Many people enjoy gardening for a variety of reasons. Gardening can help you stay active and relieve stress. Spending a part of each day outside in your garden will also allow you to enjoy a little sunshine. And you know you’ll love showering your friends and family with fresh produce or flowers from your garden. We are gearing up for our garden. We’ve been tossing around ideas of what we’ll plant this year and will be getting the garden ready for planting in the next few weeks.
The difficult part of gardening, and any other hobby for that matter, is keeping the costs from taking over your budget. The more time you spend enjoying a pastime, the easier it can be for you to get carried away and spend too much money on accessories to go along with that hobby. Keeping those costs is possible, however, if you keep a few tips in mind.
Grow your plants from seeds. Seeds are much less expensive than the plants available at your local nursery or home improvement center. For an added incentive, imagine how proud you’ll be when your plants bloom after you’ve nursed them from little seeds.
Stick with the basics when selecting your gardening tools. An inexpensive hand tool set is probably all you need to cultivate a flower bed. If vegetables are more your specialty, you may need to add a shovel and hoe to your list. Otherwise, skip the fancy accessories that are supposed to make gardening “easier.” Remember that spending time in your garden is work that you enjoy, anyway.
Take cuttings from your friends’ plants. Some plants are hard to start from seeds. In these cases, trade cuttings with your friends and learn how to cultivate a new plant. If you have trouble with your new addition to the garden, at least you’ll already know someone who can give you advice for helping your new little plant along.
Skip adding expensive insecticides to your vegetable garden. The chemicals used to keep insects at bay can be costly. And, besides, who wants to eat produce that’s been doused in those chemicals? Instead, pledge that your garden will be organic and serve the produce from your garden with pride.
Gardening costs can be easily controlled if you don’t go too crazy adding modern conveniences into your garden. By gardening in the manner that your grandparents did, you can enjoy the simplicity of a garden without carrying the worry of your budget into the garden with you.
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I agree with Jeanette; making your own compost is a great way to recycle food scraps, and help your plants grow.
Some plants though, like tomatoes, you may be better off buying as seedlings, since they can be hard to start from seeds, although I prefer to purchase hertiage/organic plants, so I normally just buy my seeds online.
A very timely post.
This may be completely obvious to most, but I would also add to make sure that you water either late at nite or early in the morning.
Might not necessarily lower your water bill, but your garden will benefit more from it.
Excellent ideas. Don’t forget to make your own compost from scraps and cuttings. This makes great fertilizer and mulch. Also you can save your own seeds. Tomatoes and pumpkins grow very easily from your own seeds.