Hi mom2sld;

Reading your list I think you know what you need, but Ill summarize it for you and try to give you prices for what I know, I was just at Home Depot pricing out stuff for this season.

Material Description ______ Quantity _ Cost Each _ Total Cost
-------------------------------------------------------------
2"x6"x8Â (cut in half) ...... 4 ....... $6 ea. .... $24
1" blind slats (4" long) .... 12 ...... Free ...... 0
Peat Moss ................... 6 cu.ft. ............ $23
Compost, Various ............ 6 cu.ft. .$5-7 ...... $30
Vermiculite ................. ~6 cu.ft. ........... $30
Box 3-3.5" deck screws ...... 24 min. ............. ~$5
...................................................------
........................................ TOTAL ....$97 + tax

Your prices will vary.

Peat Moss  This stuff come in dry compressed bails usually in 2 cu ft ($9 ea), and 4-5 ($14 ea.), so youÂll need a 2cu. ft. bail and a 4cu. ft. bail. The large bail is heavy so get someone to help you with it.

Compost ($5/per cubic foot of composted manure 6 bags ($7 for dehydrated 4 bags)- get yourself a nice selection if you can of composts, get some cow manure compost, some compost mixes, and maybe some sheep pooh too. Chicken manure is too strong and should be used judiciously. I also like seafood compost and you can typically get in New England. I recommend buying dehydrated compost manures when available, they cost a little more but you arenÂt paying for water, and you need less of it by 1/3rd I would say. My advice it to get someone nice at the store to help you and answer your questions, HD/Lowes tends to be hectic, so try a nice garden center.

Vermiculite ($20 for 4 cu. ft.) - (not Perlite it is different) call ahead and find out what they have, HomeDept here in the Boston area doesnÂt carry it. I checked to see if LoweÂs website says they carry it and they donÂt say. I have to go to Mahoney in Woburn, MA to find it. Try a real garden center or farm stores in your area.

Deck screws  buy a box they will be cheaper then buying them individually, and get a few extras. Have you ever looked for a screw in a lawn?

Lumber  Douglas Fir sound great. Just avoid pressure treated stuff, you donÂt want it near your food. Have the folks their cut it in half for you, it depends on the place but often the 1st cut is free, each following cut it 50 cents to a buck.

Might I suggest you call around to Home Dept, Lowes, or your local home/garden/building center and see what their prices are and find out what they carry. Also once you decide where youÂre going call ahead and see if they will put the order together for you and have it waiting. It will make it easier for you and the toddler. Then you can just pay for it, chat a little and have some nice person that works there bring it out to your car for you.

How big is your car anyhow? Will it fit 16 to 18 cubic feet of garden supplies plus 8 x 2x6x4ft in it? I ask because you might need to make a couple of trips. If you end up doing this you can go shopping at different places and get the best price possible. Other nice places to get gardening materials that I know exist in New England is Agway & Blue Seal and they will have the stuff waiting for you and load it for you too.

Plus, you should bring a tarp to put all this stuff on if you have anything other than a truck. These bags seem to always leak and having the car/SUV/van smell like manure all summer well youÂve been warned..

I would like to suggest that you just stick to MelÂs methods & formulas for a couple years until you get the hang of it. The SFG method is really designed for you to succeed so donÂt look for formulas other than what he recommends for now. If your garden succeeds you will probably be garden the rest of your life and will be able to make changes in the decades to come.

To answer your other questions more directly:

"As for the mix, can someone please tell me exactly what to get and about what it will cost?" : See list above.

Are there names/brands to look for or avoid? : IMHO not really, itÂs all composted animal pooh. Get dehydrated if you have a choice more volume for the buck.

"Will I be able to get everything at Lowes/Home Depot? If not, where?" : You will be able to get almost everything from either. I suggest you let you fingers do the walking, and as I suggested see if they can have the order ready for you when you arrive. Call them the day before to give them some time to put it together. IMHO: you might like to buy from a local business too such as Agway, Blue Seal, a local green house, and hardware/home builder store, this will get you started in being part of your local community. Also when you need advice or help the small places tend to have less turnover in staff, so next year you can talk to Bill the Garden guy because he still works there. The smaller places will put your order together for you and are happy to have your business. To get the Vermiculite you will have to go to a specialty place since I donÂt think HD or Lowes has it.

"I haven't started composting yet, so I will have to purchase that too. Is it sold in these stores? " : Yes composted manure is sold at HD & Lowes although their selection is not as broad as a garden center. They usually only have cow and one other compost mixture.

"Has anyone not used Mel's mix, but a different mixture with great results?" : as I said earlier stick to MelÂs method for a couple of years before you use something someone else has developed. SFG is designed to help you succeed. More experienced gardeners develop there own formulas for there own reasons, which they donÂt always remember the reasons why. Backyard gardening is more an art form then a science. MelÂs method reduces it to a science that you can learn the art form from.

"For the two 4x4 gardens I described above, about how much will it cost to start? $50? More, less?" : It will run you just over 100 bucks, see list above. Since you say you are so busy and canÂt take the time to scrounge materials youÂll have to pay retail.

Composting: you seem to express and interest in composting, which will be essential to keep your garden going in the years to come. There is a nice composting forum here at GardenWeb, but I suggest you get a little book that teaches you a method too. Mel does a good job getting you started. Composting is not hard but it CAN take a little trial and error. ItÂs not rocket science, but be careful what you put in your pile. If you are not sure if something belongs in the pile leave it out until you know it is safe.

Your local town Parks/Recreational or Trash department might actually have compost bins for sale at a discount. Or a friend of yours might live in a town that can get it for you cheaper. A simple bin cost is $25 ea, better bins about $50 ea.

Let me say, "Welcome to the wonderful world of gardening." I hope we can help you succeed at your first attempt.

CloneZero

PS Sorry the list is not very readable but the forums editor software ripped all my space formatting out.

Hello i cant be of a lot of help but i can tell you, you will be spending a lot more then $50 depending on where you live. this is my first year to do the sfg and we will be spending close to $50 on the mix alone. I Had to go shopping with a toddler to they can get to be a handful. Also one more thing the vermiclacide (sp) will have to bought at a graden center or farm store. Call around to see who has it. It costed us $15 for it. We got the wood for free so i cant help you there. Make sure to get differnt composts, such as 1 mushroom one cow poo, and so on. You might want to use something other then newspaper, i know the grass we have is very smart and can get though alot of things. To save money where using cardboard dh got free. You might just want to do 1 so that you dont over do yourself. you can put alot in 1 box. Then if you did it you can build more the next year.

When I put in my raised beds I skipped the vermiculite altogether. When I could FINALLY find it, it was more expensive than I was willing to pay for. I used a combination of pure compost and peat only. Worked out great for me.....plants were all about twice as big as I expected them to be..... and saved about $100 (I have 3 big and 2 little raised beds). I also used twine tied to finish nails to grid off my garden, because I had those materials on hand......whereas I would have had to buy the miniblind. I got some compost at a Home Depot in southern MA, and the dehydrated stuff was $2.69 a bag. Hope that helps.....

Some very good advice above. I'll just add my own experience. I did 4 4'x4' boxes 6" deep for $100, but I had to do a lot of travelling. Wood I got for an unsubstantial price from a building recycling store. Habitat for humanity runs such stores all over the country. I put the boxes together with brackets. I laid cardboard down (2 layers) to prevent weeds. Vermiculite I got from a local hardware store for $20 for 3 cubic feet (I've read threads here suggesting that you can find it very cheap sold as insulation and at my work bottles of caustic chemicals are sealed in tin cans packed with vermiculite). Peet and manure I got from a Sutherlands lumber and Home depot respectively. The peet ended up being about $12 for 4 cubic feet, but it expands to about 1.5-2 times that volume. Manure cost me $1/cubic foot. Since vermiculite was by far the most expensive, I used a 40-40-20 manure-peet-vermiculite mix. It worked very well for all my vegitables.

Ben

great information guys! I too am starting 2 4x4 gardens this year. This post hit the spot! thanks,
Kim

This was great!!! thanks to everyone who posted...starting my own first time SFG this spring, too. Book is ordered but won't arrive until next week.
Boldcolors

I'm worried about the vinyl slats. They almost certainly have a very high lead content (that's the ingredient blinds manufacturers use to make them more opaque). The blinds that feel like metal are ok (no lead, usually), but I believe vinyl ones always have lots of lead.

Hmm, you'll probably want me to point you to research to substantiate my comment! Just now I googled "lead blinds" and got a bunch of articles. I'll link one of them below. (Looks like only imported blinds are a problem, but I would imagine most are imported....)

But if you want to be certain about YOUR blinds, hardware stores sell a pretty cheap lead test kit (something you rub on a surface, and if it changes color, that surface contains lead).

I wouldn't freak out if you've already put the slats down ... I imagine it takes a while for a significant amount of lead to leach out. Still, I'd start casting around for something different to use instead.

- Lisa

THANK YOU everyone!!!

You've all been so helpful. I appreciate all the time each of you has given to so generously answer my questions. I've printed out posts, made notes and have my plan to go shopping. I'm so excited about doing this and am confident now that it will be successful.

Thank you to ALL of you!!