Frugal gardening

Composting provides nutrients which you can use in your garden.
What should you put into your compost? It should be a combination of green materials which provide nitrogen and brown materials which provide carbon.

Browns you can use include : straw, hay, leaves, shredded newspaper and cardboard, sawdust, branches and sticks.
Eggshells, coffee grounds, tea bags, grass clippings if you have not used chemicals on your grass, vegetable and fruit scraps, and weeds without seeds are considered to be greens.

Buying good quality tools for gardening is very essential as they will last for many years. Here are some basic tools you may want to consider :

short-handled trowel - for setting out or transplanting small plants

shovel - digging holes and transplanting plants

hoe - digging up weeds, loosening soil, and making planting furrows

garden fork - moving mulch, turning compost and also turning garden soil

Starting your plants from seed is much less expensive than buying the plants. Select seed for plants that grow well in your area. Have your soil tested to see if it is deficient in any of the nutrients necessary to grow healthy plants.

Read the seed packet to see how to plant the seed. Some plants do better with cooler weather and others must have hot weather. Many seeds must be planted outside after the average last frost date. The last frost date for an area is the last day you may have a killing frost in the Spring.
Check also to see what the packet says about how deep to plant your seed.

Prepare your soil and work in plenty of compost. Plant your seed, water carefully with a light sprinkle, and keep the ground moist until the plants have come up.

Take your cuttings on a cloudy cool day or in the morning. The cuttings, which are taken from softwood or hardwood, should be about 3 to 6 inches long and kept moist until planting. The best media for cuttings are sand, perlite, vermiculite and peat moss. An equal mix of perlite or sand and peat is good for most situations. You can use rooting hormone to help with rooting or you can root without the powder.
Some plants good for taking cuttings from are tomato, sage, rosemary, geraniums, and chrysanthemums.

The process is as follows :

*Take a sharp knife and get your cutting from the plant.

*Take off bottom leaves of cutting but leave 3-5 at the top.

*If you are going to use rooting hormone, dip bottom part of cutting in it.

*Put cuttings into pot of soil mixture.

*Cover pot with clear plastic bag.

*Check every day or so to see if they need to be watered.

*They have rooted when you see new leaves.

Work from home