The real #cost of #gardening on a #budget

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Local nursery's (not chains like Walmart or Lowes) often throw out excess starter pots or slightly damaged pots. It doesn't hurt to ask if you can have them/buy them at a discount. We have a couple of tree starter pots that have very mild damage but weren't visually appealing to customers.

Two years ago we bought a 20lb bag of soil to add to our compost. Since we moved to a new state we had to restart our compost and having soil in an apartment is not a need for composting but it does give a good starter when you have no compost to work with. We saved our soil from year to year and even move to move. To transport we use plastic bin. It sounds silly but we probably have 70lbs of soil right now which gets very expensive very quickly if we rebuy it.

Saving kitchen items that have started sprouting is also a huge help. While saving seeds can be tough for beginners (and I'd consider myself a beginner in the grand scheme of gardening) plants that sprout on their own are a cost effective alternative to buying seeds or starter plants. If you know you don't plant from seeds well and have the extra income starter plants are definitely worth it.

Plant swaps are a huge way to diversity your garden too! We usually attend two to three plant swaps a year as we germinate so many seeds.

Now for the elephant in the room, should you invest in the extras like a greenhouse, compost tumbler, hydroponic systems, trough planters, etc? Yes and no. Personally I wouldn't invest in these sort of items unless you have been consistently and successfully gardening in whatever aspect that you would like to for a couple years or your apartment has rules about what can be housed on the balcony (specifically talking about compost here). I think that some of these things can be helpful depending on the climate that you live in, your apartments features like the amount of sunlight, space outdoors, access to water due to your location but I do not, personally, see the value in these items until you've found your gardening groove.

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Видео The real #cost of #gardening on a #budget канала Muse and Dionysus