Low budget gardening, let's share tips!

[HJwantstosleep]

As in I need some more!

Swapping seeds/seedlings with friends/neighbours/random people who have stuff you want!

Freecycle for anything.

Sometimes garden centres give away their pot surplus.

B&Q etc reduce scratty plants , some can be revived v cheaply

Poundland poundland poundland

The other day I found gardenswapshop.co.uk/ which I am going to post on.

Sign up to Gardening mags at an event like one of the RHS flower shows or county show, and you will get great free stuff and a good subscription rate. Tart yourself around between magazines each year o you are always a 'new customer' somewhere.

Sign up to:www.allotment.org.uk

They are full of good advice and share info on discounts at all garden centres/ Homebase etc. They swap seeds and seedlings. Try also WI Markets. I picked up a rhubarb crown for £2 this morning.

Also check out Wilkinsons if you have a local store. They do hose connectors (or they did last year) for about a pound, and their seeds are cheap.

Lastly, I've just spent about £17 in p&p on 16 packets of seeds from these guys:www.nickys-nursery.co.uk/garden-shop/seeds/

I reckon thats about 2 years worth of fruit and veg for us.

We got loads of little things in Wilkos last year. Don't go near it often enough though :(

School fairs & car boot sales.

Lidl

Talk gardens to people - playground, people whose garden you admire, allotment owners etc. - generally people love to share .

Set up a veg growing co-op, decide your planting plans and swap small plants at the thinning stage. It works out so much cheaper than buying small plants.
Sign up for all the "free seeds" you can, if you don't want to grow them you can swap them for something you do want to grow.
Plant successionally and plan your plot so it's always got something in, ie sow parsnips among garlic, when the parsnip leaves shade the garlic, it's time to pull the garlic, when the parsnips need pulling you can get some broad beans in.
Plant seedlings in guttering off cuts, it saves soil, fits nicely on a window ledge, and makes seedlings easy to transplant.

Ah yes planning like meal planning , guaranteed to save you money but I go to the chip shop on day 2

Make paper pots or see if local garden centre have a stack outside you can help yourself to.

Make compost

Grow veg varieties you can save seed from, you can use the next year and have some to swap.

Save punnets that meat, fruit and veg come in from supermarket, useful trays for seed growing. The clear plastic ones make little propagators.

Find a clump of comfrey and make liquid plant food, be prepared for the smell though !

Have a jug by the sink to collect water in for watering plants.

Keep eye out for local gardening groups/allotment plant sales.

Split perennials in the garden, take cuttings of your roses in the winter, make new plants from what you have in the garden. Useful for swapping.

Stand silver foil up behind seedlings on the windowsill to help prevent them going leggy.

For small quantities of seeds Moreveg are excellent (sorry, can't link).

ah yes, compost. although it is difficult to make enough of your own compost unless you start with a bit of a jungle to cut down. but include shredded paper, egg boxes and the odd bit of cardboard, clean egg shells, coffee grounds and tea bags, and all your peelings and gone-over fruit/veg. if putting grass cuttings in, balance with dry stuff like shredded paper so it doesn't become a slimy mess. you can put in woody material like hedge clippings but you need to shred them first - St Monty Of Berryfields does it with a lawnmower.

for cooked food and meat scraps you need a wormery but unless you can get one off freecycle I'm not sure you'd see the benefit for what they cost.

Join your local gardening club - the biggest and best have a trading hut where you can buy cheap supplies and they organise plant swaps and so on.

The 99p Store.