Very kindly Sewingcreations is taking us on a garden tour and giving us her tips on how to garden inexpensively. I could have almost included this post in The World Within Our Walls as really our garden and surroundings are such an important part of the world we create and live in. A garden and a beautiful setting are so wonderful. Over to Sewingcreations...
We have around 188 square metres of herb, berry and vegetable gardens here which supplies us with most of our vegetables all year round which we blanch and freeze and use fresh as well.
A little story about the gardens is that none of the back gardens were here in our rental property when we arrived and we put them all in ourselves as we had the money to do so. We funded everything piece by piece by doing cleaning and gardening jobs. The back garden beds were set up for about $400 with the drip irrigation systems and we also funded buying 2 x 1100 lt water tanks by doing paid gardening jobs for others too. I might add ask permission if you are in a rental whether it is okay to put in garden beds but most real estates are only too happy to see lovely gardens set up in rental properties.
Our on going vegetable garden costs are mostly covered by selling saved garden seeds and dried herbs we produce in our gardens on the internet as well as a bit of paid gardening work that DH does.
The ways we save money in the gardens are -
- To buy our cow manure from a local livestock transport company for $25 for 3 cubic metres and likewise buy our horse manure from a local horse stud for $20 for 3 cubic metres that they both load into our trailer by front end loader. This saves an absolute fortune over buying bags of manure in our local garden centre for the same quantity.
- For our mulch we mix half dried grass clippings, leaves and half Lucerne hay we also buy for around 1/3 saving from a local horse stud to mulch our gardens with. We run over this in piles with our ride on lawn mower with a catcher and then back it up to the garden beds to use. This saves so much money not buying hay as often as the price of hay is getting expensive here.
- We save around 50% or more of our own seeds that we plant year in year out which saves a huge amount on buying seeds from the local garden centre. For instance as we have bred heirloom tomatoes over the last 4 years that are now frost resistant we squeeze the seeds into the ground and have fresh tomatoes all year round.
- From our fellow gardening friends we get plant cuttings and bulbs which we use in our gardens and we trade amongst one another which saves a huge amount on buying plants and herbs.
- When planting seeds in the gardens we plant directly into the garden beds in bulk around a few drippers and then transplant them when they get bigger. This saves on rain water usage for supplement watering rather than planting in every drip irrigation hole.
- The household lawns and flower beds get watered with saved grey water from our showers and washing machine as we use biodegradable products for both. We also use our white grey water for watering vegetable seeds in on occasion if there is severe water restrictions and we alternate with fresh town water watering too.
All I can think of currently but I hope this gives people lots of ideas to save money in their gardens and know that even if you are renting you can supply food for your families all year round just as we do.
Sewingcreations15.
Thank you so much I love it all! My ambition! I love the row of pumpkins. I want the biggest pumpkin patch that is my dream! Whether we have smaller or larger gardens it is a matter of making the most of the space. Sewingcreations what you have done on a rental property is amazing!
I hope you all have a good week!
Do you have any money saving tips that help set up, maintain or plant a garden?
xxx
Thank you so much I love it all! My ambition! I love the row of pumpkins. I want the biggest pumpkin patch that is my dream! Whether we have smaller or larger gardens it is a matter of making the most of the space. Sewingcreations what you have done on a rental property is amazing!
I hope you all have a good week!
Do you have any money saving tips that help set up, maintain or plant a garden?
xxx
Wow Sewingcreations15 love your gardens, it is a credit to you and your DH
ReplyDeleteLove Lorraine x
Thank you Lorraine for your wonderful encouragement :).
DeleteI know you too have wonderful gardens and are very self sufficient as well.
Sewingcreations15.
Well done on your productive garden Sewingcreations and thanks for sharing your tips. My husband and I are not gardening savvy, our parents weren't big gardeners either. We are lucky to keep our normal garden alive, so I'm nervous to invest much on starting a vege garden. So I was just wondering if you could share how you started or first learnt about vegetable gardening? Many thanks, Kelly
ReplyDeleteHi Kelly and you and your husband would not be the first gardeners to start with no knowledge of gardening you will be pleased to know that most gardeners start this way. I will add here that we saved $3400 in the first year by growing most of our vegetables ourselves rather than buying them. Our vegetable prices here in our small country town are horrendously high priced !.
DeleteI recommend doing lots of reading and ask questions from those around you as most gardeners you will find are very generous with their gardening tips and hints. Here is a couple of websites I use https://www.gardenate.com/ . This is a wonderful website where you can put in your country and climate zone and it tells you when to plant what in your area and how to care for your vegetable plants, it covers the world. The second is this one that I use to blanch and freeze our excess vegetables for storage to use throughout the year just scroll 3/4's of the way down the page for freezing instructions and this also has canning or bottling ideas too - http://www.pickyourown.org/allaboutcanning.htm.
The number 1 tip I will give you is to start small until you learn more. Dig up a small section and make your first garden bed. This can be done with a shovel breaking up the soil as you go and you do not need to spend a large amount of money to start off with and a couple of packets of seeds will get you started, along with manure. Just remember all plants rely on water, about 6 - 8 hours of sunlight and fertiliser, we dig in cow and horse manure after each crop has finished and once a month give all our vegetables a tonic of a seaweed concentrate, side dress our silver beet and corn with pelletised urea (a nitrogen supplement). You can even hand water to start off with rather than invest in a drip irrigation system. We did this until we could afford to get a watering system.
Most 1st time gardeners make the mistake of doing huge garden beds and then get discouraged and it will take you around 2 years to get your garden soil right so you get large harvests (although we got good harvests in the 1st year). Know too that every farmer in every country in the world has crop failures so never be discouraged and keep trying and learning.
Never be afraid to learn a new skill and just remember that starting is the key and it will save you a lot of money on your family budget over the course of a year. Even if you grow only a little it all helps.
Sewingcreations15.
Hi Sewingcreations, Thank you so much for your encouraging and detailed reply, it is wonderful! And that's amazing you saved $3400 in your first year! I think you hit the nail on the head, I have been daunted by and a bit afraid of trying to acquire this skill, it just seemed out of reach for my husband and I's black thumbs!! But you have given me hope & some great starting points. Thanks so much, Kelly
DeleteThankyou Sewingcreations. Absolutely inspiring. We've never had great success with vegetables, but we do well with herbs and fruit trees. I think it's a matter of finding what works for you, and the space you have. You've done brilliantly! Mimi xxx
ReplyDeleteThank you Mimi for your encouragement.
DeleteYou mention a valid point that some areas grow different things better than others and yes it is really a learning curve to find out what grows best in your area.
Sewingcreations15.
How wonderful to he able to produce all your produce for yourselves. You bred the frost resistant tomatoes yourself?
ReplyDeleteWe grow very little because we have an almost totally shaded property but I am hoping that one day when we downsize we will have a sunny area to put in some raised beds. My Mom had a large garden when I was growing up so I have the knowledge but not the place.
Hi Lana and I am so glad you asked about the frost resistant tomatoes of which I will go into.
DeleteAs you would know most vegetables are not frost resistant naturally. We purchased an heirloom variety of tomatoes called "tiny Tim" and planted them in the gardens. Over the last 4 years we have saved the seeds from the tomato plants that survived the frost and planted them each and every year by squeezing the seeds into the soil. By doing this we saved the seeds from the hardiest plants and they became acclimatized to our colder winter conditions here. Most seeds and plants if you save seed from them will do likewise.
I hope that when you downsize you can start your own gardens as it saves so much in the budget rather than buying the.
Sewingcreations15.
Thank for the reply. Your AL. Are really smart gardeners! My family is friends with the horticulturist who developed the seedless watermelon over about a decade. He brought us watermelons from the farm every summer and it was interesting to watch the seeds dissappear over many years.
DeleteHi Annabel and Sewingcreations, we currently grow some veggies on a much smaller scale but a big productive garden plot is the dream. Thanks so much for this post and gardening inspiration. Love Lisa xo
ReplyDeleteHi Annabel and Sewingcreations, we currently grow some veggies on a much smaller scale but a big productive garden plot is the dream. Thanks so much for this post and gardening inspiration. Love Lisa xo
ReplyDeleteLisa I am so glad you grow your own gardens even if it is on a smaller scale. There is nothing like picking and eating fresh vegetables from the gardens and you do become spoilt as the taste is so much nicer than shop purchased vegetables that usually sit for days during transit before any of us can buy them.
DeleteSewingcreations15.
Wow Sewingcreations15 you really do have a wonderful and abundant garden. I love that you have access to cattle and horse manure for such a wonderful price.
ReplyDeleteI dont have that resource but can get sugar can hay from a local farm quite cheaply. I too run over the hay with the lawn mower and catcher.
For fertiliser I make a tea from comfrey leaves. I soak comfrey leaves in a black garbage bin and allow it all to ferment away. After a couple of weeks I put a jugful of the tea into my watering can, fill this and pour over the garden. I will also put it watered down into my spray pack for fertigation.
Thank you for sharing your wonderful tip and the lovely photos of your patch.
Gardens help make life good.
Jane you are most welcome for the tips and tour of the gardens :).
DeleteWe are truly blessed to have access to manures where we live so cheaply. Also an alternative source rather than buying it from garden centres is to source it from friends who may have horses or cattle near you. Most often they are happy for you to shovel it into your trailer or bags and take it away free.
I have read about comfrey tea and know of a lot of gardeners who use that too for fertilising, what a wonderful tip. You are right that our gardens make life good.
Sewingcreations15.
Beautiful gardens, sewingcreations!! We are on a much smaller scale, land size, but are determined in our very urban “homestead” to squeeze every available spot into edible landscape, veggie gardens or other food producing spaces!
ReplyDeleteWe are blessed with wonderful rainfall here and so we haven’t put in any drip irrigation for our plants. We do have (and use) a 4 barrel rainwater system that we use to water everything when we have a dry spell.
I love that it’s possible for almost everyone to grow some of their own food/herbs if they get creative! And, it doesn’t have to cost much or sometimes anything if you’re willing to put in the time and labor!!
Nothing like the taste of your own homegrown edibles!!
Great gardens!! Thanks for sharing and inspiring the r3st of us!!
Thank you Gardenpat I am glad you liked the garden tour and tips.
DeleteYou mention a good point on the amount of space each and everyone has to have gardens too. Growing climbing vegetables such as peas and beans up trellises and also container or pot plant gardening is also a way of maximising what you can supply for your families food.
A good point that gardening can sometimes cost almost nothing as if you have gardening friends they may supply you with excess vegetable seedlings they may have propagated or give you cuttings from plants they have, or you could ask neighbours if they mind if you take cuttings too which you can use for your own gardens.
Sewingcreations15.
Marvellous! Very interesting about water saving tips. I also try to save all I can but still the water bill is high. :( I should try your advice, for sure.
ReplyDeleteI also a support a comment above about the tea leaves. They are rich in minerals and help to grow vegetables like turnip or carrots.
Greetings from sunny Hungary,
Szvetlana
Dear Szvetlana, It is lovely to have a vision from Hungary! I agree about the tea leaves too! Also coffee grinds. Water bills are high here also. As I wait for hot water in the kitchen tap I fill a jug and this waters many plants over the week. thank you so much for commenting! Love Annabel.xxx
DeleteSewing creations: Your garden and produce abundance look awesome! I really love the fact that you're careful about saving seed; for future use and to sell!
ReplyDeleteLove from Amish Heart
Thank you Amish Heart you are a poster girl for self sufficiency and providing for your family as well.
DeleteSewingcreations15.
Hi Smily and lovely to see you comment and glad you enjoyed the post.
ReplyDeleteWater bills are high everywhere unfortunately so saving your water use where possible really helps the budget.
I thought I would go into other ways we save and reuse water in our gardens.
- We put a bucket in the shower to catch clean shower warm up water and use that water to supplement fruit tree pot plants we have on the veranda as well as newly planted seeds in the gardens.
- Our dish rinsing water for plates also gets saved and used in the gardens.
- If it is allowed where you live try and get and get some collapsible rain water tanks that you can connect to your gutter downpipes to collect water for use around your home. You can get hydroponic collapsible rain water tanks quite cheaply or you can see if you can source secondhand rain water tanks.
I hope these additional tips help you to save on water bills.
Sewingcreations15
Thank you Annabel for the time and effort you put into your wonderful blog and setting up this post for myself and others :) .
ReplyDeleteSewingcreations15.
Dear Sewingcreations, Thank you for everything and this wonderful post. Also for doing so many replies and the water savings tips. These are very good and this will be an issue for us. I have lined myself up some free bales of hay as a start so far! With love Annabel.xxx
DeleteAnnabel you are most welcome :).
DeleteThe savings on getting free hay are huge here the going price for a round of hay is $65 and for a jumbo bale which has 1/3 more hay we get from our horse stud we buy for $55 but elsewhere running out at $300ea.
I am not sure if most states in Australia now have ongoing water restriction,s but here we do, at the moment we are on 240lts per person per day but in severe restriction times that can go as low as 140lts per person per day. Also if you are running totally by tank water and dam water it can be a bigger issue for our country people.
Sewingcreations15.
Amazing. That is really great that your landlord lets you do gardens. Home grown is so much better then store bought. I did a post about my garden if anyone would like to take a look. https://mcoia.blogspot.com/2018/05/how-i-keep-my-garden-costs-down.html
ReplyDeleteHi MCOIA we are truly blessed we do have good landlords and managing real estate that allows us to have gardens here :). We are also blessed that being in the country we also get 100 000lts of water included in the small rent we pay which helps immensely with having the gardens.
DeleteYou do really well with keeping your gardening costs down too with using a lot of recyclable and free materials to build your garden fences.
Sewingcreations15.
GardenPat, you are to be commended for such fine work! That is fantastic that you produce such a fine garden for your family. Even on a small scale, the size/amount that would work for any size family is a tremendous savings for food. Homegrown is healthier and convenient, no driving to the store to purchase. Just from knowing how much work goes into a 'smallish' garden, I know you are busy and productive all growing season long. Great job!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for all your advice and tips. I've recently moved to a property where the garden has been let go and I'm in the process of setting up a large vegie garden. So your post could not have come at a better time. ��
ReplyDeleteMost welcome Sheree for the advice and tips and everyone else for putting in their tips and hints too :). We hope it gives you lots of ideas to work with.
DeleteSewingcreations15.
Sewingcreations,
ReplyDeleteI am thrilled to see your gardens! It is such a beautiful sight! I wish our climate was conducive to year round growing, but sadly we get cold and snow. Your set up is fantastic though! We also use horse manure and chicken poo. Most horse owners here are happy to get rid of it if you come and get it. Also may I recommend some shredded newspaper mixed into your mulch? It would help a little with the cost of hay and newspaper breaks down into nitrogen as well. Your produce looks fantastic! I love it! I know you have helped other families with veggies from your garden which is such a wonderful thing. Some don't realize that even a small garden or some plants grown in pots or buckets can net big savings, you do it well! Thank you so much for sharing! We are still waiting to plant yet, but ah a girl can still plan and organize seeds! Thanks again!
XOXO
Vicky
Hi Vicky and you are right about how much a garden saves in the budget by even growing a little :).
ReplyDeleteI hadn't thought of putting newspaper in the mulch to add nitrogen to the soil, so we will now start doing that too as it all helps to reduce the costs on hay.
Thank you for the tip and this is wonderful that all these tips combined from everyone can help so much. We get so many free newspapers delivered here and we have more than enough to use for fire starters in the winter months. Glad you like the gardens :).
Sewingcreations15.
Love the idea of squishing seed directly in the soil. I’m going to try that. We live in a small rural town outside of San Diego. Our town has a FB page where you can trade extra produce. We also have a community garden where you can rent a plot for $40 a year, that includes water. So apartment dwellers can garden too. The local farms are happy to give away manure for free. I have had weeds grow from it. So I like to get it ahead of time cover it with black plastic to kill the weed seeds. There is a Mushroom Farm in the next town that gives away there growing medium. It is the most beautiful black rich mulch. I put it around my plants and trees to keep moisture in. Most place don’t advertise, but if you ask are happy to share. Our local library has a garden club. They have free classes from the university and give away free seeds and plants. There is so much out there just look. Happy Gardening.
ReplyDeleteLynn I am glad you got some gardening tips you can work with.
ReplyDeleteYou too are blessed to have access to cheap manures, mushroom compost and other needed items for the gardens at cheap or with no money outlay. Community gardens are a blessing to those who live in apartments too.
Sewingcreations15.
What a wonderful post, thank you Annabel and Sewingcreations15 for putting it together for us. I appreciate all of the tips and am going to follow your idea for mulch; we used lawn clippings/garden trimmings this spring as an experiment in the "problem" corner, and it seemed to help. I am sure your method will be even better!
ReplyDeleteHope you have a great day,
Kathy