Above: Garden Vegetables

Once Christmas pass by or other tremendous celebrations that make you push preparation a little more and increase your bills a little higher. These are the times that you would have to come up with drastic decisions that will make your Gardening resources on a strict budget. This is where the creativity and resourcefulness comes in. Here you’ll find 5 steps of gardening on a budget and realize that gardening can be cheaper and at the same time, much more fun.

6 Steps:

Step 1: Plan Ahead of Schedule

Always make a list of the plants that you want to purchase ahead of time. Think if the plant that you will purchase is really necessary. For example, it will be pointless to grow winter cabbage no matter how good it looks like in winter and how it looks in the frost if no one in your family will eat it. It defeats the purpose; we don’t grow plants to wait for it to rot. So once you’ve made your list, just like in any kind of budgeting, you do your best to stick to it, so you won’t have future regrets with your purchases and also to not be tempted to buy unnecessary purchases especially in end of the season sales. Planning also makes you think where it’s going to be placed accordingly so you won’t have the mistake of putting a sun loving plant in the shade.

Step 2: Create your own compost file

It’s unbelievable sometimes to encounter so many gardeners that have not made their own compost file and still have the money and effort for their grass clippings and leaves dragged away and then, that in turn, every year they tend to purchase fertilizer. A gardener should realize that a compost file is FREE FOOD FOR THE GARDEN! It helps break out heavy clay parts of a soil that they also absorb liquid in sandy soil, and they cultivate a microbial life, making the garden decrease risk of diseases being rampant in it.

It is not expensive to construct compost files when the wall can be made of recyclable materials like a 2×4 chicken wire or even hay bales. All that is important is the access to the pile where there is enough space to turn it every now and then.

Other free stuff that you can put in your compost file would be clippings and leaves, there are one of the great choices since with these, you can get it at your own source or from the neighbors. You can also check with local tree care companies if they are giving away wood chips. There is also the option of coffee grind that coffee shops use and they can give it to you for free, this is great for compost file. You also have your kitchen resources like egg shells and vegetable scraps. Once you start to create that drive of making your compost file, you even might ask the barber shop to give you the hair and the possibility of saving dryer lint.

Although sometimes you would have to consider the availability of space you have. Some gardeners have little space like the ones in apartments. For places that are a bit cramp, the best compost file for this is a worm bin. It is easy, the requirement for this is just to find a good size container, or the usual that is being used is a Rubbermaid bin, containing half a pound of red wiggler worms, kitchen scraps and shredded newspaper. This “worm casts” is excellent to use as fertilizer for potted plants and gardens.

Step 3: Recycle

You don’t have to spend that much in items that you would need in your garden when you can just recycle some stuff that is already in your house. To name some are, yogurt & cottage cheese containers, margarine tubs and egg cartons are great for seed starting. To further be resourceful, you can actually use old gardening boots, toolboxes and wheelbarrows are fantastic whimsical substitute instead of buying expensive outdoor containers. There is no need to buy yourself heat mats for your garden, it’s ideal to just use the top of the VCR or water heater is truly ideal. Instead of buying cold frames, you can use window frames as substitute. You can also create mini greenhouse hot caps out of pop bottles and plastic milk jugs.

Step 4: When you can, start from seed

A packet seed of tomatoes could cost just as much as a piece of tomato but with the potential of 30-40 plants that can grown from each packet. Although it takes time and a lot of preparation to start from seeds, it would actually turn out that you were able to save a significant amount when you start from seed most especially if you are using recycled containers. Florescent tubes actually can be used instead of buying expensive grow lights.

When you’re in the season itself, try to get your own seeds. Besides saving a lot from not making your own seed purchase and saving up free seeds for the following year, by doing this, you can actually plan and get the seeds of choice, like knowing which seeds are most compatible in your garden and its climate. There are even communities right now that engage in trade as they swamp the venue in early spring, a good place to trade your excess seeds with a variety of new seeds. Just make sure that the seeds that you save are from non-hybrid plants.

Step 5: Plants that produce a lot

If you have vegetable garden the best seeds to buy for this would be beans, squash, climbing peas, and tomatoes. These types of vegetables tend to produce more than their bush equivalent. This is also advisable for gardens with limited space where you can grow these vegetables vertically and it will yield successfully. Other plants that yields notoriously would be zucchini. Having a lot can make trading with neighbors for vegetables you didn’t grow.

When it comes to flowers, its nice to grow multi-purpose plants like buttons, calendula, pansies and roses beautiful plants and at the same time edible. This makes it a money spent well with choices like these. To attract beneficial insects, you can purchase, alyssum, cumin, fennel and coriander.

Step 6: Find a Gardening Buddy

Sharing gardening ideas with a buddy who finds gardening interesting as well can be fun at the same time very beneficial. Not only sharing ideas would be good, but also you can purchase gardening materials needed with your body and get great deals. For example, most stores sell per packet of seeds and most of the time you would only need half of what’s contained in the packet. There are 40-100 seeds in a packet so you and your gardening buddy can purchase this both, share the expenses in half and split the seeds. Not only in buying seeds can you get good deals, but with gardening buddies, you can share tools and stuff too. If you have a fantastic hoe and your gardening buddy can have an excellent pitchfork, so why do you have to buy one when you can just borrow each other’s tools?

Gardening buddies can also come handy when buying in bulk. For example, with potting mix, instead of buying in small packages you and your buddy can buy it in bale size. If both of you are making compost, the materials comes cheaper if it’s by the yard or shared with a friend or two.

Gardening buddies are only the start, if you join in garden clubs then that is much better. The more the merrier, the more the cheaper and the greater the chances of knowing some tricks ad good trade of ideas and technique. In clubs they also conduct plant exchanges and stuff.