CREDIT CRUNCH GARDENING TIPS

The price of a packet of seeds is high but you get an awful lot of seeds fro your money. Because a packet often has more than you need , swap them with friends. One person can grow green beans, another can grow courgettes and another heirloom tomatoes. Make sure that if you garden is organic that others have good organic practices, then swap away. if you have no gardening friends then swap with Freecycle. If you have not a Freecycle near you start one.

A great group for recyled gardens is this yahoo group, they are extremely friendly and very helpful and you are bound to find some fantastic ideas here.

Plants are priced by size and buying seedlings when they are only a few weeks old has many advantages. They are cheaper because they are small and they can be transported easier. They do grow fast and certainly buying heirloom tomato seeds this way means that you pay not much more than the seed and get the number of plants you want. Alternatively buy a large plant and subdivide it amongst a couple of friends, it is a decorative plant and not food.

This book The Frugal Gardener: How to Have More Garden for Less Money will have you engrossed for hours. It is filled with practical tips on how to save money on plants and also how to economize on landscape gardening. The illustrations are fabulous and it is an inspiration on how to get more for your money.

Chapters include:

How to be a frugal gardener (intro)

1) Get the garden you want - The Frugal Way

2) Save Money on Plants

3) The Frugal Gardener's Tools

4) Save Money with Soil Amendments

5) Cutting Maintenance Costs

6) Designing on a Budget

7) Cost Conscious Garden Projects

Appendix includes:
Resources for Frugal Gardeners
Recommended Reading
USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map

The more you buy the cheaper it gets and these days it is so easy to get your bulbs and seeds delivered. Investigate the prices on line or ask your local gardening center for wholesale prices. If you have not got any friends that garden put a poster in your local library and make friends whilst saving the planet.

Carrots Love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening
This gardening classic was first published in 1975, and now a second generation of gardeners who prefer pest-resistant planning to chemicals will find a place for it on the shelves. Not only does it tell what to plant with what, but also how to use herbal sprays to control insects, what wild plants to encourage in the garden, how to grow fruit and nut trees, how to start small plots or window-box gardens, and much more. It's one of the most practical books around for any gardener of edibles, no matter how serious or casual.

Rodale's All-New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening: The Indispensable Resource for Every Gardener This book (an updated version of Rodale's Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening , 1959) is a basic reference, not only for organic gardeners but for all gardeners. As integrated pest management becomes more important, for instance, the methods and products that have been known to organic gardeners for decades are now being investigated and appreciated by the mainstream. Composting, xeriscaping, permaculture, environment--all these and 400 or so more have complete entries. A useful introduction explains how best to use the book and suggests core sections for initial reading. Entries are cross-referenced and include further reading lists, related organizations, and key words. Common and botanical names are listed, and while food plants are entered under their common names, ornamentals and herbs are entered under their botanical names. This is an important, complete, well-arranged, and attractive reference tool. Your patrons will expect to find it in your collections.

The aim in an organic garden is to minimise the need for additional watering, excessive use of fertilizers lowers your water table. Where watering is necessary, water should be applied in ways that make best use of it.Save water in rain butts. Don't like the idea of a water butt use interesting receptacles in the garden to hold water.

Toilet Paper Rolls

Cut the toilet paper tubes in half. You can then simply fold the bottoms in and fill with soil or simply stand the rolls up on a sturdy surface, and fill with soil and seeds.

When the plants are ready to go into the ground, simply lift them out of the roll or gently peel the roll off the plant. I don't like to leave the tube on the seedlings, although it can be done, because it is bio-degradeable, however the toilet rolls take too long to break down and they deprive the fledgling plants of much needed water whilst they are growing.

The rolls take a little while to break down, and if any part of the tub is left above the ground it can wick much-needed moisture away from the baby plants.

Personally, I prefer the newspaper pots. They are a little extra work in the beginning, but they are easiest to use when it comes time to add the seedlings to the garden.

Take a single full sheet of black and white newspaper not colour as they often have chemicals that leach into the soil. Fold the paper on its seam. Fold in half one more time. If your paper is larger in size you may have to fold it once more. Make a good crease on folds.

Take a glass or jam jar, and place it on its edge halfway onto the newspaper. Wrap the newspaper tightly around the glass and then shove all the edges down inside the glass.

Pull the newspaper off of the glass. Take the inside edges that you had previously folded into the glass and unfold them a bit to make the base of the pot. Press them down hard (you can use the base of your glass to seal it).

Transplant or plant)your seeding into the newspaper pot with some good potting soil and place it in a tray and put it into direct sunlight. When ready to move the plants into your garden simply remove the newspaper and place the plant in your garden.or leave the newspaper on, but bury it in the ground.

It's criminal how many gardeners let their garden clean-up go to waste. Even if you don't have the enthusiasm to do more than pile it all in a corner of the garden, you will eventually have compost. Ditto those leaves you push to the curb in the fall. Dried leaves make a wonderful compost in as little as a season. Half rotted leaves are called "leaf mulch" and there is nothing like a layer of leaf mulch on your garden to attract earth worms and all kinds of beneficial insects and organism. That's what nature does in the forest. And it's much cheaper than bark mulch.

The Sustainable Vegetable Garden: A Backyard Guide to Healthy Soil and Higher YieldsThis introduction to bio-intensive gardening shows that it is not only possible but easy to grow astonishing crops of healthful organic vegetable and fruits, while conserving resources and helping the soil.

Jeavons and Cox offer a less technical version of Jeavons's best-selling book on biointensive gardening, How To Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine, published over 25 years ago. Written for both the beginner and the experienced gardener, this new book shows how to cultivate 11 commonly grown vegetables, calorie crops (beans), or compost crops in 100-square-foot plots using organic, soil-enriching methods. The authors discuss biointensive gardening theory, preparing garden beds, composting, starting seeds, growing crops, and collecting seeds. They offer detailed instructions and equations showing how to calculate how many seeds to plant to get the necessary seedlings to fill the suggested garden plans and suggest ways to customize garden plots. While the equations are easy to follow, the calculations and numerous charts may intimidate the beginner, who may also need more information on gardening techniques. Recommended especially for experienced gardeners interested in biointensive gardening.

More than 25 years ago, Jeavons wrote the best-selling How to Grow More Vegetables, which sold more than 350,000 copies in seven languages. It was a how-to book on high-yield, biologically intensive food-raising techniques. His new book, coauthored by Carol Cox, is a somewhat simpler book written for gardeners trying biointensive gardening for the first time. The focus is on the soil; and a good way to ensure sustainable soil fertility, the authors say, is the biointensive method of growing food. To achieve this, they give instructions and suggestions on what to grow; preparing biointensive beds, compost, and plating; growing compost crops, such as vetch, fava beans, wheat, and rye; and growing "calorie crops" (wheat, oats, dry beans, and corn). The authors make suggestions on companion planting--i.e., which crops to put beside each other for the best results. George Cohen