FFA Plant Sale 2025

 Every spring around this time (not far before Mother's Day so they can sell the flowery hanging baskets) the nearby high school's FFA (Future Famers of America) students hold a plant sale.  Every year I attend.  Expect when they were taking online orders for pickup due to COVID, I like to select my own and make it an "event" of sorts!

Here's what I go, minus the coleus below. 

Three tomatoes.  Sungold and two Mysteries.  Mysteries are tomatoes than have lost their labels.  I like them for the fun of seeing what turns up, and because they are only $1!  I hope at least one of them is a full size red tomato.  (That's part of the Herb Garden in the background.)

Two SpinTop® Mango blanketflowers. SpinTop® is a nice compact variety.  I have a SpinTop® Orange Halo I've had for quite a few years, and it's coming back.  I lost a lot of my blanketflowers over the winter. 

There were very few, nearly no, annuals.  Maybe they'd sold the day before, the first day of the sale, maybe they failed to grow, or maybe the students just didn't grow many.  I was asked to buy a "flower" for someone, and while I like perennials, they aren't in bloom yet, so got this as a flower replacement.

Coleus Kong Empire Mix

I have lemon cucumber seeds, so didn't need these Salad Bush plants at all!   The students didn't grow lemon again this year.   I can't resist trying bush forms of vegetables!  I'll still plant the lemon.

I have lemon thyme in the herb garden, yet still got another.  It's so pretty, smells so good, and looks nice in containers and rocky places and the herb garden.  I had to bargain down the price on this, as anything with a label reading "Perennial" was a certain price, more than the herbs.  Thyme is an herb!  Yes, a perennial herb, but still an herb.  Other than basil, all the herbs were perennials.  Sage, rosemary, chocolate mint... 

I'm skipping the Master Gardeners' Sale this weekend.  It's $5 to get in, and $5 can buy a lot of plants elsewhere!  Besides, there aren't the number of vendors there used to be.  A lot went under during COVID.  So, there are not the variety of unusual vegetables anymore. 

I guess I'd better get out to the disposal company and buy some potting soil.  My son will probably get it for me for Mother's Day.  He usually asks, "Do you want some dirt?" on gift-giving occasions!