| I do almost everything cheaply or free related to gardening. Hard to say the best idea, mainly it is taking stuff other people don't want and using it. Makes for a cluttered garage and basement, but it works for me. Have gotten several wheelbarrows free, all my many dozens of tomato cages, flower pots, trellises, etc. Helps to live in a nice suburb where people throw out really excellent stuff. Also helps to train your friends to save garden supplies, lumber, etc. for you. Freecycle is great, too. Did the same ultra-cheap just buy a faucet rain barrel thing, my brother had dragged several plastic 55 gallon drums home at various times. Cheap compost bins by putting a few screws into free pallets. Getting other people's bagged leaves, horse manure, and old produce by the truckload all free for the picking up. Free pots from friends who actually BUY plants. Getting vegie seedlings for half price or less by giving the nursery owners free produce. Using gallon sized plastic #2 bottles with bottoms cut off as cloches for plants in the spring. Taking advantage of that poor Gardens Alive! company by getting $20 free merchandise from them several times in the course of 18 years (no additional purchase needed.) I have 5 raised beds, except for screws, all the material for them (4 are wooden, 1 of concrete bricks) was free. All the material I put into them to make soil is free. If you try hard there isn't much you have to pay for with gardening. I also get seeds and plants free from freecycle and some relatives, and give seeds and plants to friends, and have participated in plant swaps. By the way, you mean "your" not "you're" which means 'you are'. (Sorry, can't help myself, former spelling bee winner, technical editor, and English teacher.) Marcia |
