Ten Frugal Gardening Tips

Whether you’re an avid vegetable gardener, a beginner herb gardener or just like to have a pretty garden, these frugal tips may help you save a little money!

1. Stale coffee and coffee grounds make great organic fertilizer. They provide many trace minerals and low, gentle levels of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous.
   
2. Remember that a good soaking of water less often is better than a light sprinkling every day — for veggies and for your lawn.
3. If your neighbour has a plant you particularly like, ask for a cutting. It saves you going to the nursery and buying one. Maybe you could trade a cutting from one of your own plants.
4. To easily water a tomato plant, cut the bottom off a water bottle and bury it upside down next to the plant.
   This allows the water to go straight to the roots.
5. Plant marigolds in your vegetable garden. They will attract insects that eat aphids and other pests.
6. If you have off cuts of carpet or an old rug that you can cut into strips don’t throw them away. That way you can lay them between your vegetable rows to stop your feet from getting too muddy as you tend the plants and also stops weeds from sprouting.
   
7. Use grass clippings as mulch around your vegetable plants to keep moisture in and weeds out. Just don’t use the clippings right after you have fertilized your grass or treated for weed control.
8. If you have access to them, pine needles make excellent mulch.
9. A natural, frugal garden pest spray: mix 1 tablespoon of washing up liquid and 1 cup of cooking oil. Use 3 tablespoons of this mixture to 250ml of water and spray on plants.
10. In the herb garden, to keep plants like mint from taking over too big an area, put it in a clay pot and simply plant the whole pot!

“He who plants a garden, plants happiness.”