Here are some clever Money Saving Gardening Tips that will keep you from spending huge bucks while maintaining a beautiful garden!
Gardening can be an expensive hobby. However, here are some Money Saving Gardening Tips for you to enjoy a healthy harvest without burning a hole in your pocket!
Do you Know Gardening can Make You Money? Learn here
Money Saving Gardening Tips
1. Make Your Own Compost
Why do you consider buying compost from gardening stores when you can easily make your own from organic waste? Making compost doesn’t require a big yard! And you can use grass clippings, kitchen waste, and twigs.
However, there are a few things you should avoid throwing in the compost pile. You can also read our composting tips for help.
Find out some Homemade Fertilizer Recipes here
2. Start Seeds in Biodegradable Pots
Instead of spending money on seed starting trays, use biodegradable pots for germinating seeds. For this purpose, you can use newspapers, toilet paper rolls, citrus rinds, egg cartons, or eggshells.
It will also bar the risks of root damage while transplantation.
3. Grow Vegetables in Burlap Sacks or Bags
Growing a vegetable garden in a small space? No need to spend money on pots or containers for planting. Grow them in burlap bags and sacks. Grow bags, big containers, fabric bags, and jute sacks also serve the purpose well.
Mostly root vegetables are best to grow in burlap, but you can also try other popular names such as tomatoes, eggplants, and cucumbers.
Learn about Growing Potatoes in Containers here
4. Propagate Plants to Multiply Them
Plant propagation is the surest way to multiply your plants and save money. You can multiply the existing plants in your garden by cutting, layering, and root division.
You can Propagate these Herbs from Cuttings
5. Mulch the Ground to Save Money
A layer of mulch can do wonders in the garden. It saves water and prevents unwanted plants from popping out here and there, which means less weeding and no herbicides.
Layer 2-3 inches of dried leaves, wood shreddings, birch chips, or brown compost particles around your established trees and shrubs to insulate their roots and save them from the exploits of weather.
6. Avoid Impulse Buying
Do not fall prey to impulsive buying. Make sure to research your area’s weather conditions well and buy only those plants that go well with your environment.
Find out some Fantastic Gardening Hacks here
7. Utilize the Household Items
Household items can be a treasure hub for your garden. Vinegar helps suppress weeds, repel ants, boosts the germination rate, and cleans rusty gardening tools.
You can also utilize coffee grounds or tea bags in compost to increase soil acidity, improve soil fertility, and suppress weeds. Spices, old furniture, utensils, salvaged bottles, and other household items can save you pretty bucks in the garden.
Get some Clever Ideas to Use Household things in the Garden here
8. Utilize Fruit Peels for a Healthy Harvest
Citrus peels contain D-limonene, a potent element in repelling pests, while banana peels can be used to bar aphids, mosquitoes, ants, and whiteflies.
Pomegranate, Mango, and Apple peels are rich sources of Potassium, Phosphorus, Iron, Folate, and other nutrients that act as brilliant plant food.
Peels off the fruits and soak them in water overnight. The peel extracts will leach into the water, which you can spray on the pest-affected areas. You may also dry them under the sun and grind them to mix the powder in the potting mix.
Find out the most Beneficial Fruit Peels here
9. Keep your Garden Weed Free
Weeds pose a great threat to the garden by sucking away nutrients, breeding pests, displacing native species, and degrading soil quality.
Get rid of them using vinegar, borax, cornmeal gluten, or using weed suppressors such as cardboard, newspaper, and mulch. This way, you can preserve soil fertility besides saving bucks on herbicides and soil enhancers.
10. Use Cooking Water to Fertilize Plants
Don’t drain the water after boiling, steaming, or washing vegetables. Once the water has cooled, pour this into your plants to fertilize them instead of wasting it. You can also do the same with your boiled egg water, pasta, and rice water.
It boosts plant growth with additional nutrients that are leached from the vegetables.
Find out some Proven Rice-Water Benefits for Plants here
11. Test Your Soil
Although a soil test may first seem like an extra expenditure, it can save a lot of money. The soil test will pinpoint which nutrients your soil lacks, clarifying which fertilizers and plants to buy. It will also increase the productivity of your garden.
Learn How to Check the Soil pH at Home here
12. Use Grass Clippings
Using grass clippings in the garden is a great way to save money on lawn fertilizers. Simply leave grass clippings on your lawn after mowing, and they will save up to 25% consumption of lawn fertilizers. Check out some more grass-clipping uses.
13. Use Kitchen Scraps in the Garden
You can easily save a few bucks off your grocery bill by growing a few of those staples from your diet. You don’t need seeds or anything fancy. Simply use kitchen scraps from your next meal.
Check out this infographic to learn how to grow food from kitchen scraps. via Jerryjamesstone
Do You Know Kitchen Leftovers can be Useful in the Garden? Learn here
14. Organize Seed and Plant Swapping
Seed and plant-swapping events are helpful for gardeners who want to extend their plant collection without paying much. You may organize one at a local park, neighbor’s garden, or a community center where the plant parents can gather together and swap transplants, pups, seeds, or plant cuttings.
15. Grow Plants from Seeds and Offsets
Growing plants from seeds is cheap and provide you with more options to grow. Similarly, you can grow many plants from division and pups. Saving seeds at the end of the growing season is also an intelligent way to have something for propagation the next year.
Check out the Indoor Plants that Grow from Leaves here
16. Buy Smaller Plants Instead of Bigger Ones
Biggers plants are pricier than smaller ones. So, if you’re tight on budget, it is better to avoid big specimens. Also, the younger plants have a more active root system than the bigger ones, and they transplant quickly with an increased ability to absorb nutrients.
Nice to read. So useful and informative tips. Many thanks for sharing them all.
In France, these tea bags are made from plastic 😕
I just read your article about money-saving gardening tips, and I have to say, it was really helpful. I love gardening, but I also want to save money, so your article gave me some great ideas. Thanks for sharing these money-saving gardening tips.