When people look at horticulture, more often than not, they imagine an extremely time-consuming hobby. And sure, depending on how much effort you want to put into your garden, that can very well be true. But if you think that gardening requires significant resources, that’s actually not the case. If you put just a little more thought into everything, gardening on a dime is definitely possible. In no time at all, you can have yourself a
beautiful garden; plus, depending on what you plant, you may even cut
back a little on your grocery bills. And that’s precisely why we’ve decided to let you in on a couple of secrets of budget gardening! Take a look below.
Budget Tools
So, you’ve just moved into a new house and spent a bunch of money on the property and the relocation itself. Certainly, such a transition can definitely be a costly one; easily leaving you without the funds needed for major landscaping efforts. But don’t worry – gardening on a dime is more than possible. You don’t need an elaborate backyard pond for your garden to look amazing, trust us.
For example, you don’t have to spend a lot of money on tools, if you know where to look. As you probably know from your own personal experience, there are a lot of people who move in an out of every neighborhood. And if people move from a house to an apartment, they suddenly find themselves without the need for gardening tools. So, ask around; there may be people who want to leave their gardening equipment behind, so you can buy it cheaply from them.
Non-expensive Plants
Finding plants to populate your garden with is not always easy, or cheap. But don’t worry – we’ve got a couple of tips for that as well. For example, take a look at all the plants around a store. There may be some that are definitely in a bad shape, though not beyond recovery. In that situation, the store manager might give them to you for free, or at least on a discount; just to take them off his hands. Mostly, you’ll find store managers prone to doing this, because they don’t have the time to take care of every individual plant.
Also, ignore the due dates on seeds. If you maintain them properly, these can last for much longer than advertised. So, make sure you buy plant seeds at the very end of the year’s season, when they’re on sale. And then, just put them in an ordinary brown paper bag, and refrigerate them. As you’ll see once spring comes around, these will be perfectly good next year.
Mulch
There are plenty of reasons why you’d want to put down some mulch in your garden. It’s a material most gardeners apply to the surface level of their backyard’s soil. And it’s good for a couple of reasons; firstly, your soil will retain more water instead of drying up, which allows the plants to be better nourished. It also improves the health and fertility of the soil across the long term and helps beat back weed growth.
So, if you’re into gardening on a dime, where can you get some mulch cheaply? One of our most useful gardening tips would be: see if you’ve got any tree trimming companies or service providers around. They will
probably be happy to provide you with wood chips you can use for mulch, if they’re around. Also, depending on where you live, the city may do that for you. Some cities organize free mulch provisions, where the public tree trimmers give all the gathered wood chips to the citizenship for gardening.
Containers
You don’t need a complex greenhouse apparatus in order to start your seeds; if you ask us, deli trays and some lids will do the trick! Also, if you need pots for your plants, there are plenty of ways you can find them basically for free. For example, the local cemetery! Sure, this may seem a bit grim, but the cemeteries usually throw out many pots once Memorial Day passes. Speak to the local officials to see if you can take some off their hands. Also, if you’ve got any peanuts made out of styrofoam after your relocation; place them in the bottom of your plant pots! These can be used for drainage. You can also use plastic bottles and soda cans at the bottom of your bigger pots; that way you won’t need as much soil, and the pots will be far lighter as well.
Irrigation
Before we close this off, here is another small tip for gardening on a dime that’ll definitely be of use to you. Like – did you know you can utilize milk jugs for a small drip irrigation system? Just take the bottom of your
milk jugs, and make a couple of tiny holes there. Once that’s done, place them near your plants. And when you fill these with water, they will slowly provide irrigation to your plants throughout the entire day.
Conclusion
As you may have realized, gardening on a dime definitely takes some thinking through. But on the other hand, it’s also definitely not as difficult as you may have thought. If you’re truly serious about your gardening, putting in a little extra effort in order to spend less money won’t be too
much of an issue. Plus, you’ll have a lot of fun along the way, with so many little DIY projects!
Author Bio: Nick Van Horn is a freelance author, dealing with topics mostly related to home improvement and relocation companies, such as Van Express Movers.