It may be worth looking into mail-in professional sharpening for what you currently have. Sometimes decent quality knives get to the point where trying to sharpen them at home won’t cut it (lol puns) but getting them professionally sharpened might.
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Good point- do you have any recommendations for mail-in service? Although I’m a little hesitant to do that just because these are reeeeeeallllly cheap knives that have already been used and probably not maintained for years (they were my boyfriend’s knives originally). I can guarantee the sharpening cost would be more than they’re worth ha.
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Ah, in that case I will ask my cooking enthusiast network (aka my dad and like two friends lol).
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Ooooh we need to send our wusthof set in for a sharpening. Or at least the chef’s knife. Was gonna take it to sur la table but that’s not an option.
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I’ve looked into this in the past without much success, but just recently saw this in an IG ad: https://knifeaid.com/.
Agreed, sharpening > new knives. But that being said, Victorinox knives are the commercial kitchen special. Victorinox - 45520 Fibrox Pro Chef’s Knife, 8-Inch Chef’s FFP https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008M5U1C2/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_KRaXEb3WNV9ZC
But yeah, whatever you buy, hone regularly and sharpen at a dead minimum yearly.
Oh and NEVER EVER EVER EVER put your knives in the dishwasher.
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Here to second Victorinox!
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Haha I know this, but my boyfriend didn’t, so I think his knives went through at least 4 years of being put in a dishwasher before he knew me 
The stuff of nightmares lol
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Thirding Victorinox. I (they technically belong to my partner) have a chef’s knife and a paring knife and LOVE THEM.
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Getting our knives sharpened was on my to do list before all this happened. They remain unsharpened. Whenever that does happen it will be aaaaaamazing. I’d consider the mail in option (which I didn’t know was an option before this conversation!) except we don’t have a functional printer for a shipping label.
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I think they scored highly in an America’s Test Kitchen Test several years ago.
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Definitely second sharpening over getting new knives as long as you like the feel of the knives in your hand. I have a pair of Ikea knives that I love (they feel nice in my hand) and as long as I sharpen them once a year, I’m golden.
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Yes yes
I have not enjoyed handling most wusthof or victorinox knives. The angle I hold must be a little weird or my hands are just bony enough that the handle bothers me.
My favorite knife oddly is a cheap all metal santoku my mom got at Walmart for a road trip. Carbon steel so it gets sharpened. It was less than $20.
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These knives are fine as far as feel goes, but not amazing. Also I just realized that a couple of them have rusted, so… 
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Thank you. I’ve started the summer squash & rainbow chard to germinate. It seems I also have a beet & chard seed mix that is only from 2013, so I’ll have higher hopes for them. 
My spinach seeds are in a foil packet for freshness. I suppose I’m pushing their dates even so…
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Yeah, certainly the beet you want to direct sow. Root crops don’t transplant well 
(you probably already know that, but just in case)
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Actually beets and turnips transplant really well. Look at Charles Dowding’s multi-sow transplant method. I don’t like beets at all and turnips are only okay so I’ve not tried it myself but a lot of commercial market gardeners use something like Dowding’s method.
It’s tap-rooted root crops that don’t transplant well.
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I really like my Miyabi knife. I’ve tried Wusthof too but I don’t like them at all, the feel is all wrong for me.
ETA: Just saw @katscratch said the same thing about Wusthof, haha, I also have bony hands so maybe there is something to that?
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I don’t! My garden is a darwinian paradise where I pull up the baby maple trees and occasionally rip out things that seem to be taking over too much. Sometimes I rip out things I realize later I shouldn’t have - there used to be a bunch of bloodroot in one of the raised beds, and now it is mostly gone, and there was a bush in one corner that was probably nice before I killed it after we first moved in. (The person before the last person who lived here was a very good gardener, and then the person right before us was not. So the first few years was just trying to take back the garden from several years of neglect, like an 8 foot tall plant that was at the edge of the flagstone)
Yesterday and today I pulled out about 50 blooming onions, and this afternoon I might thin the geraniums. The shadowy one worked on the periwinkle that was encroaching on the oregano and the hydrangea. We might pull out the leaves that were covering the strawberries all winter today too.
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Huh! Today I learned then. I always heard all root crops.
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