3 Simple Ways to Save Money When Starting a Garden

Gardening is one of those hobbies where you can spend as much or as little money as you want! There are many ways to save when it comes to planning and planting your garden. At the end of the day, all that matters is that you get to do something that you (hopefully) enjoy!

Honestly, gardening is my #1 hobby, so I tend to spend a bit of extra money on it, but I certainly didn’t when I was first starting out! Gardening can be scaled to fit within your desired/available price range with a few simple steps. I highly recommend trying it if you haven’t!

Save Containers

Egg cartons make an excellent seed starting tray because they will break down in the dirt! The container for your blueberries or strawberries has drainage holes and will also work wonderfully as a seed starting tray! Basically anything that can hold a little dirt and get wet will work for starting your seeds! Larger containers work great for container gardening (think gallon buckets used for ice cream). The one thing I will caution is to make sure whatever was in the container before is not harmful. For example, don’t plant your pepper seeds in your empty bleach container or something like that. I would try to stick to containers that contained food items!

Start from Seed

Speaking of seeds, another great way to save money on the garden is to start your plants from seed. I have mentioned before that I love to go to the greenhouse, but they are a business and need to make money for their efforts! If you are on a tight budget or hoping to cut costs, it is much more cost effective to buy seeds and start them yourself.

Seed packets will usually state when to plant indoors or if they can be directly sown into the ground. You can learn more about this in this post about planning when to start your seeds. If they need to be started indoors, use that post to determine when to plant the seeds in one of your containers, give them a little water, and place them in a bright window. The first year that I started many plants from seed I had folding tables and trays in front of almost every window in our house… but the plants grew!

Save Seeds & Buy Heirloom Varieties

Save seeds from produce that you get from the store like tomatoes or watermelon (if it’s not seedless). Not every seed will grow well or look the same as the source because they may either be a hybrid seed (meaning they had “parents” that were two different varieties) or are genetically modified. From my experience, many of the seeds will grow! I currently have a 2 year old lemon “tree” that is maybe a foot and a half tall growing in my bedroom window. I’m not expecting lemons anytime soon, but I think it’s neat that it came from a random grocery store lemon! Also remember when it comes time to harvest, save some of your seeds from your own produce or flowers!

You can also save the bottom of celery, place it over water, and then plant it in dirt after some roots grow. The internet is full of things and ideas when it comes to this stuff! Potatoes that have sprouted can also be used as “seed potatoes” and quartered (making sure each has an eye/sprout) and planted to grow more potatoes!

If you choose to buy seeds, to save money consider an heirloom variety. These seeds are meant to be saved year after year and are unaltered. For example, if you plant an heirloom tomato, when you harvest and slice up your tomato, save the seeds, let them dry, and plant again the following year. The following year’s tomato should look very similar and be the same heirloom variety that you planted before. Sometimes you can even attend a seed exchange or borrow some from a friend to save money! But as long as you save the seeds, you should be able to plant these for many years to come without needing to buy additional seed!

What other ways can you save money when starting out in the gardening world? What tips and tricks do you have for the beginning gardener? Let me know in the comments! 🙂