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Free Rocks!!
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Posted by lesleyann (My Page) on Mon, May 26, 08 at 15:18
For those of us who are on a tight budget, I have found a solution to getting rocks for free. I have looked around at various locations for inexpensive rocks to build a bed and was FLOORED at the costs. $220 a pallet or more!! Sheesh!! Well, on our way home with a load of free compost from the stables for handicapped kids, we passed a site where they are getting to build yet more condos. There on the formerly beautiful hillside were earth movers tearing up the land, then it hit me! Go ask them if we could get rocks!! Now they aren't the perfectly rounded pretty river rocks or flagstones, but they are beautiful and unique local stone. It helps that I am in a "rocky" area. Ta DAH!!! Building materials for my new bed!
Well, once we got it installed, we thought it would be nice to have a stone area dividing the bed from the lawn, so off a hunting for bargains I went. After seeing the bags of stone at home depot for 3.38 a bag, I decided to pass on that idea. Luckily, I live near a quarry. Called them and asked if they sold to the public, lo and behold they did. OK, this wasn't free, but we got 1.13 tons of 1 inch river rock for $43.00 (including our 9.25% sales tax). Sells for $35 a ton. They filled the bed of the truck, and we drove right up to the bed we had just put in and started shoveling away. A bit labor intensive, yes, but hey... didn't have to pull bags and bags off pallets at the Big Box Store, Load them into the truck, load em off the truck and rip open all those bags (to later just go into the landfill). You never know, sometimes it just takes a little thinking outside the Box(store) and a few phone calls or asking the right people and voila!! Cheap or free solutions!!
Happy Frugal Gardening!! |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Free Rocks!!
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| Love this! And I live 2 miles from a quarry-I'll have to ask. What exactly did you ask for? Jen |
RE: Free Rocks!!
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| Most quarry's have a list of what they sell, you have to decide what size rock you want. They have separators that will put the diffrent rocks into their respective piles. Then you can pick the one you want. |
RE: Free Rocks!!
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| When I went to the quarry's office, they had a bins with samples of their smaller stuff right there in the office. |
RE: Free Rocks!!
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| I have them free for the taking if you would like to come visit me. Rocks, unfortunatly, are my best crop. I throw them into my paths, they work as a good heat source. A good thing since it has been so cold this year. |
RE: Free Rocks!!
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| Ha ha ha ha Spogarden.... where are you, I just might be up for a road trip! |
RE: Free Rocks!!
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Spokane Wash, the lovely inland northwest. I am close to the idaho border. I am walking distance to the river and I guess centurys ago this was all under water.
Where do you live? I love that people from all over can get to know each other |
RE: Free Rocks!!
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| Tennessee.... those would be the most expensive free rocks I ever got,considering we'd need the bronco to get them. Hmmm...78 bronco 1 fill-up= 90 bucks x a gazillion miles.... well, you do the math. ha ha ha. Have visited Seattle before, drove up to Vancouver. Beautiful country over there. I know that is the opposite side of the state, but still was pretty. I am close to Knoxville. |
RE: Free Rocks!!
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| Hello Spogarden. I am also from Spokane. Don't you just love this strange weather were having. Anyway, if you seriously have rocks you don't want, perhaps I could take some off your hands. I managed to get a 60' raised bed put in during the only good weather we had a week or so ago, but I need rocks. I recently moved to town from up north by Elk, boy I wish I still had the rocks I was always uncovering there. |
RE: Free Rocks!!
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| Whenever I need a rock, I look in the fields next to our property. Ask a local farmer if he has any rocks. The farmer might even have a rock pile. Growing up on a farm, my dad would make us pick up rocks out of the fields. Although I never asked to take the rocks out of our neighbors fields, I think the farmers won't mind a few less rocks in their fields, especially the ones that like to damage equipment. But it always is a good idea to ask before you go tresspassing through their fields :) |
RE: Free Rocks!!
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| We have an acquaintance who said we could use his yard tractor to do some clearing and leveling in our yard. My husband went to get it yesterday and also came home with a whole bunch of ROCKS! Round rocks. Big rocks. Lots of rocks. Yahoo!! And there's more if we want them. |
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