dirt-cheap gardening: horticulture on a budget

Whether it’s a way of putting free, organic food on the table, or a way of creating beauty in your yard, gardening can be more economical than you might think.  Here are some tips for low-budget horticulture, with added dividends in opportunities to build community and to reduce environmental impact.

The Dirt Low-down

It all starts with dirt.  Any garden soil is improved by addition of compost.  You could buy this at prices that inflate the true cost of your home-grown produce beyond reason…or make it yourself.  Don’t have enough kitchen waste to make all the compost you need?  Beg neighbors for their compostable food waste and yard clippings.  Poop is gardeners’ gold, and free or inexpensive manure can be obtained from many farms, ranches, rural fairgrounds, and zoos. 

A pickup is handy for hauling wholesale soils and amendments: cost of wholesale materials can be a fraction of that for those that are bagged, even if you pay for delivery.  Don’t need a truckload?  Consider splitting the purchase with a friend or two.

Potting soil can also be purchased in bulk, or in bags at reduced price if purchased from a nursery wholesaler.  Again, teaming with other gardeners to make a volume purchase can get everyone a price break.  Purists may quibble, but for most purposes it’s perfectly fine to recycle potting soil from deceased plants, as long as they didn’t die of disease.  (Ask a nursery if you can dumpster dive; some will bristle, others might be thankful to pay less to have their dead plants and discarded soil hauled away.)  The only exception, in my opinion, is that I would not recommend using second-hand potting soil for growing seeds or cuttings. 

One cost-cutting strategy that is never recommended is using unamended soil from the ground in pots.  Such soil will almost never have the proper drainage and nutrient qualities for use in containers.  However, with a little work you can produce your own potting soil by combining garden dirt with your own compost, sieved through a screen and heat-sterilized. 

Tools of the trade

Oh, those beautiful designer garden tools with oak- or sustainably-grown-tropical-hardwood handles and carbon steel “business” parts.  Lovely to look at, lovely to handle, but entirely unnecessary to create the best possible garden.  Look for garden tools at garage sales, thrift stores and on Freecycle (a Yahoo group where people offer, or ask for, free stuff)*.  In a small town/rural area in Oregon, I discovered another source of even high-end, professional type gardening tools and supplies: marijuana growers, via the periodic Sheriff’s auction of confiscated items. 

Some nurseries and garden centers (including those at groceries and box stores) maintain piles of plastic pots for recycling.  There are nearly always folks around with plant containers they’ll be happy to pass on— post a request on Freecycle or some local bulletin board.  Give plastic food containers a second life—plant seedlings in tofu tubs with holes poked in the bottom for drainage, or the already-vented boxes that berries come in.

Plants for free, or nearly

Here’s a pop quiz:  you can spend $7-15 on a one gallon perennial at your garden center, or you can produce the same kind of plant yourself, for free.  Which is the better deal? 

Growing your own requires a bit of patience and there may be a learning curve, but you can fill your whole yard with ornamentals or edibles for little or no cash.  It doesn’t require great expertise or even a greenhouse or any exotic equipment, only the willingness to pay attention.  The rewards for such attention are great in the way of satisfaction as well as beauty and thrift.

Growing your own

Many gardeners are familiar with the winter ritual of poring over seed catalogues with all those gorgeous full-color photos of flowers: pornography for plant-lovers.  A packet of seed will usually cost close to what you’d pay for a 4” pot, and a fraction of the price of a gallon, and you have many more potential plants.  But your seed bill can quickly add up, and you’re left with a surplus of seeds you may never use.  Team with a couple of friends to save on shipping costs, and split packets of seeds, or trade partial packets to diversify everyone’s collection.  Don’t be afraid of discounted seed packets at garden stores.  There are exceptions, but keep in mind that most seeds, stored cool and dry, will last for several years.  Cheap or free seeds can also be obtained through gardeners’ exchanges, many to be found online. 

I rarely buy seeds any more.  I’m a compulsive seed collector, always carrying bags and envelopes with me from mid-summer to fall, watching for desirable seeds in public places, or (with permission, of course) private gardens.  A well-organized botanist/gardener friend marks desirable wild plants she sees in wooded places, makes notes on location, and returns when seeds are ripening (by which time the plant can be hard to identify.)

Many edible plants can be grown from collected seeds, as well.  Everyone who has grown tomatoes, tomatillos, or any squash family members has likely experienced next-year volunteers springing up in the garden or on the margins of the compost heap.  Some of these may not closely resemble their parents, but may be quite fine to eat.  I’ve also grown beans, endive and kale from second-generation seed.

Consult books and online sources for general seed-saving and seed-planting protocols and specific needs of different species.  Many plants, most particularly quick-germinating annual flowers and vegetables, can be started out of doors in spring.  Many perennials native to cold regions can be planted out of doors in fall.

Beg, Borrow, Rescue

Not all plants I desire can be grown from seeds (they may be hybrids or sterile cultivars, or just plain difficult).  Cuttings or divisions may be the way to go.  Make a deal with someone whose garden you admire, offering them some of the plants you can produce from cuttings taken in their garden.  

Most people who grow perennials have divisions to give away in fall or spring.  Garden clubs often have exchanges for unloading those divisions, and again: free plants abound on the internet, on Freecycle and elsewhere.  

Watch for opportunities to salvage plants from construction or logging sites on private or public land. I treasure several large Trillium albidum plants, multiplying happily over the years in a large pot.  I rescued them from a privately owned clearcut across the road from my house, where they were doomed within days to suffer the same fate as a multitude of other relatively rare native plants at that site.  The US Forest Service issues permits for plant collection on USFS lands; in many cases, collection of small numbers of plants exclusively for personal use may be free. 

Check out end-of-season sales and year-round sale tables at garden centers.  Pathetic but still viable plants can be had for a song.  Avoid plants that look mushy and have a green film of algae on the soil surface- they may have been overwatered and will have rotted roots.  When in doubt, check for roots-- turn the plant out of its pot if you dare, to see if there are live, whitish roots in there.  Otherwise, just squeeze the pot-- if the contents are very loose, the roots may be long dead; if the content is tight, the plant may be potbound but alive.