Tag Archives: gardener

Update on Dirt Cheap and Three Question Sets

So I went back to Shannon’s, my local garden supply store, because I needed to confirm the price of that dirt I’d been complaining about.  Well, I was wrong – wouldn’t be the first time but it also means I need to make sure I always get an itemized receipt there.  Not that I think anyone was intentionally trying to scam me but I do think I paid for a bag of soil I did not get.  The way it works there is that they ring up your order, then you go and pick up the soil you want.  Since I’m a regular there (or maybe they’re just trusting), they don’t usually closely examine the receipt that I hand to them – just a quick eyeball and they hand me my goods.

In their defense, it is a busy place and they’re quick with the transactions.  Still, isn’t it just good business practice to give an itemized receipt?  I remember when I was a kid in Beloit, Wisconsin.  We’d go to Shopko with my dad nearly every weekend.  He’d watch as the clerk entered each item in the register (yes, I think it was entering it, not scanning it back then), then when the total amount came up – cha-ching – he’d look at each item, counting them in his head, reviewing the receipt.  Then, when we were out in the car, all our goodies packed up and ready to go, he’d look at the receipt again, counting each item thrice.  If everything was right, he’d pull a Fred Sanford, “This is the big one, Elizabeth,” clutching his hand over his heart in homage to Redd Foxx, in mock protest.  If he found something wrong, though, he’d go into mode, his voice dropping a couple octaves and his brow growing into a little furrow.  More than once we kids found ourselves back in the store, with the manager standing next to Dad, reviewing the receipt again, and, almost inevitably, my dad would leave with his wallet just a little heavier than before.

All that aside, here’s a CORRECTION to my previous speculation that a bag of organic top soil at Shannon’s of Brooklyn costs $5.00.  I inquired and found out the following: Fafard Premium Topsoil (Organic), 30 lbs. bag is $5.00 [no price listed on their site], and Hamptons Estate Topsoil (Organic), 30 lbs. bag is $6.00 [also not listing a price on its website – this product is made by the Long Island Compost Co.].  Please don’t take my word for it – go somewhere and confirm for yourself.  I’m curious though, ….

QUESTION: What garden supply store do you recommend for a good deal on soil?  Keeping in mind that many of us (namely me) live in urban areas and may not have a vehicle to drive to pick up a bag, is there a deal that may not be near by but is good enough to bother a friend for a ride, or pay a willing car service to do the dirty work with you?  All of this leads me to another …

QUESTION: Can anyone tell me whether it’s standard business practice to give itemized versus non-itemized receipts?  Why?  Do businesses try to add products thinking the customer won’t notice?  Does a lowly clerk not care enough to bother?  What if it’s a ma and pop shop, and the clerk is the owner?  Do you think people are inherently honest or apt to get away with as much as they can?  Are they just sloppy?  Am I just paranoid?  Did I spend one too many days as a kid in a hot car while my dad counted and recounted our ShopKo supplies?  Or is it that people are no longer careful enough to watch their money, count their change and review receipts?  Have we become sloppy with our money, a hallmark of the credit card generation, and symptomatic of our debt acquiescence?  Do you ask for an itemized receipt when you don’t get one?  Do you ask for a receipt at all?  All of this leads me to another …

QUESTION: Why is it my local garden supply store, Shannon’s, is named the David Shannon Nursery & Florist if it has, as its site says, “been a family operated business for over 30 years by Joseph Perrotta and family.”  Joseph Perrotta, is there something you want to tell your customers?  And, which is it: 30 or 40 years?  Later the site says: David Shannon Florist and Nursery, is the leading florist, nursery and greenhouse in Brooklyn New York. Family owned and operated business for over 40 years by Joseph Perrotta and family.”  David Shannon, whoever you are, wherever you are, how bout you?  Do I smell a story here?

Go ahead … gimme the dirt.

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Triscuit Seed Card – Moldy Oldy?

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And maybe these are oversoaked? Does anyone know? Can you over-soak a seed? I did go longer than the two to four hours on the instructions but I thought that would rather kickstart them.

QUESTION: should I use or toss this seed?  Anyone ever use the Triscuit card seeds on the back of the box? Anyone know whether they are trustworthy?  Where are these seeds from? What about the glue that keeps the two sides of the card together – harmless or heinous?  Do seeds grow mold?  Does it matter?  Should I use these seeds anyway?  Anyone see anything other than basil or dill on the Triscuit’s box?  Triscuit’s seed cards: marketing gimmick, good samaritanism, or terrorist plot?  Go ahead … gimme the dirt.

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Whatever Happened to Dirt Cheap?

I went to my local garden supply store, around the corner – Shannon’s on Fort Hamilton Pkwy.  I wanted to buy a little soil and mulch since I used up the mulch so generously donated by newly known neighbor/friend, and the two big bins of compost I started out the season with are down to about half of one of those bins, and I’m trying to build up some soil in my backyard (literally, build it “up”) because I could not decide between planter boxes, planter pails, or the good old ground for the four heirloom tomatoes I picked up in Saratoga Springs, so I’m doing something kinda in between.  So I decided to buy some soil and mulch to help me out.  Two bags of topsoil, one bag of mulch and one bag of something else but it was, basically, dirt.  That, one pair of gardening gloves not more than $10 (I’ve worn my others out), and $8.00 worth of impatiens, and the bill came to around sixty bucks.  No lie.  That averages to about ten dollars for a bag of soil.  They’re big but they’re not outrageously big.  They’re organic and free of those nasty chemicals that self-water and self-feed and time release and all that junk.  But, still… am I crazy to think that’s a bit pricey?  Am I out of touch?  No, that isn’t my question.  It is….

QUESTION: How much is good dirt these days?   … AND … is it like other things where you might find a better deal online?  Did dirt go up along with every other useful item for living lately?  If it did, is it just to keep pace, to seize on the panic, or is there a real reason behind the increase?  Is it just that expensive here in NY?  Are gardeners elsewhere feeling the pinch too?  Go ahead … gimme the dirt, really, I mean it this time.  Give it to me, preferably for free or really really cheap.

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Countdown to Armageddon: six days left in the garden

Okay, so we’re all wondering, right?  Will there be any fewer greenthumbs hanging around the garden on May 22?  Since most city gardeners are of the earthy paganistic ilk, doubtful.  But, still, living each day as if it were the last (and especially the next six days since they’re said to be the last for all the God-fearing girls and boys), let’s get right down to business: what’s the best activator for compost?  If I want my compost to decompose faster than Charlie Daniels can give the devil his due, I think it’s time to pull out all the stops on the baddest activator around.  That’s right, it’s time for the golden showers.  I don’t know what made me first start thinking about piss as a viable component of the compost pile I’ve been building for the last few years in my Brooklyn backyard … might have come to me when I was picking up another pile of dog poo, or wondering if there weren’t a better use for the two-year old bottle of vinegar in my cupboard, or who came up with the toilet that wastes so damn much water for no apparent good reason, or might have been just the process of elimination that got me thinking I should research whether piss on the pile could do any good at all.  And, of course, if a pissy pile of compost put beneath my bed of carefully selected organic greens just might make the Eternal Footman really bust a gut….  My research yielded mixed results, but fortunately it didn’t leave me totally high and dry.  Although I may still be swayed away from the practice, for the first time today, I dumped all my liquid eliminations on my mounding pile of rot, and saved an approximate 15 gallons of water in the process.    (For all those not in-the-know, wiki.answers.com estimates 1.6 g for “newer more efficient toilets” [apparently those kinds that now come without commas] but up to four or more gallons per flush for older models…my toilet being in a typical rowhouse built circa 1907 with a bathroom updated on the cheap in approximately 2006, I’m estimating I’m a three-gallon-a-flush girl, and was pretty flush today).

So, until I am convinced otherwise, I will piss away these last few days, and either leave behind some beautiful black gold to help all those poor souls left to fend for themselves when the last of the supermarkets are closed, or I may be right alongside them, wondering if I can’t taste something a little extra tangy in those carrots.

It’s the last call — six days left to weigh in for me putting my pee-pee on the pile or pouring it back in the porcelain water waster.  Answers?  Musings?  Links?   Go ahead – gimme the dirt.

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