Cheap by nature - gardening offers thread!

[shovetheholly]

To remind myself as much as anything else!

Aldi have vegetable plug plants in tomorrow, £1.99 each. 10 varieties - pictures show broccoli, caulis, tomatoes, peppers. Also, rhodos for £5.99 if they are your kind of thing.

I just saw that Aldi event and RUSHED here to post, but Shove has beaten me

I had a couple of the foldy-uppy cloches last year, with the mesh. And I really liked them! Really easy to pin down, and to fold away over winter. The mesh is quite tightly-woven, so does keep out beasties but also casts quite a bit of a shade. They have them with fleece covers and plastic covers too, so I might buy more. And then I will probably buy some other bits too.

I am also pondering this www.wilko.com/mini-greenhouses/wilko-walk-in-greenhouse-cover-and-stage-pe/invt/0260896 a bigger plastic blowaway greenhouse, but I can't quite fit a proper one

I have been assiduously waiting for this for aaaaages!

The thing I like about that greenhouse is the bits of plastic that drape on the floor. Provided the plastic can take the force (and it looks robust) I reckon you could weight them down with bricks and stop most of the blowing away problem.

Along with tomatoes, you will be Queen of Aubergines with that!!

Good to know about the cloches. I make my own nets out of scaffolding netting and that bombproof blue waterpipe stuff, but I could really use some fleecy/clear ones so I can get stuff out a bit earlier

Yessssssss!

Brilliant, I will be there!

I have my staging!!

In addition to all the things listed above, there are lots of summer flowering bulbs for 99p and perennials for £1.99, including Mumsnet stalwart Erysmium 'Bowles' Mauve', Achillea 'Cloth of Gold' and foxgloves.

I hope some of these are still left tomorrow - I can't get there until then!

Really pleased with my haul - electric propagater, cordless lawnmower, perlite and acidanthera bulbs.

Btw Lidl had cheap seeds last week, some were 22p!

I too am making a visit to Aldi tomorrow. For some cloches. (Shove where do you get your blue pupe/debris net combo from? Do you handily know some builders? ) And any other bits and bobs.

And excitingly, coming up on 3rd March is Lidl's spring gardening eventHello all, and welcome back, booky . Surely that wasn't 3 weeks?

Well, I am cream crackered. I had a few hours at the plot today, attacking my compost heap. It's the first time I've taken out since I inherited it - I'd only added to it last year. It seems quite well-rotted, so I'm quite pleased! But it is full of stones, and lumps of mud too. Odd. And unfortunately I had to dig out the front pallet not get to it, and I disturbed a load of frogs - some mini and some full sized. I think I managed to move them all safely, and there is a pond bit of a stream usually full of spawn/shagging frogs only a

Ahh, sorry for that. I pasted the wrong bit And then posted instead of deleted

Lidl's spring gardening event - www.lidl.co.uk/en/our-offers-2491.htm?id=780&ar=3 It's the one with the cutty things! I have the loppers, both secateurs, and my beloved tree hacker. Maybe I'll get the hedge trimmers to complete the set? And maybe some more secateurs as I always misplace mine...

I managed to get to Aldi this afternoon after all :) picked up a 4 tier shelving unit, a spare cover ( they do disintegrate quickly I find, regardless of how much care and attention I lavish on them!) , perlite and some 99p bulbs that I didn't really need, and now have to find somewhere to plant......

Zebra - blue pipe was from Jewsons (any other builder's merchant will probably do it though) - look for 'alkathene' or 'MDPE' pipe. I went for the 25mm diameter because it's really tough but still bendable enough to use. It comes wound, and naturally forms a curve, which gives you your hoops. One roll easily did enough for my site.

I got my scaffolding netting on ebay, but that's because I was too cowardly to go and ask builders. . You can often get it for free when a site closes - they just bin it anyway so you might as well. One mistake I made was not checking the spacing of the gaps in the netting before I bought - there are areas that have bigger holes to tie it into the scaffolding poles and they are easily large enough for beasties to get in. So I use it on things like brassicas where I can easily find chomping caterpillars, but not roots - where fly is a concern I use enviromesh.

I also went for a green colour, whereas if I were buying another lot (which I will never need to do because you get tons on a roll!) I would get white as it would let in more light.

book - I got two of the Aldi 'greenhouses' to use as staging in my larger greenhouse. Really impressed by how much you can fit on them. My glass greenhouse is unheated and I was wondering about using the plastic cover as a kind of second 'layer' inside it. If I did this, do you think I could get my tomato seedlings (currently tiny and indoors) hardening off outside from mid March?? Do you think it would work to give them enough protection from frost?

that has given me pause for thinking shove - I suspect, depending on weather of course, that you may get away with it. Its the differential in day and night temperatures that would concern me. I think you could use the cover opened up during the day, and then zip it up, before the temperature starts to drop at dusk?, and then gradually leave the cover open on a night, then phase out the cover altogether once you are happy with the night time temperature , IYSWIM ? I spend my time with tomatoes getting them really strong on my kitchen windowsill during the day (north facing, cool) , and bringing them in to my warmer dining room table on a night, so they don't get shocked next to the window- then in the greenhouse during the best of the day, bringing in at night- maybe a bit too faffy!

In that case, I am going to give it a go!

And fuss isn't a problem - I am happy to faff around them a bit to get them going good and early because as you know I'm up against it with the lack of sun here. I like your plan of moving them around. I can always bring them into a sheltered place if we get a bout of really cold weather in late March.

I am starting early with aubergines this year - I just didn't have them ready in time for the best of the light and heat(!) last year. We can only try

borrows Shove's klaxon

Aldi special buys (including garden range) available to order online with limited time free delivery

Wow, fabulous spot haveyouseenher. That's going to be amazingly useful for those who don't have a store close by.

Thompson and Morgan have 280 summer bulbs for £3.99 at the moment

www.thompson-morgan.com/bulbs-tne693z?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TNE693Z%20-%20280%20summer%20bulb%20collection%20(1)&utm_content=&pid=31779660&[email protected]&brand=3&[email protected]&spMailingID=50885941&spUserID=MTkwNzk3NDcwODU3S0&spJobID=881283276&spReportId=ODgxMjgzMjc2S0

Code for 20% off at Sarah Raven: GW16WMAR.

48 free perennials at Thompson and Morgan (£6 postage): www.thompson-morgan.com/GW823

Not sure how much of a bargain this is, I'm a complete bit of a novice in the garden, but there's an offer for 4 free clematis which flower at different times to give all year round flowers for £5.65 postage.

That's a great offer! I just did a similar one - same supplier, but four different clematis. I'm really pleased with the varieties I got, but do be warned that they come extremely tiny and will need potting on for some time before they are ready to go out! They are a bargain even so, though.

our local Tesco has large terracotta pots for £5 - about 34 cm..... am guessing aren't frostproof but seems a good price.

All (?) seeds half price at Wilko according to an email tonight.

Aldi gardening special buys 28th Match on the website with free delivery. DIY/ fencecare specialbuys go live tomorrow :)

🌻🌿🌺What a brilliant thread. I love gardening and a bargain. What a fantastic combo.

I discovered the joy of Poundland yesterday. Plastic cloches, twine, gloves, hideous ornaments (as already mentioned) packets of day lillies and lots of climbers and fruit bushes. I was actually very restrained but intend to go back (with a bigger bag).

Someone else has already mentioned the secret gardening club (massive thank you to whoever first mentioned it - it is fantastic).

Aldi are great - the RHS fruit book (£3.99) has been a massive help as I fartarse around with the raspberry canes I bought cheap from Homebase last month.

Happy bargain-hunting everyone

Over the easter weekend I went to our garden centre and because of the weather and that it'd be closed on the Sunday/Monday they'd significantly over ordered and had reduced things dramatically. I got at least £300 worth of plants for 10p each!!!

Catmint, azaleas, Climbing roses, trays of primroses, apple mint, Moroccan mint, chives, hellebores, lilacs, about 10 other shrubs that I can't remember the names of, shrub roses, bleeding hearts, 5 different fuschia, some unusual penesteum (?) Grasses, winter and spring woodland collections, some hedging plants and more that I can't remember the name of!

V happy! I then planted it all and carried on through the downpour and got cold to the bone but it was worth it!

It's well worth checking out your expensive nursery on random rainy days. I love it when they reduce plants!!

Wow, what a bargain jazz - sounds like a wonderful haul!

Lidl have a lot of summer bulbs in, including big ole packs of what look like very good Dahlia tubers for a fiver. Other packs of things like liastris, glads, montbretia, and other usual suspects for just under £1.

They also had secateurs and heavy duty strap-on knee pads for £3.99. I'm a big fan of knee pads as way better than a kneeler (you don't have to keep moving them around!)