Money Saving Vegetable Gardening Tips

by Barbara
(Dunbar, Scotland)

You don't need to spend a fortune to grow great vegetables. I'm thrifty by nature and don't like to see waste so I re-use and recycle whenever possible.

Instead of spending money on cloches and coldframes I cut the bottom off clear plastic bottles and use them as mini cloches.

I also used to plant runner and other climbing bean seeds in situ but lost a lot of the new seedlings to various pests. Then I heard that they can be sown in root trainer modules - a sort of elongated pot which encourages good root development - and planted out when they are bigger. Great idea but these things are expensive so instead why not fill cardboard toilet roll tubes with compost and use those instead? The great thing about this is that you don't have to remove the seedlings from the tube before planting out because the cardboard biodegrades.

You also don't need to spend money on canes to support your peas just use some of the twiggy branches from trees like birch and push them into the ground where you've sown the peas.

And here's a last money saving vegetable gardening tip that I'm going to try this year. I always like to plant some salad mixes in my patio pots but I have a real problem with slugs and snails. I was going to buy some of that pricey copper tape but one of my friends suggested that instead I smear vaseline (petroleum jelly) around the rim of the pot as they don't like to cross it. I hope this one works!