I had a simmilar experience with the Dept. of Agriculture. Years ago, mostly as a hobby, my husband and I planted several acres as a “pick your own bouquet” garden. It was lots of work but lots of fun. We transplanted 15 to 20 thousand seedlings that we had started in our greenhouse every spring. We would transplant 200 to 400 seedlings in the morning, go home for lunch and a nap and repeat the process in the afternoon. We did this for several weeks and then started the weeding and cultivating process. Then we opened the garden to the public for picking. People just loved to come and arrange their own bouquet as there was nothing similar to this in the area.
Anyway, it got so people would make requests for certain plants and we would oblige if possible. Local restaurants loved to send one of the help for fresh herbs. One request was for sweet annie from the artemesia family. It was an aromatic plant which grew 5-6 feet tall and the branches were used as a base for dried wreaths. We planted several rows at the further end of our garden and one day I was surprised to see a car with a Dept of Agriculture insignia parked at the side of the road with a tripod set up and some sort of telescope on it with the sights trained on my sweet annie. I wanted to go out and invite them to a closer examination of my crop but hubby just wanted to keep them guessing so I stayed away.
Unfortunately, old age caught up with us just as we had established a loyal following and I decided it was just too much. When I announced my decision to end the gardens, one restaurant owner was so dismayed that he offered to send his help to assist us with the transplanting. LOL Wonder if he had checked with the help first. Anyway, the greenhouse planting and watering was also a big item so we threw iin the towel and sold the 10 acres.
This period was when we started the hugh compost piles and I learned to just love compost. Hubby would soak a load of compost with water and we would put a shovelful beneath every transplanted seedling and the compost
would stay moist to nourish the seedling through much of the summer. I put out a sign in the fall for people to put their bagged leaves in the field and would get hundreds of bags. This along with manure and loads and loads of seaweed made for nutrient rich compost.
Wneighbor-my compost furnishes me with veggies throughout my flower beds. Squash tomato, cuke and watermelon seeds sprout in my flower beds every year. I just leave them where they spring up unless they are in my way and I think they are very attractive in my flowers. Many flower seeds come from my compost as I compost the old plants full of sseeds every fall. Haven’t started a cosmos plant in years and they are still coming up everywhere. Likewise gloriosa daisies.
Think of all the beauty and joy that you brought to folks lives.
There was a time, when on Friday, I cleaned house and arranged flowers for all the rooms.
Today, it is silk flowers [not for me] and flower arranging is a lost art.
Over the years, I have often read of people who could make a living, raising herbs and specialty vegetables for sale to the restaurants.
Your compost is priceless and should go in every plants planting area.
When I set out tomato plants, I dig a hole on the slant, line it with potting mix [compost would be better] lay in the tomato plant, so that I get as much of it under ground as possible and have only the top leaves still on it.
By doing it this way, I get roots all along the stem and a firm base for the plant to grow on.
All those small bumbs on the tomato stems will form roots, in water or in the ground.
Getting old is for those who do nothing, it did not please me to find out that my mind was still young, but something happened to the rest of me.
I tell ya, you just can't beat the stuff! I love my compost too. This year I picked up 15 bags of leaves cleaned up at an old cemetary. I've got a new bed of irises out of those cemetary leaves too. Somebody just raked the rhizomes out with the leaves so they were mixed in everywhere. I'm loving it as they are already up. Can't wait till I see the blooms!