Cheapskate Garden Tip 10

Cat + Fly + Screen
Originally uploaded by zebble

Hi All,
Warning to cats: don't try this at home!
In case your cats rip a window screen, or the screen ages to the point where you must replace it, consider cutting the screen to sizes to fit in the bottom of your garden pots.
Set in the piece of screen before filling with potting soil.
This is an ideal way to let water drain out while preventing soil from falling out the bottom of the pots.

This tip is very green since it prevents torn screens from ending up at the city or county landfill, and costs us cheapskate gardeners zero zip nada.

Cheapskate Garden Tip 8

large_seeds
Originally uploaded by sillydog

Seed swapping is fun and inexpensive. Daves Garden at http://www.davesgarden.com has a huge Plant and Seed Trading area.
7,000 gardeners are listing 34,000 plants and seeds that they offer, and that they want.
On the main web page click on "252 Forums", and on the left of the forums page click on "Plant and Seed Trading."
This is free and you don't even have to sign in to read the posts here. Since the gardeners often list what town and garden zone they live in you can keep postage costs down by finding gardeners near you, or maybe even a gardener in your town that you can hop on your bicycle to swap with.

Cheapskate Garden Tip 6

Make Friends With An Obese Cow
My friend Cathy //www.cathymessecar.com is in the alfalfa hay business, and she suggests that gardeners make friends with an obese cow. Cows produce lots of fertilizer. Just be sure to season the manure since fresh manure will burn your plants.

Being in the alfalfa hay business she told me they have customers ask to come and sweep out their barn, and then use the hay scraps in their garden for mulch, soil lightening and fertilizer value.

You can also offer to sweep up at a feed store that handles alfalfa and use those scraps on your garden. This is win win for you and the store or rancher since you do the sweeping, they have less hay scraps to dispose of, and your garden gets the benefit of free hay.

Cheapskate Garden Tip 5

The March of the Old Forks.
My dear friend, AKA Dr. Watson, gave me this great idea that she has seen in a garden.
When I plant long rows of vegetable seeds I sometimes forget what I planted in which row, as I wait for sprouts to appear. And even when the dainty green sprouts appear, it sometimes is not clear which veggie is arising. I need a tomato or zucchini to show up, then I know for sure.
I don't have any garden row seed packet holders, and now Dr. Watson has shared a fun idea with me.
Dr. Watson suggests to take old kitchen forks and stick the handle in the ground at the end of a row of seeds, and put the empty seed packet between its tines.
Eventually forks become worn out, and we earth lovers and penny pinchers don't want to throw anything away. Now the forks have a chance at a new life.
This is a useful tip that costs little or no money, and is upbeat when seen in your garden.
If you don't have any old, tatty forks at your house, garage sales and flea markets often have rafts of them for sale at ridiculously low prices. I might even say at dirt cheap prices.
Anyhow, the idea of little regiments of old forks, gaily holding up seed packets while marching across my garden, is a pretty thing to contemplate.

Cheapskate Garden Tip 2

Orange Lily
Erica_Marshall

Passalong plants are a friendly garden tradition of sharing plants, a tradition much favored by cheapskate gardeners and by gardeners nostalgic for old fashioned and sometimes hard to find varieties.
Day lilies are great passalong plants, that gardeners share by giving away divisions they dig up.

Save seeds, dig divisions and volunteer plants, and root cuttings from your plants, and give them to fellow gardeners, and ask them for passalong plants in return. My grandma sent me my first passalong, her Rose of Sharon seeds, from Indiana, all the way to California.
Dig up Iris, Canna and Day lily divisions to give away, save Zinnia, Coreopsis, Marigold, Purple cone flower and Salvia seeds, dig up volunteer Johnny Jump-ups and Four O’Clocks and trade with friends and neighbors.