Growing when your broke......

Looks lovely, Lumpy.

I'm a skip rat. I've just scored for a lovely wooden box off the street, which I'll turn into one of those posh arty farty vintage style salad boxes! For free! I am thinking about nabbing the top half of a crap plastic mini greenhouse which has been lying about up the street, it might make the perfect sized cloche frame for said salad box...? Other than bin-diving, ask for cuttings, seed swaps, old drawers make good planters, an old bed base would make a great squash trellis....

Been gardening on a shoe-string most of my life - mostly its not complicated - a lot of seeds and cuttings can be had for free and many tools and other useful stuff cost only a few quid or next to nothing if you keep your eye on secondhand sources - recently scored a large galvanised wheelbarrow on Free-cycle to replace my 45 year old one -dead chuffed - took the lady involved a winter-sweet seedling in a pot as a thank-you.

I’m definitely one for growing stuff from seed where I can, and make use of ‘end of season’ 10p packets whenever I get the chance.
Stuff like bare root fruit trees will take a while to pay for themselves, but again supermarket/pound store bargains are often to be found if you’re flexible about varieties, as it won’t take many apples for £2-3 to repay itself!

Today, I picked up a trugful of pond plants - yellow waterlilies, blue iris with variegated leaves, some stripy grasses and a few unidentified leaves - from a local Freecycler!!
Just have to work out where to plant them now.

Surely a few of your neighbours have spare space in their gardens VC ? just sneak out at midnight in your ninja outfit and pop some waterlilies in number 32's pond etc and the jobs a good 'un :-)

They're staying in my garden - just need a bog garden and some big trugs.

Large water containers, cut the bottom off and they make a good cloch.
Youghert containers for sowing large seeds like peas or beans.
Mushroom cartons for sowing seeds.
If you live near the cemetery, pots, bulbs and numerous plants are thrown away which are still useful.
The list is endless.

I think my best bargain buy was when I wanted to do vertical growing, because my garden is so teeny tiny, and looking at vertical containers that would cost me at least £50 but some much more. I found a shoe-tidy at Ikea and figured that'd be perfect... and it is!! And it cost me all of £3!

Hey Sariss that vertical strawberry grower is fantastic. A few years ago I got the idea of growing strawberries on my fence after I seen someone growing them in old gutters, so I got myself some old 4” plastic water pipes cut out holes and filled with compost and strawberry plants - IT DIDN’T WORK.

Aww thank you It has been a great success this year, despite planting these plants quite late in the year. I've had plenty of strawbs off them. The pockets are quite deep, and I put the innards of a nappy into a bucket with compost, so I think that's helped with water retention.

I tried beans in this planter last year, and that was not enough room for them, so they didn't produce much. The strawbs are much happier I think I will get one more of these, for the garden gate, which is just to the right of this, but in a lighter spot. The wall space is my only limitation, and I have a fair bit of that!

I must have been Rary in a past life as I hate spending money!

The only thing I buy for my plot are seeds (Usually at reduced price) and a small amount of compost from the pound shop.

My plot is brimming with fruit and veg and for very little cost.

I am another skip-diver. Or I would be, but I usually see them when I've got my suit on and going to work. Look for people getting loft conversions done - there will be loads of big timber off cuts that have been kept nice and dry as part of the house for the last 40+ years. New kitchens generally come wrapped in lots of cardboard.

All the above, the thing I'd add is compost - do you have garden waste bins round your way? My neighbours on each side let me take theirs each week - if you've got the space that's good for a couple of cubic metres of compost each year.

Ditto coffee grounds from your local coffee shop. I've yet to ask the local curry house for their veg peelings, but I'm thinking about it.

Garden centres at end off seasons are good, I picked up a bunch of lavender plants for 50p each (down from £5).

Parcel wrap as ground membrane.

Wood chip is supposedly given away free by tree surgeons (I don't know this, as it arrives by magic at our plot).

If you have a neighbour getting their garden landscaped, you may be able to get plants that are being taken out?

The only thing I wouldn't skimp on are basic tools - trowel, spade, knife

my big outgoings on the garden are
1) plants (I haven't got the time/space to tend seedlings in sufficient numbers to guarantee some things).
2) seeds
3) compost - as I'm building up a no-dig allotment
4) wood for raised beds - simply as I'm not around at the right times to skip-dive. I'm nearly at my last beds though. I have gone very expensive and bought solid 6x1 so it should last a lot of years

something I forgot
I make it a rule to never throw anything away that I can re-use, and I'll buy for the re-use of packaging
yoghurt pots - plant pots (it helps if you keep on eating the same brand)
cups with handles knocked off - plant pot holders
broken pottery - for bottom of pots
plastic meat trays - saucers for under pots, or, if you get ones the right size - mini propagators
(also in my garage I have a number of parts trays that started life as baking trays, and a large collection of old margarine tubs as storage)

None of that is exactly news, save perhaps for the point about thinking about package re-use when shopping - eg sticking to the same brand/tub-shape where possible

Mike

I think gardeners invented re-cycling years ago, I'm told it really came to the fore during the second world war in the UK.