Frugal Gardening

[plantoneonme]

I have had so many people say it costs too much money to grow your own food. I am sure there are many people like me who do not have the desire to spend so much money it takes the fun out of it. In the past I started a garden with just a shovel and seeds. The soil was enriched over the years with compost free from the trees, neighbors and our own scraps.

Please share your frugal gardening tips.

Kim

[AbbeyLehman]

In our area, Walgreens sells seed packets 5/$1 in the spring in the seasonal aisle. They're the small packets, like sample sizes, and not much variety, but it's a GREAT way to get started. I spent $40 this past spring and supplied 4 families with the beginnings of wonderful gardens. It was awesome.

[MistieMae1]

You can post requests for seeds/plants/produce on your local Freecycle (http://www.freecycle.org) mailing list. In my experience, most gardeners are more than willing to share their seeds, especially with people who are just starting out. You'll also find occassional postings from people who are giving away their excess zucchini, black walnuts, crabapples, etc. They'll share advice too! It can be a bit competitive, but it's FREE.

On trash day, scout the sides of the road for bags of materials that you can use for compost. Grass clippings and leaves are most prominent, but I've known people who've found aged straw, pine needles, etc.

Don't be shy about asking your neighbors. I'm horrible about asking people for help, but since I'm gardening on an extremely tight budget, I will do it when needed. I have an agreement with a neighbor that I'll rake up the pine needles underneath her stand of huge pine trees, and I get to keep whatever I rake. These are great for putting around blueberry bushes as mulch, which prefer acidic soil conditions. I've also gotten seeds from several things just by giving some praise and asking. Most people I know are not seed savers, so they don't mind sharing what they don't use.

Offer to work for gardening/food materials. Clean out a local farmers chicken coop in exchange for keeping the manure for your compost pile. Offer to volunteer some time during the busy months at an orchard or seasonal farm in exchange for some produce (from which you can save the seeds). In my experience, people love an exchange of goods far more often than they are willing to exchange money. This is another great way to rub shoulders with people who may have more experience than you. Your local farmers market is a great way to meet people who might take you up on this offer.

[RogueAPBT]

I stopped using fresh water to water potted plants and garden beds. We recycle bath water, use a dish pan to catch water from the kitchen sink (we let some run down, just to keep the wastewater pipes running smooth), dog/pet water when we change it, water from the dog's wading pool...it all gets scooped with buckets and we use that to water plants. Saves big on our water bill, compared to when we tried watering with the hose or sprinklers. It's more labor, but worth it, IMO.

Rain barrels are another option there.

Lasagna Gardening helps save on water, too, needing little or no watering, especially once the beds are mature (2nd or 3rd season, for most, it seems). It's basically sheet composting right in the beds, and my plants love it.

There are plenty of free amendments, compost and mulch ingredients available: used coffee grounds from the coffee shops, animal manures, fall leaves, kelp, grass clippings, cardboard, paper, tree/shrub pruning waste, kitchen scraps, tea bags, coffee filters, etc.

Seeds will keep for a few years in the fridge. I dry mine in paper sacks, then put them in envelopes, put the envelopes in a tupperware in the fridge with a silica packet. Square foot gardening helps avoid seed wasting/overplanting, so one seed packet from the store can give several plantings, and those keep in the fridge just fine.

Cheryl

[gardengirl72]

My latest has been making seed starting pots using recycled newspaper! It works like a charm. I made a video which will be ready in a little while. Newspaper has been the ultimate in my garden and farm.

Lets think of all the uses for recycleing newspaper.

Mulch
animal bedding
Seed Starting Pots
Help me add to this....

[plantoneonme]

My latest has been making seed starting pots using recycled newspaper! It works like a charm. I made a video which will be ready in a little while. Newspaper has been the ultimate in my garden and farm.

Lets think of all the uses for recycleing newspaper.

Mulch
animal bedding
Seed Starting Pots
Help me add to this....

I use several layers under mulch as a weed/grass killer in new beds. I also made the pots and use it as animal bedding.

[plantoneonme]

Great advice everyone...keep them coming.

[dogmom4]

I also use Freecycle...sometimes you can get wood to make a raised bed or soil. I got enough cinderblocks for free to make a raised bed. All it took was the labor to pick them up.

[plantoneonme]

I decided to start another planting bed using the lasagna gardening style and combining it with something I read about how vine crops like melons like to grow out of compost...I have an excellent melon growing out of my compost pile this year!

I made a raised bed and covered the bottom well with cardboard. I am just throwing in all the large compostables right now such as corn stalks, chopped down canna lily plants, pulled up beans, tomato plants etc. I am sprinkling with a little compost and grass clippings. I plan on adding leaves and any other pulled up plants, annuals, cut off flowers as I get them.

Next spring I will dig into the compost pile add a little soil and plant my vines. I hear this works very well and if my melon coming from my composter right now is an example, I should have lots of melons next year.

Kim

[Kittikity]

Don't forget the rabbit manure.. One of the best things for a veggie garden and one of the best ways to recycle those spent veggie plants.. But remember, fresh greens should always be slowly brought into their diet if they aren't used to them.. Or if you can find somebody that already has rabbits and doesn't mind sharing the manure..

[plantoneonme]

Don't forget the rabbit manure.. One of the best things for a veggie garden and one of the best ways to recycle those spent veggie plants.. But remember, fresh greens should always be slowly brought into their diet if they aren't used to them.. Or if you can find somebody that already has rabbits and doesn't mind sharing the manure..


We don't have a rabbit but have a pet guinea pig...what I do is bed her on either ground up corncobs or newspaper. When she needs to be cleaned, I simply dump out her waste along with the bedding right into the compost bin. Kim

[Kittikity]

Very good idea.. Should work just as well since they eat similar things.. I've thought of doing the same thing with our guinea pigs except they're on wood chips and those take longer to compost.. One of the best thing about rabbit (and I'm sure guinea pig) manure though is that it doesn't have to be composted.. Can go right in the garden..

[gardengirl72]

I never thought of a guinea pig. Is he on the garden bed itself? Indoor pet? Wow. That is a really good idea.

[Kittikity]

Our two male guinea pigs are outside on our front porch.. I laid an old dresser on its back (without the drawers) and covered the inside with wood shavings.. I've also had them in a bottomless wire cage in our front yard under our big oak trees.. They really seemed to love that.. With cages, the biggest difference between rabbits and guinea pigs is that guinea pigs don't have any hair on the bottom of their feet.. So they need a solid floor, or I've heard a wire floor with plastic coating on it might work.. Haven't tried the wire myself though.. Yet..

[plantoneonme]

I never thought of a guinea pig. Is he on the garden bed itself? Indoor pet? Wow. That is a really good idea.

She is my granddaughter's pet (which lives at my house). I keep her indoors but am thinking of making a small "pig" tractor for her. She is really cute and oinks at me when I come in from the garden for treats.

[plantoneonme]

Very frugal and ecological plant markers...use old or broken vinyl mini blinds as plant stakes. Cut as long as you like, for me usually around 8" or so, and write plant name with PENCIL. Lasts forever and the name will not fade. Permanent markers will fade in less than 1 season. Kim

[Sinfonian]

I've written before on this, for folks helping out people who couldn't afford much in the way of starting out a garden. Unlike me, who spent over $1,000 on my garden this year, I believe you can start growing your own veggies and feeding your family for less than $20 if you have basic tools.

First off, raised beds do not require wooden sides. Double digging the soil and amending with leaves, grass clippings, egg shells and the all important FREE fertilizer... Starbuck's Grounds for your Garden (it's got a CN ratio of 12:1 which makes it the perfect fertilizer as it is very close to 10:1 but far enough away that it won't burn plants). So you see, with no money but some sweat equity, you can build raised beds with just a shovel and time.

Of course if you can scrounge up free boards to create sides, great, but they're not necessary.

Then, to plant, I agree that if you look you can find sample seed packets for less than $1 a piece. So for cheap you can get tons of variety to feed your family.

So don't ever let someone tell you they can't afford to garden!

[plantoneonme]

Another thing is to have patience! I lived in my former home for 22 years. Over the years, I was able to ammend the soil and grow an extensive perinneal bed for next to no money. I started off with a few plants that were given to me by a neighbor and when I moved my planting beds surrounded the house, garage, all trees, and property lines. One bed alone was 16 ft wide and 230 ft long. Since I moved I have had to start over. I was able to grow about 2/3 our vegetables this summer and already have new beds started for next spring.

Check out end of summer sales going on right now at places like Lowes, Walmart, Walgreens, Kmart etc. There are usually a lot of seeds and plants on clearance. I picked up a Boston Fern at Lowe's for $2...it looked a little scraggly but with patience it is absolutely beautiful and now ready to be divided into 1/4's which will give me some to give away for the holidays.

[gardengirl72]

Taking your time is the key. It took me at least three years before I began to get respectable harvests.

I want pics of the guinea pigs thought! I assume they are not cold hardy?

[Kittikity]

Don't know if they are cold hardy, but these are our two guys.. The one with the white face is Joey and the one with the black face is Yang.. Kids named them..
http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm73/Kittikity/pets/joeyyang2.jpg

[plantoneonme]

My camera doesn't take the best pictures but here is a picture of our pet guinea pig Kara. Next spring she is getting her own pig tractor to go on our planting beds. Kim

[PJJ]

Kim,

She is so cute!! We've had several of these little guys over the years. I miss having them!!

Thanks for sharing that picture.:)

Penny

[PJJ]

KittyKitty,

Your little g.pigs are so cute!! Thanks for sharing that pic.:)

Penny

[AbbeyLehman]

Another source of free seeds is the food you eat every day. Yes, the food from teh grocery store is most likely hybrid and/or genetically modified. However. If you are looking for a free/nearly free way to get started, you CAN plant the seeds you get from the tomatoes, peppers and melons, cut up the sprouting potatoes, plant the sprouting onion or green onions, plant the garlic bulbs, etc....There's a really good chance that the stuff you get from those plants will NOT resemble or even taste like the food it came from, but guess what? It will still be a tomato, a pepper, a melon, etc, that you GREW FOR FREE. If you continue to save the seeds, you will eventually get back to a generation of seed from which that hybrid came.

Or it could all be a bust and not really work. But again, it will be FREE and you will have gained experience.

[RogueAPBT]

Another good compostible bedding choice for small caged pets is bunny pellets (the feed). If they eat the bedding, it's NBD, and it's not dusty or oily like shavings. When cage cleaning time comes, you can just dump it on the compost pile or the garden.

Cheryl

[Seasons Eatings]

You'd probably have a hard time finding the usual vegetables available as GE in a grocery store. Thankfully they are few and far between for now. If the PLU or UPC number starts with an 8 the vegetable is genetically engineered. You can avoid GE by choosing organic vegetables.

[maricybele]

Partner with a neighbor it saves money and reduces waste. I have a neighbor and we get together and plant together. They are generous with their green house in which they baby our plants and we even let our lemons have a few week play date to get the bees going. We couldn't get fruit without it. Weird.

Heirloom seed saving is fabulous. It can save lots of money. I saved seeds as my neighbor and I were processing tomatoes or when I came over for a fall harvest feast. As I prepared the peppers for the grill (delicious) I saved the seeds in a paper towels.

Peppers, and peas dry great on coffee filters.

Lettuce in a paper envelope or bag depending on how much.

Onions in paper bag or a box then I shake the seeds free. Chaf is good to give a little space for planting.

Tomatoes I squeeze the seeds into a plastic bag for 3 days to a few weeks and then rinse and drain and dry right in the screen type strainer.

I bought a beautiful merlot lettuce and I let 3 plants go to seed (not without eating a few of the lower seeds though. The seeds are saved and have a good germination rate.

Next year, we are trying for using our own seedlings instead of buying so many. We have a great start.

Winter sowing is the most frugal way. Mini green houses. Costco chicken boxes, togo boxes. starbucks cold cups, cut or drill holes in bottom and a little venting on top.

For seedling transplants you can recycle yogurt cups, pudding cups, styrofoam cups.

Freecylce, rebuilding centers, craigs list.

[plantoneonme]

I agree on using seeds and other plant materials from things normally purchased from the grocery store. One of my best plants this summer were mini bell peppers. I found some nice little peppers for .99 a pack as saved the seeds. These little peppers put out lots of little bells in green, yellow, orange and red....of course I saved seeds for next year. I also now have a house plant of a pineapple. I was just going to throw the top, core and peelings into the composter in early spring but decided to pull off about half the leaves from the top and simply stick it into the garden...boy was I surprised when I dug it up a couple weeks ago. It has a tremendous root system already. When the kids were young we even grew our own little pineapple from the top. It took about 3 years but it was fun.

Over the summer I also bought a few melons from the farmer's market and kept the seeds from those I know to be OP and non-hybrid to grow next year. Some potatoes that started to sprout were planted out and fed us for one of our weekly family meals ( adults and a child) for 2 weeks...all for what would have simply been thrown in the composter. Sprouted carrot tops are great in soups and I hear you can sprout celery from the root end...my next experiment. In the past I have also had beautiful sweet potato vines and avacodo vines. I am also trying to grow some peaches from seed...since they need to be stratified I simply put into pots and sunk those out in the garden. Hopefully they will sprout next spring.

I bet there are lots of other things we could begin this way. I have also received some beautiful flowers from friends after my surgery and plan on trying to root some of the beautiful roses from the bouquets. I did this many years ago when my sister got married from her wedding bouquet and she now has a couple plants. Any other ideas? Kim

[maricybele]

I agree, When I was buying green onions, I would plant the stubs from my green onions and leeks for more greens, and plant garlic sprouting. before I got shallots and Egyptian walking onions and my own homegrown leeks, if you plant a regular spouting onion, it should go to seed.

My chard I kept trimming and left in the ground for 4 seasons so far by not letting it go to seed.

When the dandelions got away from me, I would pick em and put them in a salad! I don't use commercial fertilizers or chemicals on my lawn. I grow nasturtiams and roses and use them in salad

If you know the veggies were heirloom you could save the seeds. I planted a hybrid tomato from the store and ended up with 3 different types of tomatoes from the plants. Probably not doing that again with tomatoes especially since I have some heirlooms. Some work. But you could do it in a pinch with food you already buy until you get some heirlooms. They were cute little tomatoes but not the romanitas I was hoping for. I got reds and yellow baby roma's but not like the fruit.


#1 method is don't be afraid to ask! Make friends with lots of gardeners. One golden rule most gardeners have is to share. You can take a garden walk and most likely come home with some baby plants that would just go to the compost anyway. Leave a few plastic bags in your trunk for just such an occasion. I got over 30 starts from one garden visit. It seems a gardener will always make time for a quick garden chat, and even if they company, they will invite the company out for a brief walk in the garden. I have stopped for lovely garden chats and to discuss folk's unique garden beds, cold frames or raised beds. You can save tons of money on plants, starts and seeds just by being friendly and complimentary!

People with strawberries and raspberries normally have more starts than they can deal with. Lavender, rosemary, thyme and oregono start very easily with clippings and if you see a nice aloe, cardoon, or artichoke those make little babies too and if you or comment on how nice the plant looks, you probably will go home with starts.

With raspberry I make tea with the leaves and tea with the lavender. Which saves money on the expensive teas.

I am trying overwintering pepper plants and clones of rooted tomato vines, I will let you know how it goes.

My grandpa used lawn clippings for all his mulch. Never used bark dust and there were no weeds like the kind that will spawn with the bark dust here anyways. Using the commercial bark mulch, I introduced new weeds to my yard besides the dandelion and thistle I already had.

But chasing the tree trimmers chipping truck, I got two big loads of weed free bark chips FREE! Hearing that noise of tree trimming is like the ice cream truck is for kids! I just ask them to dump it on my lawn and they do!

Raking leaves into your bushes also saves labor and acts like a weed barrier.

Ok, I am done for now rambling about how to save money. Tootles Friends!

[plantoneonme]

I found a bag of 12 bean soup starter beans on a clearance rack for .25 yesterday. It looked like someone got a little too aggressive with the box cutter and cut into the bag of beans and then just taped them shut. Anyway, I will be making some soup for dinner but I also saved a few of each bean to try to grow out next year. I read somewhere that they are all the bush bean variety because of the way they are farmed. I put a few in each of my squares next year to see what I get.

Kim

[gardengirl72]

Great Frugal gardening tip. Let us know the germination rate.

[maricybele]

I know some gardeners who use it for their beans.

[plantoneonme]

Check out a bulk food store for seeds. I wanted to grow some mung and adzuki beans this year. I was able to purchase both seeds not only to grow in the summer to save for next year but enough to get lots of fresh sprouts right now. They were only $1.99 a pound. A pound of these tiny seeds is a LOT of seeds. I purchased less than half a pound, will save a few of each, and sprout the rest for my salads.

There was an entire row of nothing but different beans that can be grown. I am pretty sure that all dried beans are the bush variety so they can be harvested easier by machine.

Kim

[bunnelj]

A fellow co-worker and I split our annual seed orders from Gurneys or Henry fields...if you order $50 or more, you get $25 off the order....we split the seeds and save allot of $$$!