The 17 Best & Worst Garden Supplies I Ordered Online in 2020

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As summer winds down into fall I start to reflect on the year as a whole. Though our growing season is far from over, I start next season’s planning well in advance, reviewing the year and making notes about what went well and what I could improve. This process includes assessing supply purchases.

I purchase most of my supplies locally from favorite neighborhood retailers like Nicholson-Hardie or Ruibal’s, but sometimes urgency gets the better of me or I need an item they don’t carry.

This year’s online supply haul is pretty interesting, so I thought I would share and review. Here are the 17 best, worst, and “meh” garden supplies that I ordered online this year.

Best: 40% Shade Cloth

I covered my fall tomatoes with shade cloth right after planting in early August. It worked remarkably well, and my tomato plants are now HUGE and starting to fruit. This shade cloth reduced ambient temperatures by 10 degrees.

Best: Grow Big by FoxFarm

Grow Big by Fox Farm is definitely my go-to fertilizer this year. The nutrient concentration is low enough that I can apply on a weekly schedule (easier to remember) and the ratio is fairly balanced. This is by far my best year on record starting plants from seed and all received Grow Big once they had 2 sets of true leaves.

Best: Azamax Neem Oil

I try to avoid spraying anything – even products approved for organic gardening like Azamax Neem Oil – but I had a nasty infestation of spider mites on the patio tomatoes I tried to hold through the summer. It was a worthwhile experiment because I learned that ‘Amber Colored’ will continue fruiting right on through our heat, but they didn’t hold up against mites. The only drawback with Neem is that it must be sprayed every 3-5 days to control heavy pest populations.

Best: Frost King Clear Vinyl Sheeting

Counterintuitively, clear plastic traps more heat than black plastic during garden bed solarization. This clear vinyl sheeting by Frost King was a dream. The 4 mil. thickness made it durable enough for me to walk across, and at 48″ inches wide it fit my beds perfectly – no need to cut or trim. It held up so well that I can reuse it again next summer.

Best: Reusable Cotton Net Produce Bags

These reusable cotton net produce bags fit the bill for storing onions in my pantry. Next year I plan to invest in a second refrigerator for the garage. Onions store best at much cooler temperatures than what my pantry can provide.

Worst: Buckwheat Cover Crop Seeds

This project was a massive fail. I needed something to fill Plot One after pulling the onions and garlic in late May. My plan was to grow a buckwheat cover crop through June and July before planting fall vegetables in August. My first mistake was to just broadcast the seeds over the area. Barely any of them germinated. The seeds that did germinate were destroyed by my second mistake: forgetting about the bunnies. Those sly suckers devoured every last one. I’ll try again next year. If anything, I am annoyingly persistent.

Best: Produce Baskets

When you grow 100 pounds of tomatoes, you better figure out a way to use them all. These paper produce baskets made it so easy to give tomatoes away to friends and family. At least once a week I left a basket of tomatoes on the porch for my postal carrier Gino.

Best: Nursery Labels

For the tomato trials, I need labels that won’t get lost under any circumstances. So I tried these wrap-around labels that can stay with a plant from seedling to transplant and beyond. I learned that they are more effective the higher they are on the plant – labels near the ground tend to loosen during watering and weeding.

Worst: Inflatable Fake Snakes

Here’s another fail for the year. I got duped by some Youtuber who insisted that these inflatable snakes kept the rats and birds from eating his tomatoes. Yeah, right. The rats in my neighborhood aren’t so easily fooled.

Best: Wooden Nail Brush

Dirty nails are just a fact of life in the garden. As both a gardener and a ceramic artist, my nails are an atrocity. This wooden nail brush came to the rescue this summer in a big way. Most importantly, the bristles are extra stiff for really cleaning deeply. I highly recommend.

Best: Droll Yankees Platform Bird Feeder

I’d buy this platforrm bird feeder one hundred times over. It’s the perfect size for my cardinals, and dramatically cuts down on the mess. Cardinals are too big for standard tube feeders.

Best: Wagner’s Safflower Seed

If you want cardinals to stick around, give them safflower seed. My cardinals can’t get enough of these Wagner seeds. Recently I ran out of my stash and had to fill the feeder with another blend for a few days. Sacrilege! My spoiled cardinals refused to show up until the safflower returned.

Best: Viagrow Nursery Pots

It’s surprisingly hard to find nursery pots to purchase. I’ll often stalk the neighborhood bulk trash piles after a large landscape install to find them. Here are some 6-gallon nursery pots I found online that I used to test the patio/container tomatoes for the tomato trials. These are very sturdy.

Meh: Urban Farm Texas Tomato Food

I wanted to test out Texas Tomato Food after reading rave reviews about it on Tomatoville. I’m “meh” on this one. For starters, the jug had an inexplicable tiny hole in the cap. I didn’t realize this until it leaked all over the back of my car during transport back and forth from the garden. I guess the fertilizer itself is okay. It ran out quickly, and shipping was slow. It wasn’t worth all the trouble of ordering.

Best: Staedtler Garden Marker Pen

By far, one of the best purchases of the year. If you haven’t experienced yet for yourself, Sharpie marker ink fades outdoors. Mark your garden labels instead with this superior Staedtler Garden Marker Pen. Is this starting to sound like an ad? Good, because I’ll promote this product all day long. It’s fantastic!

Meh: 2.5″ Landmark Nursery Pots

I needed an intermediate pot that could transition seedlings from the cell tray to the garden. These 2.5″ pots work well for most vegetables, but tomatoes need something a big larger. Next year I’m going to experiment with larger cells and larger pots for tomatoes. Given good conditions tomato seedlings will grow quickly into whatever space you give them.

Best: Yellow Sticky Fly Traps

This is the best solution that I’ve found to get rid of fungus gnats in my houseplants. Gnats are just a fact of life for anyone with indoor plants. They typically hitch a ride into your house in the soil of new plants and then multiply like crazy if soil is kept too moist. If you have a gnat problem, try these affordable traps, and let all houseplants dry out nearly to the point of wilting until watering again. It sounds harsh, but houseplants would rather be under-watered than overwatered.

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Callie Works-Leary

Founder of The Dallas Garden School, Callie is an expert garden educator with 17 years of personal and professional gardening experience. She specializes in growing food, small-space gardening, managing community gardens, and plant propagation. She has an MBA from Southern Methodist University, a bachelor's degree from Skidmore College, and served as a horticulture intern for the Dallas Arboretum & Botanical Gardens. Callie is a member of the Native Plant Society of Texas, The Herb Society of America, the National Garden Bureau, and is a Certified Texas Master Gardener.

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