Home : Outdoors : Garden and yard : Frugal Gardening

Frugal Gardening. Tips for Frugal Gardening

Part of the Tip King experience is cleaning, the sharing of ideas, and learning more about how other people ‘make it’ in the world. In this article, I want to share some great tips on frugal gardening that will help many of you enjoy this hobby more, without the worry of a high price tag attached. 

Gardening often is a hobby that many people do not get involved with because seeds, bulbs, plants and even the soil does cost money, but if you play your cards right, you can have a great little garden without the worry of breaking the budget. 

One thing is important to remember, you don’t have to have a large plot of land to have a great garden. Container gardens are a fun way to get the fresh produce you want, while starting a new hobby at the same time. 

Container gardens can be set in the back yard, on the deck, patio, or on your balcony or landscape where you have a little space. Some people are even very successful in gardening right in the kitchen on the window shelf. 

With container gardens, you don’t even have to purchase the containers. You can use old pots, pans, plastic ware, or other containers like milk cartons or butter containers that you might have in the house. 

The soil that you will use can be a mixture of store bought, and soil from your yard. If you have a friend with a farm you may be able to get a bucket of soil without cost at all. 

Another way to get the containers, fertilizers, seeds and such that you may be dreaming about is at the end of the season. Sure purchasing at the end of the season means you have to wait until next year to use up these goodies, but you sure will have more for your money than you would otherwise. 

You can find deals half off, sometimes even seventy five percent off as retailers and nurseries try to clear off their shelves and get ready for the winter stocking season of shovels, and seasonal supplies. 

Frugal gardening is a state of spending less money on the things that you want most in your garden, and how you grow plants in your garden. One method of spending less to have a great garden is to divide some of the plants that you have to make your garden bigger. You can also ask your friends and family to share their plants with you. It doesn’t hurt the plants when they are divided but it actually helps, as the plant will have more room to grow when they are divided. 

To start in dividing a plant, work on plants that grow in clumps, that is mounded up. Taking pieces of a plant from the outside portions of the clump, and then leaving the majority of the plant in tact will allow the plant in the garden to continue growing, while you are move these plants to other parts of your gardens, expanding without much costs other that your time. 

Yet another method of increasing the plants and flowers in your garden without too much cost is by sharing and trading bulbs with others that are also gardeners. Sharing and trading bulbs, you are going to increase those types of flowers that are growing in your garden, and you are going to give back some to others. You will increase the flowers that bloom during different times of the year, and you will not have to pay to much, as bulbs will increase in numbers without much effort in just a year or two. Digging up your bulbs and moving them to other areas of your landscape will increase your gardens without added cost, except for your time. 

When you are out and about at your friends, families or out in your gardens in the fall months, start picking and saving those seed heads. In saving seed heads you can easily plant many more flowers for your gardens in the following year. Dry your seeds in an open container, letting them sit on a shelf somewhere in the house where it is not to cold or hot, just cool so they can sit and dry out for the winter. In the spring, you can plant them in the soil or in a container and watch your garden explode in the colors you love most. 

If you are a frugal gardener you are always looking for ways to get free stuff. If you see someone ripping out a bush, grab it up and plant it in your landscape. When you see sod being cut up to make a walkway, ask if you can haul it away. Ask for manure free from your local farmer if you haul it. Wood chips and shavings from local sawmills are often a treasure gardeners will love as well!