If you like gardening and you like money, read on ... Just because you want to save money doesn’t make you a miser or a pauper. In fact, saving money in the garden is more about taking a holistic approach, doing the best you can with the least you can and letting nothing go to waste. Saving money in the garden often means saving the environment too! This collection of money-saving tips will do as much for your bank’s balance as for nature’s.
1. Poochie Poo
Scoop the savings! That’s free fertiliser your pooch has just laid in the backyard. You have to compost it carefully first, though, because fresh dog poo is rather toxic. You should also only use the compost on ornamentals, never on or near food crops. The easy way to get started is to cut the bottom out of an old bin that has a lid, put lots of drainage holes in the sides, dig ahole and bury it to just above ground level. Poop and septic starter go in, as well as regular water; rich compost slowly leaches into the soil. Keep it covered, and as far away from food crops as possible. Look for worm farm solutions too.
2. A Load of Horse $#@!
People with horses will usually give you their (horses’) valuable manure for free, and it’s one of the best soil conditioners you can get. You can spread it on your garden as a fertiliser top-up, even just once a year. Make sure you compost it for a few weeks first. Well-composted horse manure is fine to use on vegie patches.
3. Be a Drip
Soil absorbs water really, really slowly. Like maybe 10 or 20mm an hour. You should measure how much water your watering system delivers – even if that ‘system’ is you and a bucket – and adjust it so you don’t give the soil any more water than it can handle. If you do, the excess just runs off and it’s money down the drain.
4. Wetting Agents
These aren’t the water-balloon-tossing work colleagues of Secret Agents; rather, they’re non-toxic additives you can mix into the soil to improve its ability to retain moisture so you don’t have to water as often.
5. Grow From Seed
Seeds can be bought for peanuts. You can buy them for lots of other plants too, and they’re very cheap. Unless you’re extremely patient, look for plants that don’t take years to establish. Of course, many fruits and vegies grow best from seed.
6. Stay Out Of Jail
You don’t have to break the law to get free plants. A great number of plants can be grown without them even having to have sex and produce seeds. From your own plants or from a friend’s, you can often propagate more just by dividing clumps or taking cuttings.
7. Don’t Dig
If you dig or till your soil, you then have to go and repair the damage by adding in fertilisers and perhaps other soil conditioners, all of which can cost money. If you leave the soil alone to create its optimal structure, you just need to pile mulch and compost on top and let nature do the rest.
8. Brew Your Own Death Potion
Organic fungicides and pesticides are effective and easy to make, and you may already be growing some of the ingredients. For something to keep pests at bay, blend two bulbs of garlic in one cup of water, then add the mix to 4L of water.
9. Share
Why buy it at the supermarket if you can trade for it? If you can’t eat all the lemons on your tree, why not swap them for other edibles with neighbours and friends? If you participate in a community garden, quite often you can share in everything that is grown.
10. Seed Harvesting
It’s not just the fruit that’s worth keeping; their seeds are free potential plants. Collecting seeds from domestic sources is not an issue, but if you want to collect them from any government land – like council gardens, parks, reserves or state forests - you’ll need a licence to do so.
11. Brew Your Own Poo
Well, not your actual own, but any animal manure you have. Horse, cow, pig and chicken manure all make a good base for creating liquid fertiliser. You will need to look up a recipe, but the process is easy – mix up the poop in a certain quantity of water, let it brew, and soon you’ll have free, rich, liquid fertiliser.
12. Be Attractive To Insects
Friendly insects eat many pests and, crucially, pollinate your plants. You don’t need to buzz suggestively to attract insects to your garden, but do leave fresh water out for them, and include enticing plants like lavender and daisies.
13. Buyer Beware
You might think a bargain plant at a nursery is a great way to save money, but check carefully first. Is it pot-bound? Is it sickly? Is it overgrown? Is it weedy? Is it an annual on its way out? You might be buying a bucket of trouble.
14. Grow Your Own Support
Some plants, and particularly fruit and veg, like to be supported. If you have room for your own, well-contained, bamboo patch, a sturdy stake will always be ready to cut.
15. Damage Control
Many animals can be real pigs and subject your garden to untold damage. Death by sudden impact is a frowned-upon method of control, so also consider netting to keep away birds and bats, and fake cats and snakes to scare off other garden gatecrashers.
16. Avoid a ‘Doh!’
It’s bitterly disappointing to spend all season eyeing off that mouth-watering watermelon, only to discover you’ve left it sitting on the soil and it has rotted. Doh! Place lots of straw – or something that allows very good drainage and airflow - underneath, and prevent that rot.
17. Seedling Care
Seedlings need lots of moisture, but if they’re too wet they wilt or contract ‘damping off’ fungus. So you don’t lose your seeds and carefully prepared seed-raising mix, put your seedling containers in a tray on top of newspaper. Soak the paper and keep it soaked; the seed-raising mix will draw on the moisture without it becoming waterlogged. Also, make sure you have good ventilation.
18. Have Your Cake ...
An effective and free seed tray is a plastic cake container. It’s the right depth and comes with a ready-made lid. In case you don’t have a lid, a shower cap may well do the trick too.
19. Stop The Freeloading
Once your lovingly cultivated fruit has dropped to the ground, there are freeloading fungus and bacteria that will happily consume it. The trick is to keep the fruit off the soil. Lay lots of straw around the drop zone, and make a habit of regularly collecting any fruit that’s fallen.
20. Cake You Don’t Bake
If cake and concrete make an appearance in the same sentence it’s never for a good reason. Except this time! Old cake tins make great moulds for concrete so you can make your own stepping-stones.
21. Stumped?
Removing old tree stumps can be costly and labour intensive – so why bother? Hollow out the top and backfill with some potting mix. Plants that enjoy good drainage will happily set down roots there, and the old stump is now a beautiful feature.
22. Cradle To Cradle
In nature, everything is a valuable resource for something else. Heck, we grow our food in worm poo! Any green ‘waste’ can be an input into mulch, compost or the worm farm, and you need never spend a cent on mulch or fertiliser again.
23. Spit and Polish
Maintain your tools – keep them clean and sharp. Then you won’t need to replace them as often, or at all, and you won’t spread disease.
24. Don’t be a Vector
If you’re dealing with a diseased or infested plant, disinfect yourself, your clothes and your tools before moving to any other plants. Save the cost of having to replace the rest of the garden by not spreading problems yourself.
25. Spend More Time Gardening
If you’re spending time in the garden, you’re not spending money somewhere else! You’re also investing in your physical, mental and environmental health.
Words by Sean Cummins