Money savvy plots

[darcyvuqua]

How much does everyone spend on there plots hundreds -thousands? I have done the expensive thing bringing in two greenhouses and whatever else needed but how does everyone keep the costs to a bare minimum

[chris]

I buy what I need to if I need it asap... The only thing I've bought though is plants. Most expensive purchase was asparagus.

I had 10"x4"x5m joists given to me for free, so made a load of beds out of them, and terraced my garden with them. Next most expensive purchase was 10t of horse poo. But only as I wanted to cover the plot for winter & improve the soil, obviously you can do without manure

[Olorin2001]

Up-cycling keeps the costs down in general.
And online auctions for those must have items rather than pay GC prices.
Car Boots for stuff you didn't know you wanted.
And gardening is not really about the money, it's more a way of life, plants grow just as well no matter if your rich or poor, well the weeds do.

[SlugLobber]

I'd say over the last 2 yrs (which is when I moved house), I've spent less than £200, which includes seeds.

The greenhouse was recycled, as a local didn't want theirs. I had to pay about £120 for new glass. The base was from reclaimed wood at a civic amenity site. We found a contact who was willing to sort some out for us as it just gets burned there, otherwise!

We make our own compost. We have chickens, geese and a turkey, so a good mix of manure, plus all our kitchen waste. I normally buy 3 bags a year for seeding only (as that's how the offer goes!), but this year haven't bought any as I had last year's compost left over, which I supplemented with some rotten down manure and some BFB (under the compost itself, in tubs). We also have a woodburner, so ash goes onto the plot, too. I made my own compost even when I was in an end-terraced. The daleks are quite effective in a sunny spot!

Manure comes from my ponies. I have different piles, starting a new one periodically and the oldest is taken home in bags for the beds or bulking out compost for seeding into tubs. I also use it to earth up potatoes. This year I'm on a yard at livery, so I bag up used straw, mixed with manure and have used that to earth up the spuds!

Pots are never thrown. They're stored and washed before use for seeding. We built up so many from buying bedding plants, we've given a small trailer load to a local group who were desperate for some!

Some call me cheapskate. I prefer the title Queen of Frugality meself.

[SarzWix]

All my most expensive stuff on the plot has been birthday or Christmas presents from family (shed, polytunnel, strimmer etc). My greenhouse was free, just had to be collected and reassembled. Bed edgings have been made from pallet wood. Apart from that, compost is my biggest expense every year, closely followed by the seed potato order...

Pretty much everything else can be done on the cheap. Fruit - buy one or two plants, then propagate your own from those - currants, gooseberries etc will grow easily from cuttings. Raspberries throw up suckers every year, dig them up and replants them in the rows. Strawberries send out runners, root them and you have more plants. Blackberries, loganberries etc can be rooted by pegging the tip of a stem into the soil.

Save your own seeds. For eg. if you grow and save open-pollinated cucumbers instead of the F1 types, you'll be saving £1+ per seed. That's a big saving!

[Zenithtb]

Similar here.. Most expensive thing I've done was build my (huge, 3 x 2m) compost bins. I consider that an investment though, as it should last a while. Had to be done in concrete here as Spain has lots of termites... Cost £100

Paths are made from abandoned kerbs (you may have heard of lots of building projects here going t*ts-up - builders then abandon or fly-tip unused stuff)...

Bamboo sticks are from along the river - like weeds they are

Manure is under £10 for what you can fit in your car, so mix that in with weeds (neighbours bag them up for me and deliver them to my gate - good for them as it's closer than taking them to where the rubbish is collected at the end of the road), and some pine-chippings from the forest fire. Good compost.

Grow things for other people, and have them do the same. When a packet contains 700 lettuce seeds, I'm not going to use them all up before they go bad. So I also plant a load for someone else. In return they bring over their excess (around here, that's usually oranges as loads of people have trees, but we actually don't).

Stuff like that...

[marchogaeth]

I cost everything in and give a value to everything we get out based on broccoli units which is the default vegetable purchase when we don't have anything else. This avoids costing in clever things I grow at clever prices because we wouldn't be buying them anyway. Fruit units go in at £1. As long as I grow greens for the bearded dragons every week the tunnel is paid off over 10 years.Surplus veg is traded into the local health food shop and every so often that translates into a bag of organic compost. I broke even last year despite some fairly big items. My big expense for this year is veggie mesh but it saves so many plants and reduces the amount of slug pellets I need.

I really enjoy gardening but I think I'd enjoy it less if I was just throwing money at it but I'm the same with everything. I wouldn't get so much fun out of something I'd achieved if I felt I'd done it just by spending money.

[Florence Fennel]

Some call me cheapskate. I prefer the title Queen of Frugality meself.

You're no cheapskate chuck, you're thrifty. Admirable, dear, admirable

[veggiechicken]

I asked a similar question some months ago http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...ing_69033.html - some useful ideas for keeping costs down there.
Your fruit bush costs will be quite low as you're about to dig up lots of my raspberries and you can have cuttings of all the other fruit bushes for fruiting next year.
Also, save some seeds from your crops and swap them for others in the VSP. If you move away from F1 seeds and grow open-pollinated ones, you'll never have to buy another seed

[Snadger]

Sell a few eggs from my chooks which just about pays for everything.

[pottyboutveg]

Does £20 for a fully functioning plot count, £5 on nails for shed home built from pallets and £15 on seeds and compost

[sammy_roser]

I have decided that I don't like any of you who got free/cheap greenhouses

For my it's not been a cheap hobby so far, I've only just built a compost bin this year and a pile of horse manure rotting plus a couple of bags of leaves molding up. I spread the costs by buying things a bit at a time. Such as my garden path is coming along from some reused wood, buying 18 bricks and one bag of paving sand at a time.

[solway cropper]

Spending money? I'm a Yorkshireman....I even recycle my own pee as fertilizer.

I compost everything that's compostable, get horse muck from a friend in the village, seaweed from the shore and have two leaf mould cages. Skip diving and scrounging get me most things I need but I do buy fresh seeds and a good quality seed compost. Giving them the best start in life is the least a miserable old skinflint like me can do.

[Feral007]

I've been seen wandering the War Memorial area again with plastic bag in hand........Loads of oak trees and all the acorns go to waste! I'm chucking them out all over the farm in a very optimistic way along with burying all the apple and pear cores out of the house!

Son has banned me from bagging up the leaves at the War Memorial. Really the gardener who has the job would be pleased for me to do it surely? He's already been accepted on a quote for the job, and if I do it for him, it can only be described as win/win? NO, Mum, just no!