The Budget Gardener, part 1

Gardening can be as simple as puttering around your yard with established plants and bushes, to designing your dream landscape complete with waterfalls and giant goldfish.  It’s as cheap or as expensive as your wallet can afford and heart desires.  That said, there are plenty of ways to garden on a budget.  For the blog readers from Russia, Ukraine, Canada, Germany, and India (I’m intrigued who you are!), these tips might not fully apply, but I’m sure there’s a substitute for your country.  Garden on!

1. Let’s start with the one money saving tip that transcends countries and borders—Facebook!  Like many companies these days, you can “like” a local gardening store, and therefore, have access to their insider coupons or preview sales. 
2. www.homedepot.com and www.lowes.com both have garden clubs. Once you sign up, you’ll receive free magazines, insider tips, and seasonal coupons. 
3. As for garden catalogs, it’s still a toss up as to saving money.  If you’re desiring something different for your garden that can not be found at the larger chain stores, than a catalog might be cheaper than the local nursery for the “fancier” varieties.  Watch for sales through the mail offers or their websites.
4. Buy and swap seeds!  A packet of seeds will cost $1-$2 to grow a yard of flowers or veggies compared to the cost of buying one potted plant later in the spring.  Unless you have a large field to cover, most seed packets contain many more seeds than you could use.  Therefore, either plant extras in pots to give to neighbors, or pass along the seed packets to someone who has not purchased theirs yet.  However, don’t forget to save seeds for autumn if you plan to plant cold-weather crops.  Those same seed packets can be used in the Fall again.

Gardening on a budget is possible.  Most of all, when you grow your own produce, that’s the greatest budget saver of all!