Susan, I have grown Bonnie plants many times with no great complaints. My first choice is plants from M&M greenhouse.
They are just across the state line in Cameron Ok. They use to start their oun vegetables, and I expect they still do. They keep the plants watered and healthy, which I can not say about some places.

To sum it up I would say my complaint is with the store that sells Bonnie plants rather than Bonnie themselves.

Bonnie must sell a lot of plants. I traveled from Ft. Smith to Texarkana, with the exception of a few M&M plants in Ft. Smith, Bonnie plants are the only ones I found. I did not buy any because I did not want to pay $1.78 for four plants when I can buy seed so cheep.

Larry

I agree totally, Larry. But when I was only growing 2 or 3 plants, it was worth the money rather than start those 2 or 3 different varieties from seed. Much more economical for the small gardener IMO. You grow LOTS of plants, tho, don't you? Wasn't it you who posted those gorgeous pics last year of your maters?

Susan

Susan, I am starting more plants this year than I ever have. Most of what I start is in the ground because it is much easier that way. I have started tomatoes and peppers, maybe 5 or 6 times, but would buy most of my plants. I found it hard to find most of the new one I wanted to try so I am trying to get set up to start many more kinds. I only have one flat of tomatoes (just placed the seeds 2 days ago).

For the first time I am starting caggage,broccoli, sugar peas and lettuce inside. I was so surprised with the Chinese cabbage, it came up in about 36 hours.

I like the idea of starting from seed, for one reason the broccoli plants I look at were almost .50 ea, I bought a package of hundreds of seed for .25 and package of hundreds of cabbage seed for .34. I bought Armenian cucumber seed for .55, even if I like these cucumbers the seed will go bad before I can use half of them.

Larry

OMG, Larry! You are really giving it the old college try this year, huh! I wish you all the very best in growing your vegetables this year. May you have more produce than you could ever have dreamed....

This is my first year growing most everything, except for sugar snap peas and the few tomatos I had last year. My broccoli is up from sowing Sunday. It may have been up yesterday, I just didn't check the flat until today. Also, my Mesclun mix as well.

I just picked up some red (forgot the variety) and Yukon Gold seed potatos and need to figure out how I'm gonna plant them in my containers. I have 20 gallon pots for them and I hope that is big enough.

Got 4 cf of potting soil to start off with, and that's just for starting my ornamentals and to pot up tomatos when they are big enough, and until I can mix up some of the 5:1:1 and get them settled into their final containers. I didn't get my trellis materials today because I just have so much to do with the seeds right now, and figured they wouldn't need them until late March when I get them ready to go out. So, that's on hold for now. I need to dump old potting soil into the garden and clean my pots (I always wash them with 10% bleach solution before using again). So there's a lot of chores to do including sowing all these seeds I have. Lifting 40 or 50 lbs of potting mix today has not been good for my back, so I will probably rest it today and do some more tomorrow, after my doctor's appt. I still need to pick up my chicken manure for the whole garden once I have cut down the old plant material and cleared it of "stuff". I always hesitate to do that too soon, because some of the butterfly chrysalises may be overwintering on some of those dry flower stalks. I saw today that my Sedum is up already! Kinda early for it, and it may just get bit back by the cold temps we're supposed to get this week. The Mountain Mint is up about 3-4", too. Oh geez, it's just too soon. Ooh, I need to clear space for the peas and get their trellis ready, too. Just too much, too much.....

Have you calculated how much land you're planting this time around? Just curious. I may be using the neighbor's driveway and sidewalk before I'm thru setting up containers, LOL!

Susan

Susan, we moved here 4.5 years ago and thought that from 200 to 400 sq. ft. of garden would be all we would put in.
We had about 4000 sq. ft. at the old house and did not need that much for two people. We are up to about 2500 ft. now. That is small by most peoples standards but it seems as if I must add a little every year.

Of all the things to do about gardening, I love tilling the most. I am trying to work toward a no-till garden and if I had to retire my tillers there would not be much to live for, but if I could just make a recording of them running I might have a little hope. Madge let me know right quick that I would be wearing my headphones a LOT or I would have no hope at all.

Larry

Ah, the need for a little white noise, heehee! I just can't imagine what it takes to handle those tillers. I usually just break the ground up with my garden fork and then sit down on the ground and dig. I can't do too much at a time anymore, but I have done a lot over the years. Now you can tell when I've been digging beds in the yard cuz my britches are worn pretty thin from scooting around, lol! In the early days, it was my knees that were worn more. Can't do that anymore.

When I first started about 10 or 12 years ago, I was lifting those huge bags of soil, manure, sand, and top soil to wherever I needed them, but no more. Never had any help to rely on, and didn't think about asking either. Just had to be done so I did it. Now it would be nice to have a helping hand, but still have to rely on myself to get it done. I supposed I'd be like you once somebody came in to do the lifting and carrying and that would lead to other chores so that I wasn't doing much at all. Then I would just be inclined to give it up I think. So, I keep doing it like there's a carrot in front of my nose, and I guess in a way, there is. :>)

Susan

Susan, I feel I handle my tillers very well. I can stand up straight, or even lean on them (they are rear tine and pull themselves). What I cant do very well is use a shovel, spading fork or pull up plants. I have tools to do most of my pulling and lifting.

I have someone to help do the thing I hate to do, which is going to town. Madge will go after anything I ask her to. She cant lift, but the places I ask her to go will load for her. She takes very good care of me, I am very hard of hearing and she takes care of most of my communicating. I can only imagine what it would be like to not have someone to rely on.

Dont pay any attention to my sob stories, I am as full of crap as a chrismas turkey. The sad thing about it is that I dont want to be any other way.

Larry

Funny story - the first time I turned my tiller on it took off across the bed dragging me with it!

I use bonnie plants all the time. For some reason I don't have the best of luck starting herbs from seed. This year seems to be the first year I have been able to. I also will usually find one or two I cannot resist but bring home. I never had an issue with them. Now the stores that carry them like the rest of you I have huge issues with. I just may order them if I can.

Heeheehee - I agree with you Ezzirah. Often the stores, like the big box stores for instance, are more of a problem because they don't take care of the plants well at all! I try to catch them early in the year when the plants are just coming off the truck to grab them.

I buy herbs like Lavendar, Rosemary, and Bay that are said to be difficult to grow from seed. I've never actually tried to grow them from seed because it seems like such an effort in futility, taking a long, long, time to grow to any substantial size. Bay in particular is very slow growing and is often more expensive to purchase because of that. It is not hardy in the ground in Oklahoma and must be brought inside during the winter. Use care when purchasing Rosemary, too. There are hardy varieties such as 'Arp', which is the hardiest. 'Madeline Hill' and 'Hill Hardy' are other hardy varieties, but if conditions aren't just right, they are questionable. So beware if you buy locally. The one I see most often marketed here is 'Tuscan Blue'. While it might make it thru a mild winter, it is really only hardy to zone 8.

I buy tuberous or bulbing plants, too, rather than growing from seed, because not only do the plants generally put most of their energy into growing their tubers or bulbs, they often take a long time to reach flowering size for that reason; sometimes a year and sometimes many years.

I'm not saying you can't grow the plants I mentioned from seed, because you can. They're just a little more finicky to start from seed and they take a little longer to have any impact in your garden.

Larry, whatever it takes for a person to be happy, I'm all for it. I don't know too many of us that wants to change once we reach a certain age and are used to doing things the way we have done for a long, long time. Count me among them, too!

Susan

I didn't think it was that important where I bought my starter plants. Wrong! My garden has been full of disease this year. This year I bought almost all of my starters as "Bonnie Plants." never again. Now I'm afraid that the viruses and eggs are in my once wonderful ground.

Are you here in Oklahoma? If you are, then undoubtedly all the excessive rainl that fell here in May, June and/or July (maybe August in some locations) played a role in the prevalence of diseases here this year. It has been one of the worse disease years in my location since 2007, which was the last time we had very heavy rain and lots of flooding.

Regardless of location, you can remediate your soil by solarizing it beneath clear plastic. If you put down plastic over the soil now (if your garden has finished producing and you've removed all the plant debris) while the weather is still pretty hot, you probably could solarize it for 4-6 weeks and that would be enough. In colder temperatures, solarization could take months since the temperatures would be lower, and the temperatures might not get hot enough for proper solarization. As high as the high temperatures are right now, though, you could expect pretty decent solarization if you kept the beds covered for the entire month of September. As a bonus, solarization usually kills a lot of weed seeds too.

I bought Bonnie plant at walmart. A bell pepper plant. It's either peppercini or banana peppers.

I usually buy Bonnie and they have always done fine. I think it may be more weather related than plant, but you never know.

If you live near the OKC area, and want some great plants for cheap check out sunrise acres. We buy all of our spring/summer/fall vegetables from them. They are a certified organic and are great people. The plants are cheap (70 cents per plant if I remember correctly) and the variety of plants is great. I can't say enough about this small little farm, great people and great plants.

Here is their website.

http://sunriseacres.mypldi.net/