My general Digitizing VHS tapes advise is:

Watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC5Zr3NC2PY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQioCb4KUHM

Look into:

https://legacybox.com/products/vhs-conversion

https://lotusmedia.us/convert-tapes/

https://www.memoriesrenewed.com/video-transfer-services/

and only if you have a shitload of personal VHS tapes should you get a TV tuner card and try to convert.

let me know if they actually end up having full capacity, because slow drives I can deal with. That price per TB is close enough to spinning metal to finally tip the scale for me towards SSDs

Raid stopped being optimal now that btrfs and ZFS exist.

If you plan on doing matching drives ZFS is recommended

If you expect mismatched disks, btrfs will work.

If you are most worried about stability get a computer with ECC memory.

If you are most worried about performance, use SSD drives.

If you want a bunch of storage for cheap, use spinning disks (unless you exceed the 100TB capacity range)

Your ZFS backup strategy should be to follow one of the following rulesets:

3-2-1 [3 copies of the data at 2 different locations for the 1 purpose of preserving the data]

4-3-2-1 [4 copies of the data at 3 different locations in 2 different types of media for the 1 purpose of preserving the data]

5-4-3-2-1 [5 copies of the data at 4 different locations across 3 different continents in 2 different types of media for the 1 purpose of preserving the data]

The details of the backup is more if you have a second system to enable ZFS send/receive or if you have to transport deltas from ZFS send

Efficient is sexy

You might already for example they might not even call themselves terms you would think:

https://www.cleanrefillery.com/

You can also reach out to manufacturers to buy in bulk and split the costs (and the items) with friends/neighbors.

would the alternate of planting clover between the beds be an option? It isn’t grass, wouldn’t require maintenance and would improve the soil itself.