How to Garden Frugally
How to Garden Frugally. Today we planted our garden. It is a fabulous way to build your stockpile and stretch your budget. Last summer, I was able to can 21 quarts of tomatoes and we ate fresh carrots, zucchini, squash, tomatoes, cucumbers all summer long. This year we expanded our garden and we planted in addition to the above blackberries, blueberries, red raspberries, onions, green peppers, hot peppers, corn, potatoes and an herb garden.
How to Garden Frugally:
We garden organically with no pesticides. The first year that you garden you will have to spend more out of pocket. Last year we invested in tomato cages, and we were lucky to borrow a roto tiller from our neighbor. In addition to the cost of our plants and seeds that was about the total of our expenses. We live on a wooded lot with deer and other pesky rodents, so we did have to invest in deer and rodent repellent.
This year my total out of pocket expense for the garden was…drum roll…$11.34! I used my ACE Hardware rewards and a $10 off any purchase coupon to purchase all of my seeds and repellent this year! The only expense I had was my tomato plants! Again, we used our neighbor’s roto tiller, and we were able to reuse all of our tomato cages that we invested in last year!
I will have to spend money on additional deer and rodent repellent mid garden season however I hope to be able to strategically use coupons to reduce my expense. I am also considering making a thrifty deer repellent myself from one of these frugal homemade recipes.
In addition to gardening, we also compost. I am going to be posting on our compost process and how to build your own compost bin as well as additional posts of our garden success.
I do want to mention that regardless of space you can garden in a small area, within your existing landscaping or even in pots on your patio or deck. I am very excited to see how our garden progresses this year. It is a fabulous frugal family activity. We planted together; we will weed, water, harvest and eat together.
This year I mixed sand in my soil for my carrots as our family friend Mrs. Henderson told me that is a tip for growing longer carrots. I saved my “old sand” from my son’s sandbox and mixed that into the soil for that row.
Do you garden? I would love to hear what you plant as well as any tips or tricks that you may have.
Other ideas you may like:
Why buy canned tomatoes when you can can them yourself?
Mini-Greenhouse – Made with Eggland’s Best Carton
Tips for keeping out the pests
How to build an outdoor compost bin
Garden Update: How to get “rid” of the bunnies
Planting a Moonflower = Hours of Frugal Family Fun
Gardening Tips: A Frugal Alternative
Do you love the Farmer’s Market?
Tips for success with Raspberries, Blackberries and Currants
Melissa is a football and soccer mom who has been married to her best friend for 24 years. She loves sharing recipes, travel reviews and tips that focus on helping busy families make memories.
I would *love* for you to do a post at season’s end on canning. I have no idea how to do it and I find the thought intimidating.
We plant tomato, peas, green beans, squash, zucchini, carrots, leaf lettuce, cilantro, peppers.
Yep, we garden and this year I have talked my hubby out of our huge garden 🙂 He is gonna try containers for me! For any one who is interested, I go to the local restaurants and ask them if I could have the food grade buckets that they receive things like pickles in. 90% of the time they are glad to just give them to you. Our best was Burger King (a chain fast food place) They go through a ton of these types of buckets. So there are the FREE containers for our veggies! We will use them for tomatoes, peppers, beans, and the likes. Still need a patch for cukes, watermelon, and pumpkins, but so much less to weed. Happy Gardening!
This is our 2nd yr for a garden , we planted onions, watermelon, corn, greenbeans, beets, orka, sqash, tomatoes, strawberries and a few more things.
I bought from lowes (clearanace) 2 raspberries $2, 2 grapes $2 , blk berry bush $10 ( beginning of spring , I should ahve waited) and a friend gave me some blueberry babies to plant.
I just keep adding for some reason.
I am so new to canning and was wondering if you or others can post how they can garden stuff. I know there are so many sites out there but I am curious.
I want to make some salsa, can some tomatoes, greenbeans, make my own spag. sauce . I know walmart has a spag. pk you can use for making your own spag. does any one know if that is good?
Thanks for posting:)
I love gardening. We (my mother and I) have always had a garden. But for the last few years, I have “my garden” in addition to the big one in the back yard. This year I have 5 tomato plants, 2 sweet banana pepper plants, 1 zucchini, 9 onions, carrots, radishes (all gone now), green beans and corn. It is so rewarding to grow my own food. I love flowers too!
I will do a canning post 🙂 Do you want a how to?
YES!
I need a “How to Can for Dummies” guide.
Everything from supplies to the mechanics of how to execute the big event.
Will work on one for you! 🙂
If you love to garden you might want to check out the Boone County Extension Office. I also go to the Campbell County one. They offer free classes and always send you away with some goodies. I got 8 broccoli plants and 4 tomato plants this year. Can’t tell you how many seeds they gave me – it was great fun!
Thanks Lori,
I am in the Kenton County Homemakers. They have classes and goodies too 🙂 It is fun!
Hey Melissa! We garden too!!! We actually are headed out this morning to weed. We have tomatoes, green peppers, banana peppers, green beans (which i just love to pick- lol), corn, and blackberry bushes. We have always had a garden and have had many different type of things-we will probably put out pumpkins this year too! PUMPKINS are awesome to have in the garden- I HATE paying for them in the stores since i use many to decorate with.
We borrow tools from family that we use in the garden so no paying for them (several of us in the family use them and take turns with repairs and maintenance). I even think someone gave us the blackberries and they have really expanded!
We have a lot of deer, pest, etc- It was very difficult to convince Chris not to use pesticides!
Sawyer loves to help too!
I NEED HELP ON COMPOSTING! I would love to do it!
You are very blessed to live in an area where the soil is useable. Here, we have to buy dirt, as ours is white and hard as concrete (you have to jackhammer holes for fruit trees!).
You can see what I grow in my garden here:
http://theprudenthomemaker.com/thekitchengarden.aspx
I also have a tour of my garden and have written about frugal gardening as well.
A compost post is soon to come!
We are truly blessed!
Hi,
I’ve planted a green pepper plant & I’ve planted 3 green onions I previously used for a dinner. I just chopped the green part off of the green onion stalk & planted the rest in potting soil. They are growing 🙂
Every year I can tomatoes. But, some of the tomatoes I simply seed onto paper towels and let them dry so that the next year I will have more tomato seeds to plant in the garden. The good thing about seeding them onto papertowels is that paper towels are biodegradeable and keep the weeds out of your garden when you plant your seeds in the garden. This year I decided to give some seeds to friends and use some in our tomato gardens and I also decided to try some new tomato seeds that I had never tried before just to see if we could grow them in our area. So far they are looking good. We plant a variety of herbs, veggies and fruits every year. I just love to garden!
What an awesome tip! I would love to see a picture of how you seed them. I am also going to give it a try!