How To Get CHEAP PLANTS For Your Garden: Don’t Get RIPPED OFF!

In this video, I share how to get cheap plants for your garden when buying transplants! The cost of vegetable transplants has skyrocketed recently, making buying plants from stores hard to afford. In this video, I share 3 tips to get cheap transplants for a fraction of the price at big box stores. Don’t get ripped off and do this, instead!

While it is always cheapest to start transplants from seed, this isn’t always feasible for everyone. Don’t let high prices at big box stores stop you from starting a vegetable garden. These tips can help you save money starting a garden at transplanting time.

I use the following products* in my vegetable garden:
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 Save Money Buying Plants
1:47 Tip #1: Plant Nurseries
2:47 Tip #2: How to Get Free Plants
3:52 Tip #3: The Grocery Store Trick
5:35 How To Separate Seedlings
8:50 Separating Large Plant Roots
9:57 How To Fertilize Seedlings
11:34 How To Acclimate Plants To Sun
14:36 Adventures With Dale

If you have any questions about how to save money buying transplants, want to know about the things I grow in my raised bed vegetable garden and edible landscaping food forest, are looking for more gardening tips and tricks and garden hacks, have questions about vegetable gardening and organic gardening in general, or want to share some DIY and “how to” garden tips and gardening hacks of your own, please ask in the Comments below!

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ABOUT MY GARDEN
Location: Southeastern NC, Brunswick County (Wilmington area)
34.1°N Latitude
Zone 8B

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#gardening #garden #gardeningtips #vegetablegarden #vegetablegardening

what’s growing on gardeners it’s Tuesday
April 16th and transplanting season is
here on the Southeastern coast of North
Carolina on today’s video I’m going to
share with you three ways to get the
cheapest transplants possible to grow
out into your garden don’t get ripped
off and make sure you follow the tips in
this video if you’re new to the Channel
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power and other gear your support is is
greatly appreciated it’s early spring
and everybody is starting to transplant
their annual vegetables out into their
Garden this time of year but there is a
big problem the cost of transplants has
skyrocketed in the last few years I was
just at a local Big Box store and the
cost of transplants was appalling we’re
talking $5 for a single plant5 whole
dollars for one little pepper plant one
little tomato plant that’s crazy and
even crazier if you want a larger tomato
plant those cost an absolutely insane
$10 do you have any idea how many
tomatoes you can buy for $10 and once
you factor in the costs of fertilizers
soil things like insecticides or
fungicides that you may need to spray
you will never see a return on that
investment the cheapest way to get
plants for your annual vegetable garden
is almost always going to be to grow
them from seed but what if you don’t
like growing from seed you had some of
your seedlings fail you simply didn’t
start enough plants or maybe something
killed your seedlings out in the garden
well you may have no choice but to go
out and buy seedlings for transplanting
into your garden if this is you I’m
going to give you three tips to save you
a ton of money and get cheap plants for
your garden so you don’t get ripped off
step number one is to buy your
transplants from local nurseries and not
big box stores Big Box store transplants
are usually incredibly overpriced local
nurseries often provide more variety
selection for a fraction of the cost and
you have the added benefit of supporting
a local small business if you live in an
urban or a suburban area this may
involve taking a bit of a drive but it
is often worth it because you’ll have
better pricing and you’ll have many more
choices if it’s a longer drive for you
try to work this into your routine when
you’re out running errands anyway or
make a big trip where you’ll grab some
fruit trees some soil amendments some
tools some watering supplies whatever
else you may need for the season and get
all of the shopping done in one trip if
the drive is long call them in advance
to make sure they actually have what
you’re looking for so you don’t take a
long trip for nothing nurseries tend to
have much more knowledgeable staff that
are very willing to help you right away
so take advantage of the customer
service tip number two is to buy secret
transplants with multiple seedlings in
one when I was browsing the selection at
one of my local big box stores I noticed
numerous plants had double seedlings
some even had triplets if you play your
cards right you can get two or three
seedlings for the price of one so why
does this happen well when selling
transplants most of the associated costs
are in the potting mix and physically
transporting the plants to the stores
the cost of the seed itself is almost
negligible therefore most commercial
Growers place two to three seeds per
seed cell or container to guarantee that
something germinates because seeds don’t
have 100% germination rates having empty
seed cells will harm their business
model so it is always best to plant more
seeds than necessary sometimes the
workers fail to thin the seedlings after
germination and you can capitalize by
buying these plants later in this video
I will show you how to easily separate
seedlings so you can get two or three
plants for the price of one and my third
tip is to buy plants from grocery stores
did you know that most grocery stores
sell live plants there is usually a
selection of live herbs in the produce
section it’s pretty common for grocery
stores to sell large basil Rosary
parsley oregano or thyme plants they may
even have a selection of other things
like mint often times they’re the same
cost as a bunch of fresh herbs I got
this giant basil plant at my grocery
store for way less than the cost of a
single transplant at the big box doors
and it’s literally triple the size I’ve
been picking off of this basil plant
inside my sun room for literally 2
months and now we’re finally at the
point of the Year where it is warm
enough that I can plant it outside
because this plant is so large I can
easily chop the root ball into multiple
individual plants and plant them and I
will show you how to do that in the next
segment oh and some grocery stores also
sell Nursery transplants too in fact my
local Piggly Wiggly has a big display
out front full of tomato and pepper
transplants at Bargain Basement prices
so definitely shop around now that being
said one word of caution if you do buy
your plants from the grocery store be
aware that they may not be acclimated to
True sunlight they’re used to Growing
indoors and indoor lighting so if you
just plop them out into the garden they
could actually get cooked by the UV
lights of the real Sun so make sure you
slowly acclimate those plants to real
sunlight bring them out for an hour or
two in the morning and the evening when
the sun is really weak or bring them
outside on a cloudy day when it’s fully
overcast and slow acclimate them over
time in about 7 Days of doing this they
should be able to tolerate the true rays
of the sun now I’m going to show you how
to separate seedlings if you were to buy
doubles or triples this can save you a
ton of money and to do that I’m going to
use this potting mix that I made this is
just three or four parts cocoa core to
one part perite and one part vermiculite
it’s a nice good lomy mix perfect for
potting small seedlings now a lot of
people will have you do crazy things
when it comes to separating seedlings
like taking the root balls and soaking
them in water so you drain away and wash
away all of the soil and gently separate
the roots and while that is the case
when it comes to new transplants when it
is vigorous annual vegetable seedlings
like this there is no need for you to do
that in fact all I’m going to do is I’m
going to take a knife and I am going to
separate the root masses so I’m going to
take one of these inexpensive kitchen
knives and I’m going to gently separate
the plants
right in between and then they will
naturally pull apart so I have to do
very little to physically separate those
seedlings then I’m going to take some of
the potting mix and I’m going to line
the bottom of the two containers maybe
only about an inch or two and I’m going
to take the root ball and place that in
the center of the potting mix and I’m
going to take a mixture of the new and
the old potting mix pull off a couple of
lower leaves so you can see
better and then just compress this down
as best as possible put our tags back so
we don’t get them
confused and I know it may seem crazy to
be kind of heavy-handed but I have
literally never in all my years lost
lost a Seedling doing it this way
provided that they are large enough with
the which these pepper plants clearly
are so I’m going to take these and move
them off to the side in the shade and
then I’m going to do the same thing with
these tomato plants now when you remove
a container always pump the bottom a
little bit because doing that you won’t
accidentally rip off too much of the
root ball we’re going to follow the
exact same procedure we’re going to take
a little bit of mix and line the bottom
then we’re going to take our knife as
you see right here and start a cut in
between the two plants they will
naturally fall apart just let gravity do
the work let the roots fall in place we
will
place the two seedlings in each pot up
against the sides for support put in
fresh mix and then with our hands do our
best to compact them down and really
this is all
takes to separate your
seedlings and if you do this you will
effectively get two plants for the price
of
one then we will retag them with the new
tags so we don’t get them lost and once
again we will move them off into the
shade for the time being now this basil
plant is a little bit different here if
we actually turn it over we can see that
this basil plant was sewn as two
different plugs so we are not going
going to fight against nature uh in fact
we are going to take our scissors and
we’re just going to cut it right down
that natural line so there you can kind
of see where the two plugs are we are
going to slice this in half and pull
those roots apart like a sandwich and
then we’re going to see if we can
further subdivide this clump of basil
plants and looking at this root mass I
can tell you right now you can really
cut this baby down there is no reason
why uh this has to be uh kept as one
single plant you can break these apart
and I know some of you may be yelling at
the screen right now I’m being way too
harsh but I’m telling you when root
balls are this thick it is not that big
of a deal you can cut them pretty uh
pretty strongly and they will grow back
on
you and then right here I have some
smaller containers that I already
prepared with potting mix so once again
we are just going to fill them all in
now that all of our seedlings have been
separated ated and poted up we are going
to water them in and one thing I
recommend you do is add a little bit of
a diluted water soluble fertilizer to
your watering can because that will help
reduce transplant shock my favorite
thing to do is to take Alaska fish
fertilizer and mix it in at a rate of
about 2 tablespoons per gallon and then
pour it all over your transplants this
will greatly help in the recovery now if
you can’t use fish fertilizer because it
smells too bad and you’re keeping your
transplants indoors just use something
like diluted quarter or half strength
Miracle Grow tomato or Jack’s 202020 or
something similar and I know some people
don’t like to hear the phrase use
Miracle Grow but the fact of the matter
is if you are buying your transplants
from big box stores or from nurseries
they are almost certainly using nothing
but Miracle Grow or some kind of brand
equivalent because they can’t have their
shelving areas and Green Houses stinking
to the public and everything organic
that’s water soluble basically smells
like dead fish so the only way to have
truly organic seedlings is to do it
yourself unfortunately and if you can’t
have the area smelling bad you have to
do what you have to do so again I’m
using this fish fertilizer and I going
to soak everything down really well and
I’m going to do this in a dirt area
underneath my fruit trees because this
stuff doesn’t smell too good and if I
have to have it soak into an area I want
to soak I want it to soak in around my
fruit trees into the soil so now we’re
going to let that drain now the plants
have been watered in with the diluted
fish fertilizer we need them to rest in
full shade for at least 2 to 3 Days To
recover do not put them out in the sun
they will not be able to handle the sun
stress because the roots have been
damaged and they’ve been badly Disturbed
so leave them in the shade I’m going to
leave them underneath this folding table
by my sun room entrance because this
little crevice right here is in full
shade and it will be protected Under the
Sun so it won’t even get any dappled
light then after about 2 to 3 days as
long as they’re not wilting and they are
standing straight up we will move them
into part sunlight in the morning and in
the evening and we will slowly acclimate
them over the next 3 to 4 days to full
sunlight once again after that 7 to 10
day period they should be able to be
transplanted out in the garden just
simply take your transplant and flip the
bottom make sure that you see some uh
some Roots underneath here growing
through or or flip it over and pull the
bottom container off if you have
yourself a nice root ball they’re able
to go out into the garden now if I had
say 3 days of cool overcast or drizzle
with no heavy wind I could have
separated them and planted them right
out into the garden if I had totally
overcast cool calm weather but I don’t
have that it’s 86 and sunny and it’s
going to be like that for the next 3 or
4 days that’s way too much heat stress
if you had perfect ideal temperatures
where it’s going to be over cast in the’
60s and it’s going to be nice and Mild
at night you could do this directly in
the garden uh but you really need a
prolonged period of time of those
conditions in order to make that happen
so it’s much safer to do this
transplanted as seedlings let them
recover in the shade then move them out
in about 10 days or so once they fully
rooted and they fill back out the
containers again and if you don’t trust
my methods well back in the winter I
bought a parsley plant in a grocery
store and I cut it into quarters because
it was so large this is one quarter that
I planted out in my garden way back in
the winter time because parsley is
freeze tolerant this parsley plant right
here is another quarter and it’s a
little bit stunted because it is getting
overtaken by that monster Dill that is
just thriving and these are the other
two quarters that I let sit in my sun
room in these two little containers they
really need some fertilizer and they
have to be transferred out into my
garden I’ve been picking them all winter
long uh so they definitely need some
nitrogen they are yellowing and root
bound so I need to get these out into my
garden and find a little spot as soon as
possible and that right there are three
tips that you can use to dramatically
reduce your costs and save a ton of
money when buying transplants so
everybody I sure hope you found this
video helpful if you did please make
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channel thank you all so much for
watching and I hope to see all of you
again on the next
video hey Dale check out who’s back in
the pond we have a friend another happy
little Gator you can you can barely see
its head over there floating around but
I know what they look like at this point
there was some fish over there I wonder
if Mr Gator’s getting pretty hungry what
are you thinking buddy are you pretty
hungry maybe I can give you a treat does
Dale want a
treat
Dale oh there’s a little biscuit for
Dale back to Gator Patrol