SFG materials in Utah County

Hi Everyone, I'm new here and new to SQF, but I'm excited to get started! I've bought my seeds and now most of my sqf garden materials, and we'll start putting everything together over the next week or two.

I just thought I'd pass along some of the deals I've found- I'm not sure how great they really are, but they seemed good with the (little) comparison shopping that I did.

Cal Ranch has Peat Moss in a 3.8 cu ft. size on sale (through March 8th) for $9.99, normally $11.99, which is still better than the price I saw at Home Depot. I got 2 of those.

I haven't gotten the vermiculite yet but I called around and Cascade's garden supplies in American Fork supposedly has the 4 cu. ft. size for $18.99! That's by far the best deal I've found- Home Depot has it for the same price but in the 2 cu. ft. size. I was also told by an employee at IFA that they have the 4 cu. ft. coarse vermiculite for $24.99. IFA is much closer to me so I'm trying to decide if it's worth the time/gas to go to AF, but I was glad to hear about cheaper prices for those vs. home depot.

I ended up getting the 5 different types of compost from Home Depot, and we're getting the trellis supplies from there, as well as the redwood to build the boxes.

Also just an FYI if you're just starting out and going to be purchasing quite a bit, check ebay for 10% off entire purchase coupons. They're technically for Lowe's, but you can use them at Home Depot, as well. I got 4 of them (expire middle of June) for about $5 total, so they already more than paid for themselves today and I'm sure we'll be getting more from there over the coming months.

Hope the info helps someone else a bit. I'm excited to get started with this!

Hi Handstaylor,

Welcome to the forum, and thank you for the informative post. The info will be helpful to other new gardeners in your area, as well as help us put a list together. You're right, $19 for 4cf is a great deal.

It looks like you have a handle on the building process, what do you think you'll be planting? Have you done any gardening before? Sometimes that's a good thing-no bad habits to break while learning the SFG method! If you have questions, be sure to holler.

Thanks for the welcome! We had a large garden when I was a kid and I absolutely hated weeding it *every* morning and I swore I would never have a garden when I was an adult. I'm sure eating my words now, though only because it's a different gardening method. We're doing hopefully some simple plants this year to start out with- various lettuce, spinach, peas, bush beans, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, and strawberries, and then maybe next year we'll branch out a bit. My (young) kids are very excited and hopefully this will be a positive experience for them, as well.

Well then, welcome to that club too! There's a lot of us who swore off gardening as kids and are now eating our words, but it's worth it. I think you're spot on in your selection of veggies to grow your first year-the stuff you regularly bring home from the grocery store.

SFG is a wonderful way to introduce to kids to gardening. Once the beds are set up, the hard work is all done. There are several forum members who home school and use their SFG as part of their teaching curriculum.

One of our youngest members is Josh, who just recently turned 15. He's putting some of us to shame, as he's already become a Junior Certified SFG Instructor!