Tips For Vegetable Gardening On A Budget

If you'd like to start a vegetable garden but have a limited budget, don't feel discouraged. There are several things you can do to get your garden started without spending much money, and the great thing about growing your own vegetables is you can reduce the amount you spend on produce during the growing season. Here are a few tips for vegetable gardening on a budget:

Compost

It's easy to make your own compost for free with scraps from your kitchen and grass cuttings, but if you're new to gardening, you probably don't have your own compost pile established yet. Buying small bags of compost can get expensive, so do a bit of research into alternative sources before you go down this route. Farms, smallholdings and stables sometimes offer large bags for sale at reasonable prices, and some local council recycling centres have compost piles you can help yourself to. Alternatively, you may find a neighbour has a large compost pile that's too big for their gardening needs, and they may appreciate some old-fashioned bartering with you.

Pots

If you plan on growing in pots on a patio area or starting your seeds inside in pots, you will soon realise that even small pots can be pricey. You can often find used pots for sale in local classifieds, but you'll need to wash each pot well before planting in it as you have no way of knowing if the previous plants or soil were infected with common pathogens that could spread disease to your plants. Another option is to buy your pots wholesale. You don't need to buy a pallet of pots to get them at wholesale prices. However, when you're starting your garden from scratch you will find you need enough pots to be able to access the wholesale prices offered by some nurseries and garden centres. When buying your pots at wholesale prices, ask if you can mix and match the sizes of pots, which will ensure you have suitable pots for a range of plants and growing stages.   

Seeds

Growing vegetables from seed is much less expensive than purchasing young plants to plant out. However, buying several packets of seeds to grow a variety of vegetables can drive costs up. Packets tend to contain at least fifty seeds, with some varieties coming in much larger quantities. You likely don't have the space or desire to grow a hundred broccoli or kale plants, so save money by purchasing a few varieties of seeds and swapping your excess seeds for other gardeners' excess seeds. This will give you several varieties of seeds to plant for the cost of just a few packets. Local gardening groups, classifieds and green-fingered neighbours all provide opportunities for seed swapping.

These are just a few suggestions for starting a vegetable garden on a budget. Also consider buying supplies out of season and taking gardening advice from those around you with more experience, which can save you making some common and costly mistakes.

To learn more about gardening and landscaping products, contact landscape product suppliers in your area.