With the spiralling cost of living and no end to interest rate rises, economic times are tough.
Fortunately, gardening is here to keep us grounded. But as anyone who’s set foot in a retail nursery knows, gardening can be an expensive hobby. Fortunately, a little bit of know-how will help your dollar go further when you’re out there in the garden.
Free plants
If you’re not already saving your own seed, it’s a great place to start. So many garden plants are very easy to save from seed, and mean you don’t have to fork out your cash every season. All you need are some paper bags, old empty jars and a pen to write labels.
Saving most seeds is a pretty simple process; remove from the fruit, dry out on some paper towel overnight, and then save in something airtight and dark like a jar or a zip lock bag. Remember to write the name and date of harvest so you don’t forget in a year’s time.
Similarly, taking cuttings is standard gardening fare for a reason – it’s the cheapest way to get more plants quickly. You’re literally cloning plants in your backyard!
Don’t overcomplicate it, you just need a pair of snips, a bag of propagating mix and a pot. You’ll be swimming in plants in no time.
Cheap garden inputs
Adding nutrients continuously is key to a productive garden, as you are continuously harvesting them with the crops.
Animal manures are some of the most available sources. Different animal manures have varying properties and contained nutrients, so are best used accordingly.
While you can buy bagged manures from nurseries, they’re often a lot cheaper if you source them in bulk by the cubic metre from soil supply yards, even when you factor in delivery cost. This is particularly true when you need a large amount, like setting up a garden for the first time or filling raised beds.
A simple rule for all manures is not to use them fresh, instead incorporate them into your compost. This will ensure that anything undesirable is broken down over time (months) in the composting process.
Mulch is another must have; improving soil, smothering weeds, keeping moisture in the earth. You can source it commercially, but the cost can start to add up. Arborists are continually chipping down and dumping various tree parts that make perfect loose, coarse mulch. Call your local council and find out what they do with their chipped tree clippings, it’s often a cheap or free source of mulch.
Leaf mould is a garden staple, made entirely out of decayed, composted leaves. It’s used for everything from potting mix to surface mulch. Traditionally made of the falling leaves from winter deciduous trees, left to compost and break down over months. It’s a cinch to make. Just gather your leaves and either put them in a bucket, bag or a sheet of chicken wire tied into a cylinder. Leave it for a few months and you’ll know it’s ready to use when it’s dark and crumbly. The dark, damp, spongy and moist material can be used as a low-nutrient, absorbent surface mulch.
Another wallet killer can be individual bags of potting mix. If you’ve got the budget and the space, you can save money long-term by mixing up bulk individual ingredients yourself like perlite, coir fibre and sand. These can be sourced in bulk from nurseries and wholesale suppliers far more cheaply than potting mix itself. Varying these ratios will also allow you to tailor your potting mix to the individual preferences of what you’re potting up.
Upcycling
The cheapest materials are those that come free, and upcycling is a great way to turn something that was headed to landfill into something useful. Plastic pots are a dime a dozen at tip shops and on council hard rubbish clean-ups, as long as you’re willing to be flexible on design, colour and size.
Polystyrene boxes make great containers for growing plants, and reusing them in this way helps stop them becoming rubbish. They can also easily be converted to a self-watering containers or wormfarms. They can be had for cheap or free from local greengrocers, who are often just throwing them out.
Buy once, cry once
When you’re looking for a new tool to use in the garden, the choice can be overwhelming. It can be obvious why a garden tool is more expensive; better quality materials and a more considered design, but the price tag can be daunting.
It’s important to remember cheap tools are often a false economy, as they’re not built to be maintained or repaired when they inevitably break. Instead of shelling out for pricey brand new high quality tools, look for better quality and antique tools second-hand at garage sales, junk markets and online marketplaces. Manufacturing quality is often better, and shovel technology hasn’t really improved that much over the years anyway.
Handles can be replaced, old blades resharpened and gears oiled. If you can afford it, it’s to buy better quality things than can be repaired, and save yourself the headache and the financial strain of continual replacement down the track.
Gardening is one the great pleasures in life. There are plenty of ways to save some coin when you’re out there, scrounging and swapping where possible to make sure you can keep doing more of what you love, with what you have.
Go online
Chances are your local area has a Facebook gardening group. This is your opportunity to snag some free plants. You can just straight up ask for cuttings or seeds, wait until someone offers them, or some groups hold plant swap meets. All good options for cheap or free plants.
Do you have any money-saving tips to add? We’d love to hear about them in the comments section below.
Also read: How to grow frangipanis successfully
