🌼 A Dollar Tree Gardening Haul! 🌱 Gardening on a Budget

We got such a huge variety of seeds! They had such a great spread of both flower and vegetable seeds, which is great because alongside wanting a garden that is visually pretty, I have it in my head that I’m also going to grow a lot of the vegetables that we’re going to eat. Sometimes I wish we had the space to homestead properly (and that I’m not the kind of person who will romanticize the concept of homesteading, but is definitely not built for it) but since we definitely don’t, growing the veggies we’ll eat is the next best thing!

I love the idea of being able to go out to my garden, clip some oregano or pluck tomatoes from the vine, and bring them in to be sliced and diced for our dinner that night. It was one of the concepts that I think got me into the whole cottagecore vibe in the first place. It soothes the soul in a way I can’t fully conceptualize enough to be able to describe to another person—but if you know, you know.

Anyway, on to the haul!

First we got some marigolds, which I plan to plant next to the tomato seeds. I heard something once about how marigolds help not only keep tomatoes free from pests, but also help the flavor? I might be getting that wrong, but I’m still going to plant them together and see what happens!

Then we got some oregano. I had in mind that I wanted to plant some and use it on homemade pizzas at some point during the summer. How fun would that be?

Shasta Daisies were the ones I was most excited to find, and one of the two things that I went in search for specifically. I love how they look and I love that they are resilient plants (which helps when you’re a mediocre gardener at best lmao) that can thrive in the hostile, fast-paced environment that is my garden.

Getting the hot peppers has a story behind it: not the acquiring of the seeds, which was just picking them up from the display and paying for them. But the reason I wanted to get these seeds dates back to last year when we went to a plant nursery I had just recently discovered. They had this black pepper plant called, like, midnight peppers or something. Danny talked about wanting to get one sometime soon and growing the peppers so he could use them in cooking. Well, we recently found out they are, like me, purely ornamental so cooking with them is out of the question. However, I thought it would be fun to grow these peppers and let him cook wtih these instead.

See this is what I meant about enjoying the idea of cooking the stuff I grow. Just thinking about it is making me feel like I’m in a Studio Ghibli movie!

The carrots are the same. I wanted to be able to grow them and cook with them, though I think I’ll be the one eating them more than Danny ‘cause he doesn’t like carrots. I might steam them up or something!

Finding the sunflowers was really exciting to me because I think they’re the ones that will grow way bigger than normal sunflowers—and maybe it’s the Alice in Wonderland fan in me, but I think it’s hilarious to grow a ton of comically large sunflowers; ones that are so much bigger than me that I will someday have to crane my neck up to look at them and think to myself “this might have been a mistake.”

Last but not least are my morning glories—both the blue and multicolor packets! I have this plan to buy some white trellises and mount them on the fence in the back yard by one of the gates, then let the morning glories take over that one spot and fill it with color. I know these can be kind of wild and choke out other plants, but I think if I can find a way to quarantine them from the other stuff int he garden it might be okay. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know!

I put the Gladioluses in a seperate part of the post because these aren’t seeds per-se, but bulbs instead. I fell in love last year with foxgloves and delphiniums, so of course when I saw a bulb for another kind of pretty stalk plant of course I had to jump on it! I think its cool that they came from

I got these three planters with the express purpose of growing herbs in them. I want to paint them all up cute in pastels and use them as like my herb tower. Of course I’m going to collect a few more over time, but right now I think three is a respectable beginning!

And to go with these, I got . . .

These cute little mushie watering spout things!

I understand how to use them in concept, but I’ve never really used any in practice before. I had a plan to get some more of these at some point also and put them in the planters from above, so they can steadily water the herb garden as needed. Plus, I just think they’re really cute!

That’s my gardening haul from the dollar tree! I hope you guys liked it! If it gave you any ideas for your own gardens, let me know in the comments! Also if any seasoned gardeners have any tips out there for a newbie like me, please please please leave them in the comments too! I want to learn as much as I can!

Until next time!