Organic Gardening, Does it Cost too much? ( Part 3)

How to garden organically without spending a lot of money
So You have decided to give organic gardening a try?
Where do you start?
Start small, if you want. No matter what size yard you have, you can always start small, whether you have just a balcony or 10 acres. You have start somewhere. container gardening works very well for organic gardening. You don’t need to buy any special containers, just use what you have. Tomatoes can be grown on the patio in  a topsy turvy planter.


When Green daddy and I were first married we lived in a t townhouse with a small patio. This patio had a little strip of dirt about four square feet.  Between containers and this little strip of land I grew enough tomatoes and basil to make my own spaghetti sauce.  Yum,  yum. nothing tastes better than fresh pasta sauce.

Where do you plant?
You can begin by planting in containers or as Frugal Granola did plant in your existing flower beds. If you choose the later then you are  following a time honored tradition of English gardens.  Some people prefer to make raised beds, but you do not have to have special beds for herbs or vegetables.  Green daddy’s grandma puts her tomatoes in with her zinnias and marigolds. They  have a fancy name for this now, Edible Landscaping.
If you want to start small try containers.  They are a great way to start you can move them, keep them close to the kitchen or back door, wherever you want them.
Every day items make great containers for planting in.  I might have to try some of these.


What to Plant?

So you ask, I am ready to plant what should I plant?  In no particular order  here are some of the easiest to  grow, yes even from seed. 

garlic 

beets

beans all types

lettuces and spinaches 

tomatoes

radishes 

swiss chard 

onions 

tomatillos

I planted my onions, red and yellow, kale, spinach and some lettuces this past weekend in our new garden bed.  We also planted some chives and cilantro.  After a long absence from fruits in the garden, my 6 year old convinced me to try raspberries and blackberries.  We will be adding tomatoes basil. probably sage and rosemary too. I am hoping to have a beautiful vegetable garden that fits into our front yard. I know I have 5 acres but I have decided that I like my garden close to my kitchen.
More to come be sure to check out the next posting in this blog.  How much do I spend a year gardening?




  


  

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Organic Gardening, does it cost too much? (part 2)

How to garden organically without spending a lot of cash

Recycling your yard and kitchen waste

my son adding to the compost bucket

Okay, so you have collected your kitchen and yard waste and have built a good compost pile. NOW what do you do with it?  Some people will buy a composting bin.  I use an old trash can with holes in it, for drainage that gets dragged around the yard till full.
( I have had to train the garbage men not to take my yard waste. )
In the past I had my dear husband build me a compost bin. We wisely used old pallets to build it so that the air could circulate around and it.

open pallet compost bins easy to make 

As time went on I found that turning a pile this size was not always easy, and in the fall I would outgrow the bin. For  ideas on various methods of composting look here.

I soon changed to the compost pile method and I hid the pile out of view of visitors This worked for a while until I wanted to landscape a new area. So I turned that hillside into a compost pile. After about a year I moved the compost off that section onto a new section of the hillside and started filling in the newly uncovered richly amended soil. I had discovered composting in place. Each year I would move the compost pile to the next area to be landscaped.

open compost pile in an expansion area of garden

Composting in place was an efficient way for me to utilize the compost pile and amend the soil at the same time. . This is also called lasagna gardening.  Patricia Lanza has written a great book on this gardening method.   Lasagna Gardening is not designing a garden for the purpose of making lasagna. It is is in a nutshell the layering of your organic matter in a particular way to build raised beds.  No you don’t need to buy fancy railroad ties to build your beds because you are not filling them in. Your will be building from the ground up.  If you are thinking about starting Lasagna Gardening is a great, easy, cheap way to get started.  If you already garden it is a great adjunct. No real materials are needed, just yard waste and kitchen scraps and you have those already. The best part of lasagna gardening is that you don’t have to wait for the beds to decompose. You can go ahead and plant right in the compost piles. I always have volunteers pop up in my compost piles.


I am participating in The Family  Blog Hop over at Family Friendly Frugality
Family Friendly Frugality

Organic Gardening, Does it cost too much?

How to garden organically without spending a lot of cash.

This is the first in a series of posts on Frugal Organic Gardening


I have just spent most of our Spring Break working on our garden beds. Cleaning out perennial beds turning one garden from an ornamental garden into a “pretty”, we hope vegetable and herb garden.  Need I say that I believe in organic gardening? Earlier I was discussing with some acquaintances that I was putting in an organic garden.  Responses varied from I couldn’t do that the dogs would dig it up. to doesn’t that cost a lot to do?
It occurs to me that my view of organic gardening is different from some others out there. For me organic gardening is not that expensive in terms of resources. I suppose if you purchase  your basic supplies, but in my mind that is not in the spirit of being green. Remember Reduce, Reuse Recycle ? For me organic gardening starts in the kitchen. What you ask? I compost, so therefore for me I garden while I am cooking, while I am cleaning out the fridge.  Huh?  Well, let me explain as I was telling my kids compost is an organic gardener’s best friend, well at least mine. For me in starts here. 

kitchen composting crock

I have one of these sitting on the kitchen counter. It is called a kitchen composting crock.  I simply save my kitchen scraps each day, minus any meat and bones.  When the crock is full it the next step is to take it here.
My compost pile. This is where I put the kitchen scraps. ashes from the fireplace, coffee grounds, tea bags, paper, cardboard boxes (broken down), dust from the vacuum cleaner, debris from the garden, yes even the lint from the dryer.  All this costs me next to nothing.  I did purchase the crock but until this year I used a bowl or a plastic pitcher. I figure this not only is being a good steward by recycling my waste but it saves me money int hat I don't have to buy any organic material to amend my soil.