Our HD has not discounted its annuals yet, however, Molbaks (the nursery extraordinaire) already sent me an email about their 2 for 1 veggie and annuals plant sale. Guess it is more cost effective for the big stores to just throw away what they don’t sell than bother with discounting and encouraging customers to wait for sales.
Over the years, I’ve filled my small yard with perennials and flowering shrubs, something’s always in bloom from spring to fall. I don’t buy many annuals, just a few pots of them to add color to the porch. I get them before Memorial Day so I already have what I want, and hubby has his vegetables planted and his garden is doing well.
It’s just that I see all those annual flowers and veggies at the stores and my mind doesn’t understand how throwing them away makes sense. And so wasteful.
I know, it is a waste in our eyes, but it probably makes business sense. Plants are not HD’s main bread and butter products, and it would not be my first choice of a store to get my plants from. They stock nursery stuff to keep the wives busy while the husbands load up on lumber. Or to keep the husbands busy while the wives load up on retaining wall blocks. 
'Scuse me, but I hang out in lumber, too.
That’s why I said “Or…” 
Its true that it is wasteful.
Grocery stores give extra food away to food banks, our local nursery has a 50% corner where they put individivual plants that arent as cosmetically appealing, ( Swansons, although one of my favorite nurseries for ornamentals is Medina. Medina, actually has better prices than Swansons. I used to live close to Molbaks, but alas that was before I was a gardener) but then some stores like H & M, and Abercrombie & fitch or Penneys, destroy apparel rather than donate it.
I used to be so sensitive that I would not dig up a plant that was doing poorly, had outgrown its space or I jst didnt want anymore.
Not any longer.
I now know enough about plants that I know what is worth saving on the sale table.
I picked up bulbs on sale for my yard.
I just cleaned up one squash area with scarlet runner beans and cucumber. It was too bushy that I missed 3 huge cucumbers. I had to compost them. Two of my compost bins are full and the third one is almost full. I had 5 compost bins in previous house, but 2 of them were so huge, like 96 cubic feet, too heavy for even both of us pushing the bin.
I’m going to start seedlings for melons, I’m going to be super careful, not half hazard anymore. I want Chatentais melons in my yard.
I like to pick up perennials when they go on sale at my local nursery. There is always a few spots that could use something. I don’t plant any annuals at all in my garden beds - just in my pots - which I do in May.
My local Lowe’s had some plants on sale - fruits that should have been planted a month or more ago, but if I had space, I would pick them up. Space is always the problem!
These were guava, grapes, blackberries, etc., in big pots for $3.
Blackberries?
Where are they selling blackberries?
Here they are extremely invasive.
We even have special tools designed to rip out the roots.
Here in New Orleans. I’ve also seen them all over the mid-Atlantic. IMO they are thornless blackberries and they don’t send out runners like raspberries do. There are “laws” about raspberries in community gardens because they will spread invasively, but not blackberries. Must be a different variety than whatever is taking over the Pacific Northwest.
I remember reading a Tom Robbins book as a teenager that talked about the blackberries in Seattle. How people should just give up and trellis or arbor the whole city until it was covered in blackberries. Prostitutes could be called “blackberry tarts”, etc. He has quite an imagination!
Waah! We went away for the weekend and the bunnies ate all the cabbages and something is infesting my green peppers! Boo! But in the good news department, the black raspberries are here!! Yum!
I really don’t get this soil mix I used. 1/3 each vermiculite, peat and compost. “Mel’s Mix” for a square-foot garden.The g beans are sprouting beans, but the plants are short. The tomato is healthy, but still a bit spindly (thin-stalked) and even the ones on sale at the mkt look better and have flowers. The beets I transplanted about two or so weeks ago- I poked around and there’s no apparent root growth. Maybe they grew a cm taller. The romaine may as well be a dried store display. Looks same as when x-planted an has now been in way too long. The green pepper is just sitting there, growing a new leaf or two weekly, but basically being super slow.
The peas are good, pods coming in. Tried one and it’s got an amazing slightly peppery taste. And it seems the potatoes are going like gang-busters. I pulled one potato (not the plant) and it looks perfect.
It’s hot here. Monsoon weather from Mexico is here, hot and humid. Not a good day to do garden. Why is it in the day I’m off I have to stay inside, can’t play outside. Argh!
I went to the nursery and get more plants but the nursery is the worst, very dry, no new plants. I bought a Armenian cucumber and a Thai hot pepper plant just because I can’t go out empty handed.
I’m also trying to sprout more seeds so I bought more starter soil for starting my seeds. I still have time to sprout and plant Sugar baby watermelon and several different types of cucumber. Hope some will come up.
Lol, DrGoogle. Mr B said that my path to Molbaks leads through his dead body. No more plant shopping for me!
My tomato field is doing quite well thanks to the drip irrigation. Without it, it would turn into a desert. I should have planted watermelons, too, had I known about the heat wave.
I hand sprout my seeds, there seems to be sign of life in my Charentais Melon seeds, very excited. My passion fruit suffer some set backs after I chopped it down to put in a trellis but I’m happy to report it’s sprung back to life. I think it’s a weed.
Alpine strawberries are not the best tasting here, but regular strawberries are. Good think the place where we normally purchase strawberries have now pulled all the plants, I have homegrown strawberries.
There something exciting emerging from the kiwi vines, I hope they are not just leaves.
@ looking forward:
I use the square foot method, but I didn’t like the mix he used, in my beds I used garden soil (I bought the bagged stuff) and I use compost/peat moss mix with it. I have run into the problems you have, despite the rich soil mix, you may not have enough nutrients in the soil. I would recommend using supplemental fertilizer, either a liquid one or a pellet one (organic or chemical up to you). Also, are they getting enough sunlight? Have you had a lot of rain? Those will cause the plants to be smaller, too. Last year I had similar problems, my peppers were spindly, my cucumbers died, my tomatoes were so so, this year, besides the manure/peat moss bagged stuff I tilled into my square foot raised beds, I also have supplemented it with an organic fertilizer, and the plants are thriving.
The container garden update. Yellow Cherry Tomatoes (don’t know what cultivar they are) already producing fruit. Most things I have read say it’s too early for fruit and the fruit may keep the plant from growing any taller. The Cherokee Purple Tomato plants had a huge weird looking flower at the top of the central stem. That flower has now become a miniature ugly tomato, but there are no other young fruit on the plants.
The Azoychka Tomato seedlings look very good, as are the Jalapenos, which have miniature peppers for the moment. The patio Eggplants worry me a bit because they also are blooming very early after transplant. Maybe my soil mix was too good.
As predicted, the mint has taken over its space, probably choking the Clemson Okra. The Pineapple Sage and the Bee Balm continue to do very well, though no blooms yet. The Vinca flowers I planted to add color to the vegetables look great. The Borage I thought was dead after transplant sprung back to life and grew more leaves. Re-seeded Marconi Sweet Pepper seeds a couple of days ago, as critters nibbled away at my very immature sprouts earlier.
The peas are not liking this unseasonably hot and dry PNW weather. Irrigation doesn’t change the fact that they just don’t like it this hot.
Musicprnt “I used garden soil… and I use compost/peat moss mix with it.” Yes, that’s what I did last year, which was a good year (just that I hadn’t done enough of some plants for a good yield.) Maybe 60/30/10 veggie soil/peat/compost that I mixed myself. I used some liquid MiracleGro today on the tomatoes and peppers. What organic fertilizer? Thx.
I also had trouble last year with Purple Cherokee. JustOneDad, if it’s too hot you can use a floating shade. I think that’s what they call it- it filters some of the direct sunlight, part of the day. You can make something yourself, stake it.
I may have asked earlier here if young peas can be harvested and used like snow peas. My answer is yes. I slice the ones I don’t eat whole. They’re so tender.