The seedlings look great. I do have a question though: Isn't it too early to sow tomatoes? Tomatoes usually don't get sown until mid March here, for planting in May, as we sometimes get frost all the way into May. We had a few inches of snow in 2013 I remember, on May the 3rd, though that's not normal at all!! Just curious. Maybe it's different in OK!

Course, the last year or two have been very early springs, and it's allowed for earlier plantings. I suspect this year will be different however, as the weather has been so sporadic this past winter. We were at -8 a week ago one morning and now we're getting 0 frost and highs in the 50's. I suspect the spring will stay cooler and possibly sporadic. I'm a weather nut lol.

I've started a tray full of Australian Brown Intermediate Day onions as well as about half a tray full of American Flag leeks, hopefully to put out in March, but that's likely the most of what I'll sow until late next month. Though I may start some brassicas for putting out under cover in early March in a couple weeks. I would love to get an early crop before summer crops go in, so that I have more space for summer crops.

I'll post a thread showing my greenhouse/low tunnel seed starting experiment when I get the time later tonight

I will have to try your container mix recipe. I usually use a Happy Frog mix. I like it because I don't find the need to fertilize since it has bat guano, fertilizers, etc. in it. It's expensive however. I wonder if I can convince my parents to let me put compost in the oven to bake lol

Jacob, I have a "canning kitchen" out in my garage. Canning in the summer in my kitchen overburdens our AC unit. So I bake my compost in that oven. It does emit a distinctive odor, not like baking rotten stuff, but I don't know that I'd want my house smelling like that inside, either. Sometimes there are little gnat-like things, not sure if they are whiteflies or what they are, that hatch in compost. It is not necessarily true that the heat generated when compost is decomposing will kill weed seeds and insect eggs, anyway I haven't found it to be. But I've had some people tell me they wouldn't bake their compost anyway because that might kill the beneficial bacteria. There is a mushroom farm in Miami, OK and they only use their compost once and then sell it by the truckload. Lots of people buy that. In fact, I've seen it in bags at Lowe's. I don't know if you would end up with anything less expensive than Happy Frog, as everything costs something. I buy my peat in a big cube and vermiculite in the biggest bag I can find. I did discover that one of the local greenhouses' prices on these things is less than Lowe's price, plus they often can have it available year-round when Lowe's doesn't always. For "insurance", I make sure I have enough of all my components by the end of the previous year's growing season, just in case I can't find it for sale anywhere during the "dead of winter".

So, do you do any canning?

I have only canned preserves and pickles in the past. I'm hoping to can a lot more this year however. Tomatoes (crushed tomatoes, salsa, etc.), green beans, preserves, pickles, radishes, beetroot, sauerkraut (love sauerkraut), etc. I'll probably freeze quite a few vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower as well. That's the plan anyways. It all depends on how everything grows! Of course, I can get tomatoes pretty cheap at local farmers' markets or orchards for tomato products. I've been told to get "seconds". I'm not relying too much on our tomatoes, as we usually can't get any crop whatsoever before Septoria Leaf Spot or Early Blight wipes out the crop, but I'm going to try this year. Assuming everything grows well, I'm hoping that the canning and garden work will keep me busy this summer lol

. I get most of my compost off of a guy in town for about $20 a yard. It's a simple green waste/garden compost. The guy owns a lawn mowing business and uses all of the grass clippings and yard waste to make his compost. Pretty good idea. I'm hoping to have some more of my own next year, but it takes quite a lot of materials to get even a small pile!

We went around and picked up bags of leaves that we saw sitting on the curb on our way home from town, for several years. Left them in their bags in the garden till I needed them for mulch. After the end of summer, they'd be in good enough shape to till in. And then I started hearing about people who got a dose of herbicide in leaves they'd picked up, so I started being more careful about looking over the place where we picked up the leaves: Did they have a lawn-care sign in their yard? Pass it up. Those people drive big tank trucks and spray stuff all over the yards. I have no clue what's in that stuff. But if it's just the homeowner in a middle-class neighborhood, and their yard doesn't look like some kind of showplace, the leaves are generally safe. We quit picking up any bagged leaves AT ALL the year we got a few bags full of oak leaves, and there were a bunch of oak mites on the leaves. They make little blisters on skin when they bite and we just decided it wasn't worth it.

The trees we planted are getting to a size where they are providing us with a few leaves. And I bury my kitchen vegetable-type scraps directly into the garden, just by digging a hole and dumping the compost pot into the hole, then covering it over. This year we had something digging into the hole and I had to put something on top. I never found out for sure what it was. There are rats out in the nearby pastures. They come up to our house when the local ranchers burn their pastures, an annual thing for them as long as I can remember in Oklahoma bermuda-grass country, but not so much lately since starting a "controlled burn" and it becoming a wildfire can destroy your home and all your accumulated bales of hay and all that of your neighbors.

We have established a friendship with a local small-business tree trimmer. He brings woodchips to us and dumps a load right on our property, wherever we want it, if he can get his truck there. It benefits him because he doesn't have to pay a dumping fee. Normally he takes it to his ranch and dumps it out in one of his pastures, but we are located between town and his home so it keeps him from driving his truck all the way home to dump. You have to let woodchips age before you put them in the garden, or they will suck out all the so the first year I use them for mulch or I spread a thick layer in the walkways. Bermuda seems to love living in the woodchips, though....

I read this guy's blog sometimes and he has a nice post about woodchips here, with a pic of his garden:

http://jimlongsgarden.blogspot.com/2013/02/wood-chips-are-they-good-for-your-garden.html

The big tree trimming companies are not all that interested in dropping off woodchips to the local gardener. I think this is because they are far enough removed from the people who own the company that they don't reap any advantages to saving however much a dumping fee is. And also, the employees often bring their haul-off stuff to work and put it in the back of the truck with the wood. You don't really want them dumping off a load of chipped wood and and old sofa onto your property. So if you want woodchips, you need to talk to a guy that does the work but is also the owner of the business.

My son made most of his spending money by mowing neighbors' lawns in the summer. He always did a good job and was a nice kid so people liked him and he always had plenty of work. Now that he's grown and his step-children are always needing spending money, he takes them out lawn-mowing and it has become a family enterprise. He also learned how to repair lawnmowers and would do more of that if he didn't have a full-time job as well. At first he used the mowers that people had. One man did not want him bringing in a lawnmower because he said he didn't want "other people's weed seeds". Gradually he got so he could afford to buy a nice mower out of his income, so that he could cut grass for people who didn't have lawnmowers of their own. These days, he drives a pick-up and tows around a big trailer on which to put his riding mowers, all his trimmers and other tools.

That's a great idea, especially taking advantage of any time we get an early spring. I wonder why people think red makes a difference?

We sometimes get wood chips from the city. They have them for free, as long as we come load them ourselves. Ive had issues with them harbouring ants, no idea why! So I usually keep them in the paths...

I do mow our neighbor's lawn during the summer. It's a good way to make some extra money. Plus, I've become good friends with the lady, so I like to help her out when needed with any work.

There is an untapped source of income, generally, in doing odd jobs for older people. We're not supposed to be up on ladders, for instance. Many of us have adult children but we don't like to call on them for things we can't do because there is that sigh, and the rolling of the eyes, that tells us it's a nuisance to them. So we might as well spend our children's inheritances by paying someone to help us with stuff we can't do, right? LOL And older people make really good friends and have much to share with you, if you're interested in getting to know them. You seem like you are such a nice young man, your neighbors are lucky to have you nearby.