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anipgarden · 1 year ago

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Cheaply Starting Seeds

This is my fourth post in a series I’ll be making on how to increase biodiversity on a budget! I’m not an expert--just an enthusiast--but I hope something you find here helps!

Having a high-quality seed-starting setup can feel like an ultimate but distant dream. An entire shelf--an entire room, even, filled with grow lights and plant trays in the optimal setup to make tons of plants? Tons of garden tools, each with a diverse and dedicated purpose? That’s just not an option for some of us. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get started at a low cost!

Seed Starting Set-Ups

Speaking from a somewhat biased Floridian perspective, I’ve had great success starting seeds outside! My usual set-up is on a rarely-used outdoor patio table that’s moved to a sunny spot in the yard, but I’ve even grown seeds in solo cups on sidewalks, or directly in the ground, with great results!

Some seeds grow best when they go through a cold period before germinating, while other seeds aren’t affected much by it and just wait for warm weather. As such, a viable option is to sow your seeds in late fall, let winter roll by, and wait until the seeds sprout on their own come spring! I would try and mark off where you planted said seeds, so you don’t lose track of them and accidentally dig them up.

Alternatively, if you want to get started while it's cold outside, a popular option I've seen is to grow in milk jugs! There's a lot of different ways to do it--everyone has their preference--but if you're already drinking things like milk or juice or sweet tea, and you're going to get jugs at some point in time--why not use them for gardening?

An easy way to clear up a section of lawn to create open gardening space is by using a sheet mulching or lasagna gardening method (though I like to call it the Cardboard Snuff-Out). Place cardboard or newspaper down in fall/winter to mark out where you want to garden. Layer compostable materials like grass clippings and wood chips on top of it, or potting soil/bagged compost. It’ll decompose over Winter into an organically rich bed that’ll have killed the grass and weeds underneath it. You don’t have to break out any tools and sweat over it come spring, and the cardboard itself will slowly decompose as well!

Though it's often recommended to plant things directly into the ground to decrease watering needs and increase nutritional independence, there’s plenty of reasons you may not be able to. Whether you’re renting, living in a place without a yard, or even just can’t or don’t want to break ground in a yard, you can still help biodiversity by growing in pots. Some plants have rather extensive root systems and aren’t well suited for pots, but there are still plenty of options available for plants that’ll boost biodiversity, be beautiful to look at, and grow just fine in pots! A recommendation is to get a larger pot, if you’re able, as it’ll hold onto more water and need watering less often. Not only are potted plants great for providing food for insects, but they can be shelter for other creatures too--there’s been a good few times I’ve moved a pot and found a frog or toad living underneath it.

If you don’t have room for pots on the ground, you could consider using hanging pots or window boxes! These can be great and easily-maintained options to provide food and habitat for insects and birds in an urban living situation like apartments or townhouses, but they can also be a fun way to add even more habitat to an already-robust home garden. You can even make an entire mini habitat in a window box or pot! I can personally say I’ve seen tons of pollinators visit my yearly hanging basket garden that consists of about five to seven plants, and I’ve always loved the idea of having a window box for blooms right out my window. Just make sure that it’s safe--make sure they’re securely fixed, and that whatever they’re hanging from can handle their weight when they’re freshly watered and loaded with plants.

If you want to start indoors, you don’t necessarily need grow lights or heat mats (though it will make things a bit easier.) I’ve successfully grown milkweed, peppers, tomatoes, zucchinis, and even sprouted lemon seeds in college dorm rooms, and kept tomato and pepper plants in a dorm room on a sunny windowsill. For the most part, you need a nice and sunny window, some kind of container, and a source of heat (in my case, I used anything from a space heater to the warmth of my laptop running nearby. If you don’t have any sunny windows, or enough windowsill space to start plants on, its possible to obtain cheaper grow lights. One year, my mom bought me some gooseneck grow lights that could clip onto things for cheap off of Amazon. (Fair warning, though, they did light up my entire room in purple. I lived alone that year (covid year, my roomies bailed), so it was fine, but it was kind of trippy,)

Another year, when I was in an apartment on my own, I bought a grow light modeled like a normal light bulb from the lightbulb aisle in Lowe’s and put it in my desk lamp. Growing seeds indoors can make them grow fast and leggy, so it’ll help if you can keep a desk fan on them so they focus on growing strong instead of tall and fast.

If you’re fortunate enough to have a friend with a nice set up, you could see if they’re willing to let you borrow some of their space to start your own plants as well! My set-up in college was by no means High Class, but I was still more than willing to start seeds for my friends who asked!

Containers for Seed Starting

So now that we’ve talked starting seeds indoors and out, we need to address what to start them in. It’s important that whatever you’re using has drainage holes, and be large enough to support your plant (starting something like milkweed or a squash in a tiny little pot won’t yield great results). Fortunately, there are options here!

If you’re looking to buy pots, Dollar Tree will sell some small plastic pots for cheap in the spring! They’re kind of thin, and won’t last forever, but they’re great for a few uses and don’t cost a lot of money. Something that’s a bit more pricey but are longer-lasting, in my experience, are the Burpee SuperSeed trays. They come in different sizes, but I’m fond of the 16-cell trays--they have silicone bottoms and are made of a nice solid plastic with a tray to hold water, so they hold up for a long time and are easy to clean and reuse!

Burpee seed tray, my beloved.

What’s better than a cheap pot? Free ones, and there’s plenty of options there! I’ve seen people use toilet paper or paper towel rolls as pots by folding the bottoms in and have it work well for them! I think this method would work best if you had some kind of tray to keep them moist, because mine dried out fast last time I tried this method. I’ve also seen people make pots out of newspaper with a few different methods, and the people who use this method love it--apparently, the roots pass through the paper easier and it decomposes faster when buried, so you can just transplant the whole pot and avoid any kind of transplanting shock. If you don’t have any newspaper on hand, you can likely ask your friends or neighbors!

I’ve gotten lots of mileage from reusing old containers by poking a few holes in the bottom with knives or scissors--just be careful while you’re doing it! I, personally, am more likely to use an already-used solo cup for it--they’re a nice size, so they hold a good amount of soil and moisture and give the seedling a good amount of root space. I tend to write the plant information on the side of the cup in sharpie marker, or on an index card in pen. I’ve also heard of people making use of egg cartons, fruit containers, yogurt cups, milk cartons, soda bottles--the more you start thinking about what you could easily poke a hole in, the more options start coming around!

This photo may be from 2018, but I'll still regularly reuse cups like this! They're also great for cuttings!

As you start planning to move your seedlings into the ground and preparing planting sites, you’ll likely need a few tools to do it! How do you get these? You may be able to borrow some tools from a neighbor! As long as you make sure to return them in good condition, depending on how friendly your neighbors are, they might be totally fine with you borrowing their tools for awhile. If you don’t want to take that route, there may be a tool library you can borrow from, or a mutual aid group that can loan you tools for awhile. Either way, borrowing tools is cheaper than buying them--though, if you do have to buy tools, cheap hand-tools from Walmart or the dollar store work just fine. They’ll even last a good while if they’re taken care of when not in use! I've even seen places like Ross sell some tools and pots in spring!

Spotted in a Walmart gardening section by the registers, 2023.

Of course, your mileage may vary with these. I genuinely cannot think of the last time my house got a newspaper, and as I've mentioned I don't have to worry about snow. Similarly, maybe you don't use plastic cups when you can help it, or don't have a particular affinity for eggs and yogurt. Maybe there isn't a tool library in your area--I sure don't know if there is in mine--but it could still be worth poking around and asking a neighbor!

That's the end of this post! My next post is gonna be about ways to support your plants for cheap--we're gonna be talking compost, mulch, and trellises. Until then, I hope this advice was helpful! Feel free to reply with any questions, your success stories, or anything you think I may have forgotten to add in!

#biodiversity #solarpunk #gardening #outdoor gardening #growing from seed #budget gardening #cheap gardening #indoor gardening #ani rambles #out of queue #the biodiversity saga #I can make a post later about how I prepare solo cups for being used as pots if yall want #I've found its safest to just use a nice pair of scissors and keep the cup upside-down on the table while I cut into the bottom #and when i say 'take care of the tools when not in use' i mean 'dont be me and leave a cheap shovel from dollar tree out in the rain'#it had a wooden handle and it basically just like. rotted. fell apart in my hand when I picked it up #generally keeping tools in the garage will also help them not rust as fast too #but if you're gonna leave them outside at least put them in shade #the number of times i have lost feeling in my hands because i picked up a hoe that was laying in the sun and fuckin SCALED my palms #its not fun. dont do it. maybe its a Floridian problem but still #if you read all these tags. uh. shovel emoji. idk. sorry dude.

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polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup · 1 year ago

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this is probably off topic but like i was rereading sea glass gardens & i was just giggling at the fact that kamo (the good one ofc not the one who took back shots for the greater evil) is just…obsessed with getting this middle school delinquent approval & MEGUMI JUST NOT REMEMBERING HIS NAME???

like imagine dedicating your spare time to impress the adopted child of the strongest who is also the zenin’s heir (if gojo fucking goes crazy or kicks the bucket) who is also the ten shadows user, trying to compliment him, hyping up his skills by saying he has more potential than the current zenin head, only for him to not know your name 😭. & the fact he apologized for it? i’m cacklingggg. you truly embraced megumi’s silent menace tendencies. tbh i was so convinced that kamo had a crush on megumi & was just flirting with him for the whole exchange event 😭.

(also maki’s little story of her interaction with megumi in their childhood? i cried a little. like the fact megumi being a menace to naoya & the clan & taking mai away was like mai’s happiest memory? i really can’t wait to see mai’s appearance here)

also i can’t believe megumi is half dead & blind & he’s already known as “yuuta’s boy”. this is giving when you’re a high school senior & you just forcibly take a underclassmen under your wing & everyone just calls that underclassmen your school kid.

like imagine in a happier universe where shibuya didn’t happen & yuuta pops tf out & introduces himself to the first years. imagine the hilarity of nobara & yuuji trying to figure out how tf yuuta is able to cling onto megs, tease him, & knows little details about him without getting his head chewed off 😭.

honestly..yuuta’s unhealthy platonic feelings about megs makes me wonder gojo’s reaction bc i imagine him being so insufferable like he just assumes that “omg my distant relative have a crush on my emotional support child”

ANYWAYS I LOVE YOUR STORY !! i can’t wait for the next update, your writing is literally so beautiful that i have to re read it multiple times to take everything in (i’m kinda slow). it’s gotten to the point where i accepted your fic as canon 😭. i promise you in a few months your fic is gonna be known as THE JJK FIC. i’m manifesting it. <3

So I’m never gonna get there in the fic because sea glass gardens cuts off pre season 1, but I like to headcanon that Yuuta desperately wants yuuji to like him (he’s megumis friend and also Yuuta feels an obligation to look out for him because they were both sentenced to death) but yuuji is just NOT having it because he’s the one person in the world that yuuji feels almost seething jealousy for. He is not a jealous person. He has never been a jealous person. But Yuuta is living his perfect life, which is a fact that Yuuta would be surprised to learn, because he is not living anyone’s perfect life. From yuujis perspective, Yuuta is:

Inexplicably close to Megumi. Megumi is somehow his boy. Yuuji didn’t think Megumi would tolerate being anyone’s boy.

(He doesn’t tolerate it it’s somehow the best and worst kept secret in the school. Everyone knows Megumi is Yuuta’s boy except for Megumi himself. Megumi insists Yuuta’s like this with everyone while panda silently shakes his head where Megumi can’t see him.)

He’s got some kind of secret history with Megumi that no one will talk about (since I imagine that the second years would legitimately keep their word and not talk about what the Zenin did to him behind his back) but whatever it is it makes Megumi trust and rely on him more than anyone else??? How is the son of a bitch doing it???

He was also sentenced to death but got it suspended and like. Yeah. Yuuji would like to live that dream existence.

The fucking legally adopted child of Nanamin??? How?????

It’s a lot of

Yuuji, glaring at him angrily from across the room: he’s the perfect man

Nobara: why do you say that like you’re mad

Yuuji: why am I not him!!!

Yuuta’s just. Despondent. He wanted yuuji to like him so so bad.

Considering canon Megumi didn’t tell them he had an entire sister until they were at his old school and people were asking after her, I doubt that even waterboarding could get out of him “yeah so I met the second years when my bio family violated the no contact protocol that started because of how dangerously abusive they were and basically tortured me for a week, up to the point of my Actual Death. I was blind for a while. I guess okkotsu senpais protective of me because when we first met he Literally Had To Restart My Heart and Lungs. Also we held hands multiple times in the immediate aftermath.” So I think Yuuji and Nobara would be aware that there’s something weird about how Yuuta and Megumi met but have absolutely no idea what that weird thing is.

(Panda: look it’s really not weird how protective Yuuta is of Megumi considering all that Megumi was going through when they first met

Nobara: What was Megumi going through when they first met

Panda:

Nobara:

Panda: I’ve said too much.)

I have a serious reading of Kamo and a self indulgent reading of Kamo and a Kamo that’s somewhere in the middle.

The serious reading of Kamo is that Kamo was a kid who grew up in a bad situation with very little control over his own life and saw Megumi as the one who could possibly understand him. They both were born outside of their clans but their inherited technique had the ability to elevate them to clan heir. He persisted in trying to compliment him and form common grounds with him out of isolation and a desire for someone to understand his lot in life. Megumi, meanwhile, would see Kamo as exactly who he doesn’t want to become. Kamo has accepted his place in his clan; megumi is violently rejecting it. He doesn’t want to be the same as Kamo because he doesn’t want to be anywhere near the Zenin clan.

The thing is that out of all the characters, Kamo’s really the best one we have to kind of represent the more common views of the jujutsu world. like, he very consistently is shown to be able to make his own assessments about what judgment call the higher ups and the wider jujutsu elite are going to make or expect, and part of it is his desire to fulfill his role as kamo clan heir. And Kamo? Accepts out of hand that Megumi is going to be formally brought into the Zenin clan once he graduates.

Like, he's in the fight during the goodwill event, and he's just like "yeah so when we both graduate we'll both be working to support a major clan in the jujutsu world" and megumi's like "the hell are you talking about. i'm going to kill you with this elephant."

It is probably a common expectation that gojo keeping Megumi from the Zenin clan is not going to stretch into perpetuity. Like. Right now, megumi is a minor. Gojo very easily can control who has access to him. When he’s an adult working in the society, the same trick of preventing all contact isn’t gonna work. Those are his coworkers now. They’re going to get more and more opportunities to bring him back into the fold. The Zenin are just playing a waiting game to get Megumi back and everyone sort of has just accepted that fact.

Kamo is what the Zenin clan expect Megumi to one day be for them, and I think it puts Megumi a bit at odds with him. Megumi has no interest in living the way Kamo does, and a little internalized fear about it happening anyway. Refusing the Zenin clan is the only control he’s ever really exerted over his life and future. He never got to pick being a jujutsu sorcerer, but he chose not to go with them. All of kamos priorities and mindset remind Megumi of all the things he’s messed up about, and it sets them at odds.

The self indulgent reading is that Kamo had a huge crush on Megumi and spent the entire goodwill event trying to execute his four year long plan towards holding his hand only to be thwarted by the fact that Megumi was completely dazzled by a himbo he knew for less than two weeks three months ago.

And the reading above is just the serious reading with the added fact that Kamo also had a huge crush on Megumi.

The thing with Mai partially came from something that Gege apparently released as background lore. In the goodwill event, Mai says that she never told maki when she had her first love, and i was like "that's weirdly specific, I wonder who that is" and then I googled it, and the answer was apparently either Megumi or Maki herself, and I said, "Huh, I Don't Like That" and decided we weren't doing that.

Now, to be clear, I do get making that decision on a level as a writer. Like, the Zenin clan is enormously fucked up and explicitly practices intermarriage. That is the kind of thing where you may include it because it's so fucked up and perfectly exemplifies how fucked up it is. a clan that explicitly is practicing incest is going to heavily skew how relationships amongst family members develop and form and it's going to be a fucked up dynamic amongst closely related people.

But also I Don't Like It And We're Not Doing That.

I did like the idea of Megumi and Maki occupying a somewhat similar place in Mai's mind. Like, Maki is in a league of her own, there's too much history there for anyone to come close to her in a relationship, but Mai's fondest memories of Maki were specifically with Maki occupying a sort of companion and protector role. Maki was in the same "level" as mai. They were both vulnerable kids in a bad situation who were looked down on by their family. They were both fast tracked to be servants. But Maki was the brave one, the capable one, the one who guided her when she was afraid and promised to always be there, and that's where a lot of mai's complex emotions around maki come from: mai was afraid and maki was strong and maki was there to hold her hand, and then suddenly she wasn't anymore.

Once I put Megumi in the Zenin compound as a little kid (since it's unclear what contact Megumi had with his bio family pre-season 1 and how extensive it was), I knew that 1) the zenin would not be putting him anywhere near Mai and Maki, and 2) that I wanted them to have met anyway.

So I liked the idea of Maki and Megumi occupying similar spaces in mai's mind because they both had briefly been viewed by Mai as companions and protectors. Megumi's contact with Mai was way more limited than Maki's was, but Megumi sort of swept into her life at a time where Mai really did need it most.

Mai would have been right at the age where most kids get their technique, if they get any at all, and we can sort of assume that mai may have figured out what hers was late if Maki didn't know about it. She just failed to get the ten shadows technique, and was a freshly confirmed failure in terms of power. She was just feeling the sting of her family's rejection, and Megumi, meanwhile, was the one who was supposed to be the most special and blessed of them all.

And he was the only one who didn't reject her out of hand, other than her sister. He stuck his own neck out to protect her. They all played together. There's not a lot of good memories than any of the three of them have on the Zenin compound, but I think that all of them secretly thought of that day as one of the best they can remember from childhood.

And it sort of was a huge deal for Mai. Everyone was treating her like she was dirt under their heel, but there was Megumi, the presumptive heir to the clan, the Ten Shadows himself, and he played with her. He was her friend. I think that would have been kind of a landmark moment for little mai. not only is that the acceptance and kindness she desperately needed, but I think it was also sort of source of hope for her that she could have a place in the Zenin compound one day without it being utter garbage. Megumi was assumed to take over the entire clan one day, and he was kind to her. He was her friend. He didn't let Naoya treat her badly, when Naoya was the one who was likely going to be heir if Megumi hadn't inherited the ten shadows. Naoya was at the top of the food chain, but Megumi still stood up for her, even though her own parents wouldn't have. So maybe when he grew up and became clan head, he wouldn't let people mistreat her and maki anymore. They could all be happy together, and Mai couldn't imagine a future where she and maki got to be happy before. Even though the clan leadership cracked down pretty hard on them for that stunt, it didn't make a dent in how overwhelmingly happy it made her.

Megumi going no contact probably would have been a huge blow, especially considering her age. She lost her hope and her only friend who wasn't her sister in one fell swoop, and she really was too young to have the tools to understand just how much Megumi needed to be kept away from her family for his own safety.

Mai, back then, was living in such a warped life that she didn't really realize how bad her family was, especially to Megumi. and that's not so much a comment as to how bad it was for her there versus him, but more that she had very little context as to what his life there was like. she was never supposed to meet him. She mostly heard about him secondhand, and that's all being filtered through the zenin's unique. All she ever heard was about how the ten shadows had finally been reborn, and how the clan was blessed for it, and how upset they all were that they had to give him back to gojo. No one even wanted her. Megumi seemed like he was living a much better life than anyone at the zenin compound could expect, so what cause would gojo have to take him away?

She was just a little girl who didn't really have friends other than her sister and him. She wanted to play with him again. She didn't understand much outside of that.

Of course, she's had time to grow up and kind of put her memories of the past in a more reasoned context. Maki came to the conclusion that Megumi probably didn't have the best time there a while ago, and this incident has really put it into perspective for her that he must have cut off the zenin because they were dangerously abusive towards him. Like, she mostly never saw him, but she has a lot of memories of him 1) being hauled out of a training room unconscious 2) being on sixteen hour days at the age of six, and 3) being violently unhappy whenever he was in the compound. Mai, to a lesser extent, likely has a similar awareness that he didn't go no contact for shits and giggles, it was because her family's fucking bonkers and abused him badly enough for gojo to pull the plug. of course, how that's shaped mai's mindset towards megumi now is still yet to be seen.

I know what it is, of course. it is seen for me. you all have yet to see it.

Gojo can and will make his own existence everyone else's problem and yuuta is sooo right to not want him to know. like. he wouldn't kick yuuta's ass. but that doesn't mean he'd be good about it.

I'm so glad you like the story! thank you for your kind words!!!

#sea glass gardens #I have this entire self indulgent continuation that's just yuuta breathing into a paperbag in africa about what the fuck is going on #he keeps trying to confiscate the first years to africa with him #like mostly megumi #megumi is his boy #but he LOVES that megumi has friends like he WANTED megumi to find what he had in his class he adores nobara and yuuji #whoever the fuck they are #he doesn't want to take megumi from his friends so he will simply take all of them #look obviously the others tried their best but they failed and lost the privilege okay the first years just need to come to africa where he #can take care of them properly #yuuta was locked and fucking loaded to be the world's greatest senpai only to get kneecapped with a study abroad trip #the other second years have to play rock paper scissors to decide who has to tell yuuta that megumi fought fucking sukuna twice within two #weeks of the first day of school. /sukuna/. sukuna hasn't been a problem for a thousand years and megumi has fought him TWICE.#he was shirtless both times. literally no one wants to be the one to tell yuuta they are all so afraid.#all yuuji and nobara know about him is that everyone talks about him wistfully and he keeps trying to confiscate them to africa #Maki: look you have to understand that yuuta loves his boy #Panda: he fucking loves his boy #nobara: and we may have to... go to africa about that #maki: you very well may #yuuji tries to ask megumi why they call him yuuta's boy and inumaki jumps out a 3rd floor window to tackle him because he still doesn't kno #i have this crack au in my head where Yuuta figures out teleportation during the goodwill event bc he can't take waiting to find out #if everyone's alive. the first thing he does is save his friends the second he does is hug them the third he does is hit them very hard #yuuta: you promised me you would take care of him!#Panda: we did!#Yuuta: why are there ROOTS in him #Panda sweating: look the thing is--TODO was the one who punted him through a wall for not being an ass man #maki had to sit on inumaki to stop his homosexuality from telling yuuta about that one and she did it not out of love for todo but out of #her conviction that yuuta would murder todo and then feel guilty and then she'd have to /hear/ about it and that's too much effort #all that work gone to shit because panda needed someone to throw under the bus

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