Harvest Monday - February 13, 2012

I've got no harvests this week, but I do have some expenditures. Not that long ago my MIL gave me a birthday gift of $500 for my 50th birthday. I was told to spend it on something that I wouldn't ordinarily. As I mentioned before, my mind immediately to the garden. Now the gift itself won't go on my tally especially since the command was "don't spend on something I would normally buy", but I went over the $500 and that amount will go on the tally. So here is what I got. Just to follow the law I'll say in advance that except where noted none of these companies have given me anything. And I don't even yet support them. That will only come if the products bought work well in the garden over the summer. I've got my fingers crossed.

The first bought was a Gardena sprinkler. Not just any sprinkler, but a fully adjustable one. It is the Cadillac of sprinklers. It has a built in timer. It has three adjustments. The flow can be adjusted. The length of the spray can be adjusted. The fan can be a wide fan or it can narrow down to 4.5m. My old sprinkler would only get long enough for the whole garden if I watered the side of the house and my neighbors car. So I never did. I had to water small bits of it at a time. My bed area is about 4.8m wide. Supposedly this baby can go that narrow and still do the whole length of the garden. It does have a flaw. It can't turn the corner to the circle bed. (Wouldn't it be cool to have a sprinkler that could do an L and was also so adjustable?). But for the main 8 beds that are 16'x4' it is perfect. Well if it works as promised. Price $89. And yes I'll love it if it works, and I would never ever buy it on my own.

The second thing I purchased was a row cover from Australia. I've been using Agribon and in our strong winds (ignore my weather station, the wind meter isn't working right) the fabric rips. It is common for me to go out and have to repair it many times over the season. And if I don't notice the rip, the moths get in. And they did once last summer. I also hated the long length of row cover. I had to lift too much. I had a cabbage butterfly get under once and getting it out once it flew to the other end was a pain. I practically had to take the whole thing off and let all the other butterflies out. So I wanted covers for half beds. So they would be 10' wide and 15' long. And I wanted three.

My second complaint about Agribon is that it sheds water. If the drops hit hard enough they will go through, but even with the lightest weight of fabric a lot of the water goes off the sides. And I grow greens under the row covers so they typically need more water than normal not less. The material that I'm getting is woven. I'm hoping it is more porous.

The third complaint about Agribon is that you can't see through it well. To see how my plants are doing I really have to lift it up. From the pictures this one seems to be more transparent. But I'll find out when I try it.

I liked their plastic clips too. Right now I've been using metal clips which are a bit abrasive and contribute to rips. My plastic tubing is between the small clips and the large clips, so he sent me samples to see which ones would work. Well the big ones don't hold at all. The small ones seem to hold well but they can't lock with my size of pipe (typical 10' lengths of 1/2" white PVC found in US home improvement stores). I bought the small ones and hope they work. They seem to go on and off quite easily. Total for 45' of row cover fabric (enough for three half beds) , 40 clips, plus he said he put an extra Jumbo Plus clip in my package because customers like to use it to bunch up fabric on the ends. Price: $220.94.

The last thing I ordered was some irrigation from Dripworks. I have a long thin bed that is a total pain. It has to be hand watered as it is only 2.5' wide and is along the road in front of our house. I would love not to water the main path in my veggie garden too. So I wanted some irrigation for the herb and sunflower bed there. And since it wasn't that much more I added enough fittings to do the two outer beds of the circle garden and some movable irrigation (ie not hooked into the mainline piping) for two of my 4'x8' beds. I figured I'd get enough to play if I wanted. I really don't want to set up irrigation for all of my beds. It just isn't worth it. Price: $260.

This makes a grand total of about $570. Since the gift was $500, I'll add $70 in my tally. And now I'm down $530.11. Ouch. But I know I'll make it up once the veggies started rolling in. Last year the expenditures were about $670 and I made it up in July. Though I have amortized a lot of costs, the first few years of a new garden are always the most expensive.

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.