How I keep my garden costs down
Dirt I think is the most important part of my garden. When I first started , the dirt was horrible. Now thanks to years of adding compost, nutrients and fertilizers it is wonderful. I have my own compost bin. My husband made it about 5 years ago when he was tearing down our old metal shed. I had been asking for a bin for a while so he built me one. It cost him only the handle and hinges to make it.
Our town also has free compost. We have a dump that you can go and get all of the compost you would like for your house. You just have to show your driver's licence to prove you live in the town. We usually make a few trips to get compost since my bin isn't enough for my 2 gardens. I also fill up several large Rubbermaid bins to use for pots and I do grow veggies and herbs in bins too. The compost is black gold, nice and rich.
I garbage pick and am proud of it. I cannot tell you how much fencing and poles and pots I have gotten over the years for free. I think some people try to garden for a year and then throw everything away if it doesn't go the way they wanted. Hubby and I both will stop if we see fencing or other items that we could use for the garden.
Family and friends have given me lots of gardening items over the years. When I first started gardening, my dad always grew the plants from seeds. Now I do, I give him plants that I grow. My dad gave me all of his seed starts kits when I took over growing starts. Friends have given me pots that they get when they buy plants. I have gotten seeds from people that have tried to grow and they didn't like it. They will give me their leftovers. My dad gave me several types of seeds that we grow year after year. I borrow my dad's tiller. Friends also help watch my garden when I go away. My one friend is happy to water it and keep on eye on it in exchange for free veggies. It works for us.
I collect my own seeds every fall. I deliberately let some of my veggies go to seed. My dad did it and taught me how. It saves a lot of money not having to buy new seeds every year for everything. I keep them in envelopes that come with junk mail. I store them in my cool unfinished basement. If you are collecting your own seed make sure they are fully dried out. When I first started, I didn't let them dry completely and the next spring I found some moldy envelopes. Thankfully my dad had collected extra in case I had a problem. If I do buy seeds I try to buy Heirloom so that I can collect them and use them again.
I reuse pots over and over every year. They do not go bad so I can easily store them in the top of our shed from year to year. I do dump the dirt out though. I find fresh dirt and compost every year makes them grow much better.
My gate on my large garden is from our kids swing set. I was very sad when we tore it down a few years ago so Hubby built it for me . When my sister wanted us to help her take down her swing set we kept most of the wood. Hubby used some last week to replace a few pieces that were rotting out. Free works for me.
My pepper plants aren't growing well this year. I don't know what happened. I will have to get some plants so that I have as many as I need. I will look for the plants on sale. They always go on sale. I will also look for ones that have extra plants. I know how to separate them so I always make sure if there are extras those are the ones I take.
Yard sales are a great place to look for garden supplies. I have gotten many things from free piles as well. Libraries are a great source of information. In the winter, I love to take out a book about gardening so I can learn more about it. Blogging has also helped me. If I have a question about gardening I can look it up online or ask and I get tons of answers.
I find gardening to be relaxing. It helps we unwind after a busy day. I love all of the fruits and vegetables I get right from my own yard. I love eating sauce that I grew in the middle of the winter. My first year costed more then recent years. Now that I have the supplies and space it is a very minimal cost. I would say less then $100 a year. I grew about 300 pounds of food last year. I would never be able to buy that for $100. I know what goes into my garden. I don't have to worry about pesticides or E-coli. If you haven't tried gardening before, start small. Maybe just a small space or even just a few pots. You will be amazed how much you can grow.
Do you garden? Do you have any ways to save money on your garden? Do you find it expensive to garden?
You do wonderfully well with your recycling of items to use for fences and other things in your gardens and your garden beds look lovely :) . Looks like you get some great harvests to provide food for your family for very cheap prices like us.
ReplyDeleteWe have around 188 square metres of herb, berry and vegetable gardens here which supplies us with most of our vegetables all year round which we blanch and freeze and use fresh as well.
The ways we save money are -
- To buy our cow manure from a local livestock transport company for $25 for 3 cubic metres and likewise buy our horse manure from a local horse stud for $20 for 3 cubic metres that they both load into our trailer by front end loader. This saves an absolute fortune over buying bags of manure in our local garden centre for the same quantity.
- For our mulch we mix half dried grass clippings, leaves and half Lucerne hay we also buy for around 1/3 saving from a local horse stud to mulch our gardens with. We run over this in piles with our ride on lawn mower with a catcher and then back it up to the garden beds to use. This saves so much money not buying hay as often as the price of hay is getting expensive here.
- We save around 50% or more of our own seeds that we plant year in year out which saves a huge amount on buying seeds from the local garden centre. For instance as we have bred heirloom tomatoes over the last 4 years that are now frost resistant we squeeze the seeds into the ground and have fresh tomatoes all year round.
- From our fellow gardening friends we get plant cuttings and bulbs which we use in our gardens and we trade amongst one another which saves a huge amount on buying plants and herbs.
- When planting seeds in the gardens we plant directly into the garden beds in bulk around a few drippers and then transplant them when they get bigger. This saves on rain water usage for supplement watering rather than planting in every drip irrigation hole.
- The household lawns and flower beds get watered with saved grey water from our showers and washing machine as we use biodegradable products for both. We also use our white grey water for watering vegetable seeds in on occasion if there is severe water restrictions and we alternate with fresh town water watering too.
All I can think of currently but I hope this gives people lots of ideas to save money in their gardens.
Sewingcreations15.
You do an amazing job on keeping costs down for your garden. So many great ideas.
DeleteThis is a fantastic post! I am going to do a blog link to it. Also it is great you can get free compost this way and we all should check with our local councils if anything is available for us. I also love dumps and salvaging stuff to use plus re using things. What a good job you are doing and the garden looks so much and fantastic! Your produce all looks so beautiful! xxx
ReplyDeleteThank you. Gardening can get very expensive. I try to cut costs but still get high yields. We enjoyed sauce I canned from my tomatoes last year for dinner tonight. I do not have to worry about what is in it since I grew it myself. With everything going on right now in the US with romaine recalls, I wish I had a large green house so that I could grow veggies all year. It is something to work towards in the future. Have a great day.
DeleteLove this- So many great ideas for gardening. You also have had a great teacher in your Dad. I bet he is proud!
ReplyDeleteMy OD has a veggie garden too. She does it in a community garden where she lives. I know that he loves that she gardens as well. My mom always said I was the most like my dad so it is fitting that I am the one that loves to garden.
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