We’ve all been there: vowing that this will be the year we stick to our budget at the garden centre. But $100 quickly turns into $200, and before you know it, you just have to get “one more thing.” Suddenly, despite your best efforts to keep your spending in check, you find yourself spending $500 on bedding plants and seeds in the blink of an eye.
So what’s a gardener to do?
Here are five things to do this fall to make a dent in your gardening budget next spring!
1. Save Seeds
The easiest way to save money in the garden is by saving seeds. Sure, you’ll have an initial investment, but after that, your cost is essentially zero. Tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, lettuce, squash, pumpkins, and cucumbers are all really easy vegetables to start with.
You can also save seeds from marigolds, sunflowers, nasturtiums, zinnias, calendula, and more for an easy and cheap flower garden next year. Or plant them amongst your vegetable garden for some wonderful companion planting benefits.
When you buy your initial seeds, ensure you get heirloom, open-pollinated varieties, not hybrids. If you plant a seed saved from a hybrid plant, you’ll get a plant that resembles one of the “parents” that went into making the hybrid, not the hybrid itself.
Not sure where to buy seeds? Here’s a list of Canadian companies and one specifically for flower growers.
Related: 5 Easy Annual Flowers for Beginner Seed Savers
2. Divide and Share Overgrown Perennials
More established gardeners are often happy to share perennial plants that have grown too large for their intended space. The parent plant usually ends up revived the next growing season, and you end up with some free plants for your yard. It’s a win-win!
Before you get too excited, you might want to read over this list of plants that can quickly turn into a nightmare in Zones 2 and 3, and this one for all the warmer zones. Is one of your favourite plants on one of these lists? You can still plant it! Just be aware that if you’re not willing or able to maintain it each year, you may end up with an overgrown mess.
3. Take Cuttings of Annual Plants and Grow Them Indoors Over Winter
For years, my mother has taken cuttings of her favourite coleus and German ivy plants and grown them over the winter. Then, in spring, she takes multiple cuttings from those indoor plants and has enough plants that she doesn’t need to buy them from the nursery. Although let’s be real… a new variety or two always makes its way into the cart.
How do you take a cutting? It’s pretty simple. Cut the plant so that it has a bit of a stem, put the stem in water until it grows roots (usually in around a week), transfer your newly rooted cuttings to a pot with dirt, put them in a spot with adequate sunlight, water every few days, and repeat the process in spring.
4. Get Serious About Composting
Don’t throw away those kitchen scraps and old leaves! They are the perfect ingredients for making a nutrient-rich compost for your soil.
If you’ve never composted before, know that composting can be a bit of a waiting game (unless you vermicompost or hot compost). Your home-compost will need to sit for a couple of months, and sometimes up to a year, to be fully ready for use in your garden. The time depends on a couple of factors, such as how frequently (if at all) you turn it and whether you live in an area with extremely cold winters or not.
If you live somewhere where the whole winter is below freezing, the composting process will stop for the winter and restart in the spring.
Check with your municipality if they have a compost program. Some cities offer free compost to their citizens!
5. Shop Fall Sales
Fall is a great time to take advantage of sales on seeds, greenhouses, raised beds, and other gardening essentials. They’re not always on sale at this time of year, but sometimes they are, and when they are, it’s a great opportunity to prepare for the next gardening season and save a few bucks!
If you liked this blog post, find me on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram for more cold-climate vegetable gardening tips, delicious recipes, and cut flower goodness! I also make weekly videos over on my YouTube channel. I hope to see you there!
NEED MORE HELP IN THE GARDEN?
Green thumbs aren’t just given out at birth. They’re a combination of learning about gardening and trial and error. If you wish you knew more about gardening and had more confidence in your abilities, you need The Growing Roots Gardening Guide. Everything you need to go from complete garden newb to confident gardener in one growing season. Get all the details of what’s inside here!
Alayna
Kristen Raney
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Kristen Raney