It would be difficult (and time-consuming) to add that up, but especially if you buy organic vegetables, you will save money. Last year I purchased two kale plants and at the time I bought them I thought they were sort of expensive, I think they were over a dollar apiece. But they produced enormous amounts of kale for many months, until our weather got really hot in the early summer. I think I could have kept them alive through the summer if I had tried, but I needed the space for other things, and by then the kale leaves were tasting bitter. But for all those months, I noticed that organic kale of the same variety at the farmers market was about $4 a bunch. If I had bought just one bunch each week I guess would have saved between $80 and $100 just on kale. I was eating at least that much of it, and giving more away. Then there was the organic looseleaf lettuce I grew. I paid $2 or $3 for a large packet of mixed seed (still using it this year) and also supplied myself, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. Organic lettuce was going for $2 to $3 a head but since I cut my lettuce leaves with scissors and let them regrow from the roots, I used the same plants all fall and winter and spring and saved an awful lot of money for myself and others. Beets were another good example. They are ridiculously easy to grow and a seed packet seems to last a lifetime. Yet organic beets (heck, even non-organic fresh beets) are very expensive at the market. Not every vegetable provides such a drastic cost comparison, of course. Zucchini squash is usually pretty cheap at the store, and of course it produces so much on the vine that you want to pay people to take it off your hands. Some other vegetables can be bought cheaply, although if you buy only organic vegetables most of those will cost twice as much as non-organic and that makes your cost comparison with homegrown a little more meaningful. But as most every gardener points out, the taste of homegrown food is much better, and the knowledge that food you grew yourself is safe for you and your family is priceless. When you factor in pride of accomplishment, convenience at cooking time, and the joy and pleasure of being close to nature, the value of gardening rises exponentially.

I don't do neither. I use a totally different mix from every day garbage and waste. 1 part crushed brick or clay pots 1/4 to 3/4 inches in size 3 parts coarse sand up to 1/4 inch. 1 to 3 parts potting mix depending on how wet your variety of citrus can tolerate and the dryness of your climate. You also need to determine the moisture demand of your tree. Since you already got your supplies you could wet screen and then spread the mix on a sheet and air dry it to perfection. Check out the link on citrus growing experiments since the important thing is whether the tree grows well and not how the screening was done Here is a link that might be useful: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/citrus/msg0320572518736.html This post was edited by poncirusguy on Sat, Nov 16, 13 at 22:26

I have peg boards and nails in the garage walls for gardening tools and other hardware. There is also a small workshop on the back of the garage which is now garden/lawn storage. One year I went to a garage sale in the neighborhood and bought two small dressers to put in my garage for garden storage. Gloves, small tools, yarn, hose connectors, bags, etc. go in those. The tools I use every day, trowel, and hand weeder, go in the bottom of a pail by the back door. Like gmjan, I have multiples that I don't often use but might. My favorites go in the pail so I don't have to dig through the drawer. I like the idea of a place to hang them so will consider that. We used to move every 6-8 years but have been here 13 years and "stuff" has increased exponentially. Need to do a good sorting and culling.

Scott, Although the cooler temps in the sunroom might slow down the sprouting of the slow seeds, they'll still sprout. You'll get the quickest germination of tomato seeds at 75-95 degrees but they'll sprout at substantially cooler temps. I know from experience that volunteers sprout in my garden or around the edges of my compost piles in late March through late April when the soil is still pretty cool and the nighttime temps are downright cold. Bottom heat speeds up germination but it certainly isn't necessary. I grew seedlings for probably 20 years or so before I bought a germination mat. I really only bought the mat could speed up germination and maintain a strict schedule of starting new seed flats every couple of days. After I seed a flat, it gets just a couple of days on the mat, and the seeds often are germinating well by the second day. Once the seeds are popping up, that flat comes off the mat and another one goes on it, and then I repeat that over and over and over again until all my seeds are up. Before I had a germination mat, I used to place the freshly-planted flats on top of the refrigerator. On a pretty warm day, I'll carry a freshly-planted flat outside and set it on the concrete patio in full sun so it can soak up heat from the sunlight and the patio beneath it. Once they're up, I keep all the seedlings except for the true heat lovers like peppers, at cool temps in the 50-70 degree range, usually on our screened-in back porch. Sometimes I'll let the seedlings stay outside all night once the nights are staying above 45 degrees. I carry a lot of flats in/out in late winter/early spring so the seedlings are growing at lower temps during the day, but still not exposed to below-freezing temps at night. Seedlings grown in cooler conditions stay stockier and are easier to harden off than seedlings grown on at indoor temperatures for weeks and weeks. Of course, pepper plants are always the exception because they get cranky when they are cold. Dawn