Since COVID presented itself, going to various plant stores such as Lowe's and Home Depot, has been an unpleasant excursion. Along with the limited variety of vegetables, many are hybrid plants and the cost of six-pack of plants has gone way above what I'm willing to pay. Since retirement a few years ago, I have started a new hobby of seed saving and have been the sowing the "saved" seeds of tomato's, broccoli, brussel sprouts, turnips, radishes, lettuce, etc. in early January in plastic tubs. I also buried in the fall spoiled tomato's and other seed pods to experiment in that direction. My expectations between the direct sowing of seeds and buried fruit/ pods, was the hope of achieving a 50% germination rate, but in fact have been far exceeded by small forests of different types of tomato's, broccoli, lettuce, etc. I literally end up with hundreds of small plants between 2 - 5".
Obviously, this far exceeds my needs and I didn't wish to just throw away the leftover plants, so I had to become a little creative. My wife's exercise class (more of a cackle group) at the gym held a party in our backyard and having been infected by my Mother with a Green Thumb syndrome, my backyard is filled to the brim with vegetable plants, flowers, trees, succulents, etc. Whenever a branch of a flowering succulent, geramium, coleus or other plant breaks off or is trimmed, I stick it in dirt or water and unfortunately, it tends to grow and gets potted. Needless to say, I have many potted plants in every possible location in the yard to the point where my wife refuses to water in the backyard. When the "group" came over, they performed the usual "Oohs! and Ahhs! over the different plants, but most importantly, they asked for cuttings or extra plants for their own backyard/porch, which I immediately offered pots of my spare plants and vegetables. They cleaned me out of spare plants and all the next summer, we received pictures from the group of how the plants and vegetables were growing in their yards. Many told us they didn't buy any additional vegetables that summer due to the overabundance of produce from their own plants.
The following spring, having "spare" plants again, I offered a "free" plant sale to the group and again, I was relieved of all my spare plants that included zucchini, yellow squash, Cukes, etc. Today I transplanted around 150 tomato seeding's from a plastic tub to six-pack's for the next offer. In addition to transferring my spare plants, it finally dawned on me that I was helping a group of senior citizens between 60 and 89, lower their grocery bill, provide a better quality of produce and have a bit of food security. This year, almost every "groupie" has asked for plants and I expect to provide as many as requested. It's not much but I feel that as least I'm helping one small group to survive a little bit better. If anyone else has spare vegetable "volunteers", you want to considered this route. Tomorrow, I'm going to stop by the local Senior Citizens Center and see if they are interested as I still have over 100 tomato seedings in tubs.
Obviously, this far exceeds my needs and I didn't wish to just throw away the leftover plants, so I had to become a little creative. My wife's exercise class (more of a cackle group) at the gym held a party in our backyard and having been infected by my Mother with a Green Thumb syndrome, my backyard is filled to the brim with vegetable plants, flowers, trees, succulents, etc. Whenever a branch of a flowering succulent, geramium, coleus or other plant breaks off or is trimmed, I stick it in dirt or water and unfortunately, it tends to grow and gets potted. Needless to say, I have many potted plants in every possible location in the yard to the point where my wife refuses to water in the backyard. When the "group" came over, they performed the usual "Oohs! and Ahhs! over the different plants, but most importantly, they asked for cuttings or extra plants for their own backyard/porch, which I immediately offered pots of my spare plants and vegetables. They cleaned me out of spare plants and all the next summer, we received pictures from the group of how the plants and vegetables were growing in their yards. Many told us they didn't buy any additional vegetables that summer due to the overabundance of produce from their own plants.
The following spring, having "spare" plants again, I offered a "free" plant sale to the group and again, I was relieved of all my spare plants that included zucchini, yellow squash, Cukes, etc. Today I transplanted around 150 tomato seeding's from a plastic tub to six-pack's for the next offer. In addition to transferring my spare plants, it finally dawned on me that I was helping a group of senior citizens between 60 and 89, lower their grocery bill, provide a better quality of produce and have a bit of food security. This year, almost every "groupie" has asked for plants and I expect to provide as many as requested. It's not much but I feel that as least I'm helping one small group to survive a little bit better. If anyone else has spare vegetable "volunteers", you want to considered this route. Tomorrow, I'm going to stop by the local Senior Citizens Center and see if they are interested as I still have over 100 tomato seedings in tubs.
