$$$

So, we figured that it's probably a good idea to keep track of how much this garden is costing us. Once the veggies start coming in, it'll help us determine if we're coming close to saving any money on produce at the store, and will maybe give us something to go by next year. I'm sure we're spending more than we need to this first time out, but hey, you gotta start somewhere. And here's hoping we don't produce the proverbial $64 tomato. The breakdown so far:

Wood, screws, a garden hose nozzle, and veggie plants (4 tomato, 2 basil, 2 parsley, 2 oregano, 1 yellow pepper, 1 green pepper, 2 jalepeno): $92

4 tomato cages, a quart of linseed oil, stain pads, cloths, and latex gloves: $41.49

Martini fixings, with which to reward ourselves after our hard work in the yard: $40

Quality time spent with your spouse on a beautiful spring day: Priceless

Total cost so far: $173.49

Here's the work we did today. We rubbed in a coat of linseed oil on the wood and let it dry:

The can of oil says you have to be really careful about disposing of the cloths and such that you use to apply the oil - apparently, linseed oil gets very hot as it dries, and the stuff can spontaneously combust if the rags and whatnot aren't handled carefully. Boy, in this case, PAY ATTENTION to the warnings on the can! After we spotted smoke curling up from the used stain pads (which we had left sitting on top of a dry wood table top), we decided to put them inside of some unused clay pots for further drying. Those burn marks? From the spontaneous heating. There was some serious heat coming off those things.

Can you see the smoke?


We allowed the boards to dry a little, then screwed them together into a basic rectangle:

Then we put our wooden rectangle in its spot in the yard and left it there to dry further. The can of oil says it needs 12 to 18 hours to dry, and since we'd rather not see our new little wooden rectangle catch on fire (though the ugly shed is another story), we don't want to put dirt and stuff in it just yet. We'll do that later this week.

In the meantime, we took our plant babies out of the dining room and set them outside to get some sunshine. We plan to plant next weekend, when the average last frost date has passed, so these guys just need to last another 6 days or so in their transplant containers.

BTW you can find great information on the web from the Virginia Cooperative Extension (www.ext.vt.edu/resources). They have great printable charts and information on planning and building a garden, when to plant what, how far apart, etc.

And then we congratulated ourselves with a couple of martinis. Aaaaaaahhhh.