People Share Their Best Frugal Gardening Hacks
Gardening is an incredibly fulfilling hobby that helps you connect with nature (and can bring some delicious food to your table as well), but it can be hard to do on a budget. There are a lot of moving parts and a lot of things to keep on top of. Before you even realize it, you might be spending more than you anticipated, especially if you're dealing with a large lot. To help combat that, gardeners have come together to share their best frugal gardening tips, so you can keep your lush garden without draining your wallet.
Local Trading
"I've seen people on Facebook offering to trade perennials for ones they don't have in the spring. What a fun way to meet local gardeners and get new plants!
My municipality also offers free compost, and the local library has a 'seed library' where you can get free seeds if you bring more at the end of the season."
Avoid 'New' Wherever Possible
"Look into buying bare root plants, which cost less than larger nursery stock. Propagate from your current plants [...]. Start what you can from seed. Repurpose / repair what you already have instead of buying new. Go to second hand stores (I love our local Habitat for Humanity) or yard sales to find materials, tools, planters, baskets etc. And make the dollars that you DO spend count. IE: Make sure the wood on your shed is pressure treated for ground contact or at least paint with a weatherproofing sealer. I also save the rocks and stones that I dig up while gardening to use in other ways (EX edging, filling gaps under fences), and have a pile of larger and smaller stones ready for other projects."
Everything Is Mulch
"Buy a wood chipper and a heavy duty paper shredder. Any stray tree branches that fall can be mulch. Compost everything. Start a fish pond, gold fish are cheap but basically convert sun, bugs and algea to liquid fertilizer. Get solar powered pumps so no electricity cost. If you get chickens or goats, they also have nutrient rich poop."
Endless Seeds
"Collect seeds from any of your flowering plants. I bought a mix of seeds and plugs last year and then harvested seeds from the ones that bloomed. The perennials that didn't flower still survived, so the only seeds I had to buy this year were for new annuals I wanted to try. I spent way less money to add more plants this year."
The Cost Of Water
"Water. Do you pay for it? Even with a well, it costs electricity to pump, and development and drought can affect water table. Collect rainfall from roofs into elevated rain barrels (use gravity for flow).
[...] Install a soaker hose system in your veggie garden, you'll save so very much time and effort! and won't waste water to evaporation!"
Save Your Cardboard
"Save cardboard throughout the year. Amazon boxes are small, but better than nothing. Flat pack boxes for furniture and appliances are the best. anything non-glossy. Go to home depot and offer to empty their cardboard rolloff once (into a truck of theirs you're renting for $20 if you don't have one) and you'll be set for a year. Remove the tape and as much adhesive as you can tolerate spending effort on. Lay this cardboard over your finished garden in october and get your trusty $100 truck load ($80 if you're doing this all in one day!) of mulch. Spread the mulch over it. Plant your cannolis through the cardboard in the spring. Cheap weed deterrent. Never have to till or plow again."
Cheaper Fertilizer
"Alfalfa pellets at the farm feed store cost about $15-20 for a 50 pound bag. Cheap source of nitrogen and many of the expensive organic fertilizers are largely alfalfa meal and way more expensive. Alaska fish fertilizer is another good relatively cheap source for nitrogen and a bunch of micronutrients."
Growing In The Off-Season
"Some berry plants and other perennials can be bought at the end of the season, and planted out or overwintered in a large pot. I got haskaps (honey berries) on sale last fall, popped them into very large pots, and left them outside over winter. They seemed to die, but have come back with a vengeance this year, and are looking great. I think I got them for half off!"
Make Everything Natural
"Use as much of the natural resources around you as you can. We no longer use tomato cages, we use sticks that we find in the woods. We no longer use wood from Lowe's for our garden beds, we use tree limbs. We find pine straw out in the forest, mulch, and topsoil. Plant stuff that will spread, plant things that come back, and have your garden beds maintain themselves."