Top Ten Tips - Cheap Gardening
By Tip Diva | May 22, 2008
Categories: Activities, Behavior, Budget, Cheap, Creativity, Food, Free, Garden, Green, Home, Household, Nature, Neighborhood, Outdoors, Pests, Plants, Products, Recycling, Savings, Shopping, Stores, Tips, Websites, YouTube
Gardening is a fun, relaxing hobby for many, and the end result yields plenty of food, flowers and foliage. But it does not have to be expensive. Here are ways to save while gardening:
- Swap Plants With Neighbors - If you and your neighbors have plants that can easily be split and germinated again or extra bulbs and seeds, swap with them. You’ll each get lots of new plants for your garden for free!
- Save Seeds From Fruits, Vegetables And Older Plants - Save plants from your favorite fruits, vegetables and plants, dry them, and plant them for next season.
- Make Your Own Mulch - Create a compost pile in a shady corner of your yard to make a mulch that your plants will love. The U.S. Environmental Protection agency has a great site on composting tips and what you should and should not compost.
- Buy Seed Packets - Seed packets are inexpensive; many cost less than a dollar. Germinating and planting seeds is less expensive then buying pre-germinated plants at garden nurseries.
- Do Your Own Landscaping - Many websites offer free landscape design ideas; check out The Landscape Design Site and Better Homes & Gardens, or check out YouTube for landscaping videos.
- Use Recycled Newspaper For Weed Control - Lay down newspapers, about 10 sheets thick, around your plants, wet them thoroughly, then top them with some mulch. It’s cheaper than the black sheets of weed blockers, and decompose after a year.
- Use Homemade Fertilizers And Pest Zappers - There are many recipes for homemade fertilizers and pest zappers on the Web; Paul James from HGTV offers his favorite fertilizer recipes, while The Old Farmer’s Almanac has a solution for controlling aphids, whiteflies and beetles. You can also repel pests by planting certain kinds of plants that keep bugs away from your other plants.
- Attract Birds - Birds will help eat pests in your garden; you can attract them with bird baths and birdhouses placed near your gardens. Don’t forget to refill them with water and seeds!
- Build Your Own Irrigation System - Instead of buying a commercial irrigation system, you can build your own by recycling soft drink bottles; the directions can be found at You Grow Girl.
- Use Recycled Items For Planters And Stakes - Instead of buying planters, stakes and other garden items, look around your house. Old buckets, bowls and baskets can be used for planters. Sticks, old broom handles and pipes can be used for stakes and to hold climbing plants. Tip Diva’s garden even has an old toilet bowl overflowing with zinnias and a wheelbarrow filled with hosta and impatiens. Your creativity has no limit!
Other Tips To Check Out:
These are great tips. When you walk into a garden store, it’s sometimes difficult to remember that people have been gardening with next to nothing for hundreds, if not thousands of years. All those fabulous gardening shows on TV don’t help either!
A little bit of research can be a great money saver too. Finding out about companion planting to reduce pests and diseases, or which plants thrive in your area will often reduce the need for additional products.
Journeyer’s last blog post: Wants vs Needs
Journeyer - the link I posted regarding plants keeping bugs away has a great section on companion planting. I had no idea until I read the article!
One more tip for you to be frugal about your gardening:
SHARE! Network with fellow gardeners. Many times other gardeners are thinning out (and THROWING out) some plants that you could use in your garden.
Don’t pay for plants at a nursery when you can get them for free by ’shopping’ around in your friends/neighbors gardens!
One of my favorites is to steal the leaves that my neighbors put out for the trash. Makes great compost and saves landfill space as well.
Jay’s Last Blog Post: Alpacas Compost | Nun Better Compost
My favorite is your tip on how to Attract Birds. I realized that the more the birds have something to eat they will keep on coming back to ones garden or they can even stay on that place and live.
Don’t forget that gardening doesn’t need to be just for homeowners. You can grow some vegetables and tomatoes on your apartment balcony with just a little space.
Jayne’s Last Blog Post: Patio Tomatoes - Growing Tomatoes on a Patio or Apartment Balcony
With the economy where it is I’ll be expanding my garden this year to try to save a little money.
I’ll be expanding also and I’ve done a bunch of these tips. Sharing plants is a great way to save some money. I’ve got raspberries and strawberries from my mom, shared tomato plants that we grew from seed, traded flowers of various kinds. It’s a great way to get get started.
One other place to get ideas for your landscaping projects is at YardShare.com. Thanks for the post!
Bryan’s Last Blog Post: 1
Hey By the way Do any of you guys know what the solution to Congress Weed? I am not sure what exactly it is but its a grass and it itches too much if you touch? How do I kill it?
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“Instead of buying planters, stakes and other garden items, look around your house. Old buckets, bowls and baskets can be used for planters. Sticks, old broom handles and pipes can be used for stakes and to hold climbing plants.”
I agree with this some much. We try to get our clients to allow us to use older or re-usable items to help recycle and to keep their cost down. Great post!