or so cabbages

• 12 rutabagas

• Lots of parsnips (when the hell was the last time I bought ONE parsnip? Why do I now have LOTS of parsnips??)

• Three or four different varieties of summer squash and zucchini - about six seedlings of each

• Maybe five varieties of beans, and 4-6 of each

• Six different H O T peppers (multiples of each OF COURSE) - from standard Jalapeño all the way up to Carolina Reaper

• About 12 bell pepper plants

• Over 100 onion plants

• Two different varieties of potatoes

• Several eggplants

• Butternut squash

• And all of the standard herbs like basil, dill, chives, spring onions, rosemary, and catnip

So here we are. On a postage stamp piece of land, in a garden that is MAYBE 15'x25'? Well, first things first... let's obsessively buy all of the buckets and cloth planters I can find on FB Marketplace... check. Then start planning ahead and accidentally end up with over 80 mason jars and a pressure canner for $60 - also from Facebook Marketplace. Check. Realize of the 62 tomato seedlings, perhaps only about 15-20 could reasonably fit at your house so I send some off to your mom, some to your partner's cousin, and then sweet-talk the aforementioned partner into planting the rest... which was right around 35 plants total. (Not counting the eggplants, hot peppers, and bell peppers that went there as well...) Check, check, and check.

So, how to make this all WORK, you ask? Firstly, as is the number one requirement of ALL successful plans... A SPREADSHEET:

To save time, I gave all of the tomato varieties a LETTER, and then put the letter next to the variety on a spreadsheet and then plugged in minimum container size and any other relevant details. I sorted by container size and started plugging away. I ordered three cubic yards of garden soil (3 cubic yards is a lot). However, it was $45 per cubic yard, and a $48 delivery charge for two cubic yards. But there was no delivery charge if you ordered three cubic yards, so I really saved $3. I took that garden mix, and did a quarter chicken compost, a quarter peat moss, and then 50% soil mix. I mowed up any leaves with the bagger attachment on and used that mulch to fill the bottom third of each container, then filled the rest of the way with my soil mix. And away we go.

When doing a garden in a small space, containers make a ton of sense. I've done rectangle plastic containers (you can get them on FB marketplace for dirt cheap - often rescued from restaurants) and the 5gal lowes buckets (I'm pretty sure the Home Depot buckets would actually make your plants die... iykyk), but this year I've gotten REALLY into the cloth planter bags. They are excellent, and so portable. I have 5gal, 10gal, 15gal, and then a couple 2'x3' rectangular "beds." I ordered the 10-gallon pot a year or so ago from Amazon, before I decided to stop giving money to the ultra-rich. However, I found the larger pots and bed-style grow bags on 247garden.com, and later acquired another 20 for a dollar each on Facebook Marketplace.

I planted the tomatoes in their appropriate size containers, and then did hot peppers in smaller two or three-gallon Lowe's buckets, or two of them in a larger bucket. Cabbages were all placed in the 10-gallon grow bags, onions went into the bed-style bags, and I also used four potato grow bags. In addition to all of the containers, I still have my two 4'x8' actual beds. I have asparagus (which is perennial) in there already, and I've done rutabagas, pole beans, snap peas, squash, cukes, radishes, zucchini, and beets in the remaining space. Oh, and thankfully, I have a bunch of grow bags left over because, for some reason, I decided to seed more Black Beauty zucchini and some butternut squash. Because why not?

And circling back to the point about the excessive number of canning jars, and very much on the topic of "why am I the way that I am..." In advance of the WILD excess of veggies I'm going to have, I set off looking for a pressure canner. I found one on Marketplace for $100, I think, and in addition to that canner, there was a water bath canning pot, and "an assortment of canning jars and lids." COOL. The pressure canner alone is like $150 and up, so what a deal. I message the guy hey, I'll take the lot. He said UGH, I wish I'd heard from you first. Someone is coming to take some of the smaller jars. I said hey, even better. I really only have a lot of use for the quarts and up anyway, so I'll take whatever is left. I get there, and he says ok, you can have it for $60. Amazing! We walk into his garage, and when I tell you my jaw hit the floor... There weren't a "few assorted canning jars." There were A METRIC SH*T TON. 84 total, I believe, to be exact. PLUS around 1000 lids, some rings, and a jar grabber thingy. So I rode home with CASES of rattling glass jars, just laughing at what a mess I am.

More soon. I've decided to get into worm farming. I gave it a full 36 hours of thought and research so obviously now I'm an expert and it's going to become my whole entire personality. Stay tuned.