Gardening doesn’t have to be expensive. In fact, it can save money and increase your standard of living without increasing your cost of living. The broke poor budget is what many people live on and you can still have a beautiful garden with just that budget.
Used organic mushroom compost that I bought for just $2.60 / 40lb bag. Great results! I also rooted branches off my indeterminate tomatoes and got a second round of plants! Thanks for all the tips
@9:53. Try and make sure you get vegetables that are U.S. grown. Not 100% sure on tomatoes, but another of MIGardener's videos mentions that fruits with seeds grown outside the U.S. are irradiated to ensure no foreign plant diseases are brought in.
You can get free wood off Craiglist. You can also make raised beds by simply mounding the soil.
awesome video! but I got a question: why do you prefer to make raised beds as opposed to just planting stuff into the soil as is?
Another option for soil is to check your local recycling center. Mine chips up all of the plant material that's dropped off and collected by the township (weeds, grass, brush, even trees) and has hot piles of compost going year round. Sometimes wood chips are available too, but mostly it's just compost now. Compare this to the composted horse manure I bought from a local farm that had herbicide in it which ruined my garden for 3-4 years and I'll take the free option every time.
This video really helped me, thank you for sharing.
I feel like $50 is a lot for a raised bed.
You could get free pallets for wood (or use pots) and you could buy cheap potting mix at the end of the summer. Get most of seeds from fruit and vegetables as well as make most fertilizer/compost from food scraps or manure
It might be different elsewhere, but here in Canada if you're harvesting seeds from grocery store food you should check the country of origin. Vegetables grown domestically have a lower chance of being subjected to irradiation, whereas imported fruits and vegetables will often have been irradiated and had their roots removed to prevent the spread of various things; including the vegetable itself by decreasing the viability of its seeds. I did somehow get a Cherimoya tree to sprout from seeds that I harvested from imported fruit; but I think at that point I had attempted to germinate over two hundred at that point before finding one viable one.
Luke, this is awesome info for the gentleman that asked, very detailed. I saved a handful of pigeon peas I bought just to see if they would grow and they did. Same for seeds from cantaloupes, honey dew and other fruit/veggies that have tons of seeds that would normally be thrown out.
Menards was having a sale on soil a few weeks ago for a huge bag it was only $6 so I got 2 of those and we have a sale barn where people sell items animals what not and got 40 different variety of tomatoes and peppers for only $5 and got my basil and strawberry plant for .72$ at menards as well.
Well done!
You can use cloth weed barrier to make raised beds, I made on this year and it worked great https://youtu.be/BqGHxgL52j8
I had taken the seeds out of my cantaloupe last year and planted them in my 1st garden this spring. It took a bit for them to germinate so I thought they were bad. Now that it’s July the cantaloupe has taken an entire end of my garden and fruit all over them. Love the fact that 1 fruit is giving me so much more.
American seed company has seeds for 20-50 cents per packet, they can be found at dollar tree and other places. I've seen mixed reviews but I've grown beans, turnips, squash and carrots from them and they where good
Check freecycle Craigslist Facebook market place. Free things.
For the wood look for pallets on Craigslist.
Another tip… last year I bought onion sets at Walmart and was surprised to see that they were WIC approved! Which makes perfect sense. For what you'd pay for one onion you can grow 100! "Give someone a fish and they eat for a day. Teach them to fish (or garden) and they'll eat for life."
Thank you Luke. You seem like such a genuine person. Your advice and tips are always welcomed and greatly appreciated.
Another source for free soil: some municipalities that pickup yard waste compost it and give it out for free. My town freely puts massive compost and mulch piles out in front of their building each spring so anyone can get some whenever they want until it's gone. You just have to watch for weeds since it's not controlled soil. But we filled several raised beds and the veggies excelled with it☺