More Money Saving Garden Tips

Garden tips, which can save you money, are a godsend for the frugal gardener. When I first started gardening, I hardly knew a thing but over time the more people I spoke to the more little gems of information I received. So my first tips would be:

Frugal Tip 1. Tell everyone you know about your garden and don't be afraid to ask for advice. Most people love to be able to give advice and feel that they have helped someone.

I never have enough time to wade through pages and pages of garden tips from books; I found that I found lots of great little snippets of information in the gardening columns of newspapers and magazines. My second tip is:

Frugal Tip 2. Scrap booking. Cut out and keep little gardening gems of information from newspapers and magazines and keep a scrapbook for reference.

Every garden needs good soil for the plants to thrive, poor soil will only provide disappointing results. To make sure you have good soil you must give it a helping hand by using compost. Luckily making your compost is easy and free.

Frugal Tip 3. Composting. Save all your grass clippings, leaves, food peelings (not cooked food), tea and coffee grounds and place them together in a pile in your garden or you could build your own composting bin or fenced off area. I like to use two separate piles, so that I can leave one pile to rot down while I start another, which is fenced off at the bottom of my garden. They are fenced off with some old wooden planks pushed into the ground lengthways to make a simple pen.

Some soils may require a little extra help to remain in tip top condition in which case using a fertilizer is a good additional nutrient.

Frugal Tip 4. Manure. Visit local farms (even city farms) and see if they have any manure they are willing to give you. If you offer to muck out a pen for it yourself they may be more agreeable. You could even make it a regular agreement and you would never have to buy another bag of manure.

If you don't want to use manure in your garden or you have difficulty getting hold of it you can also make your own fish fertilizer.

Frugal Tip 5. Fish fertilizer. You can either use the water which remains after you defrost frozen fish or you can boil any remaining fish heads etc and use the drained off water on your plants.

Frugal Tip 6. Wormery. A good natural way to make your own liquid fertilizer is to make your own Wormery. Use a large plastic bin or make your own large wooden box, make sure you puty holes in the bottom and place it on some bricks to raise it off the ground, put a collection tray for the liquid underneath the bin. Add your normal compost material like peelings etc and the worms will digest it and their liquid excretions will fall to the bottom. Dilute this liquid with water and use on your plants.

On some of my flowerbeds I like to add a layer of Mulch to cover the soil, it also helps to prevent the soil from drying out too quickly, which means less watering is required. Bark chipping can be bought at the garden centre but this can be expensive.

Frugal Tip 7. Mulch. Collect pine cones when ever you see them lying around and either use them as they are or I like to break them up into smaller pieces, which gives a similar look to bark chippings.

During the hot summer month's gardens will need a certain amount of watering to keep it fresh and green. However using a hose can mean that you use thousands of gallons of water during the summer, which can increase your water bill enormously.

Frugal Tip 8. Watering can. For small areas of garden and containers use a jug or watering can rather than a hose.

Frugal Tip 9. Water Butt. This is an essential item for any frugal gardener and is one of my favourite garden tips. I can save so much money by harvesting rain water into a large plastic container from my extension roof. All I had to do was to redirect the downward gutter pipe into my container.

Frugal Tip 10. When to water. Water either in the early mornings or in the evening so that water does not evaporate too quickly during the day.

Top of garden tips page