Anybody can spend money. A clever person knows how not to.
When I first started the farm, economizing was my only option I just plain didn't have any money. Over the years it has become a game and a challenge to see just how much I can scrounge.
OK let's begin with seed starting. I have zillions of plastic plant packs and their trays, plus individual pots big and small, square and round. I've found that if you just put out the word to a few friends and neighbors the supply is endless. My best score with plant six-packs and trays is from a monster-mart dumpster. I got hundreds of brand-new units, and as a bonus, they were filled with impatiens. At the time, we dumped out most of the plants and potting soil. If I were to do it again, I would put that in a garbage bag and compost it. The perkiest impatiens made beautiful beds in the shade, under trees and around the garden outhouse.
One year I had the town's elementary school save me their kid-sized milk cartons. I used them as individual seedling planters and others I cut the top and bottom off and used them as cutworm collars.
At the local recycling center, I snag yogurt, cottage cheese, and sour cream containers as seed starting containers. While you're rummaging through recycling - you might also want to take mason jars, mayonnaise and spaghetti sauce jars that accept canning jar lids - you will never need to buy canning jars!
Not-quite-free, but very cheap are last year's seeds. I wait until late in the winter and buy packages of Burpee seeds for 10 cents each when the new seeds come in. Free planting materials can be found all over the place. Ask your store for their wrinkled and sprouting potatoes, onions, garlic, and sunchokes (Jerusalem artichokes). The onions, if big, will go to seed the second year, so just use them for snipped greens. Garlic is good that way, too. You can also save your potato peels and plant them. Last year I had a bed of potato peels that out-performed a bed of special seed potatoes.
Free seed is everywhere you look. You can go to the park and dead-head the spent blooms on flowers - thus helping the plants to continue flowering and getting seed for you. This is especially easy with marigolds, snapdragons, and petunias. Just look.
Then there are stem cuttings, division, layering and grafting as ways to get plants. I won't go into the techniques here, but you can propagate fruit trees, berry bushes, rhubarb, hostas, mint, horseradish, roses, dahlias, peonies, bulbs, etc. Start looking around in parks and neighbors yards - and always ask permission! You will probably be given even more then you imagined. Gardeners are a generous lot.
Where I live, it's expensive to throw things away, so folks put their still-good discards by the road with a FREE sign. Some places have community dumpsters and are a great source of good junk. I have picked up free sinks, boards, fencing, bed frames, swing sets and coolers this way.
We built a vegetable washing station in the garden with 2 big sinks and tables with fencing tops so the veggies can drain after being washed. I use bed frames - especially head and footboards as trellises. Swing sets can have the swings taken off, then the frame covered with old fencing. It makes a terrific kid fort when planted with pole beans or tall peas. The coolers are used to keep produce cool as I pick.
An entire chicken coop was built here from scrounged boards, roofing tin, old windows and doors. Then it was painted with free paint from the local paint swap 'n drop. Folks bring in full or partial cans of paint they no longer have use for. Anyone can tale what they want. The leftovers are blended together by type and used as primer in public places and for low-income projects.
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And speaking of swap 'n drops - we have two other kinds in Vermont. Twice a year we have one for clothes, shoes, bedding and curtains. I save out all of the denims, velvets and corduroys in good condition for my crazy quilts. I snag all the sheets and bedspreads for protecting the garden from frost. I always find boots, sandals and sneakers perfect for working in the garden. You might also find some footwear with character that might make a good planter.
Our other swap n' drop is for furniture. Anything and everything is dropped off. Some of it can be used around the garden or on the porch.
I save newspapers and also pick up leftover papers each week from my local general store. I carefully save all the coupons. The newspaper is used to mulch between the raised beds. I also make paper pots with the newspaper, as these are the best for starting plants that don't like their roots touched - such as squashes and melons. The paper pots go right in the ground and quickly decompose.
Now my favorite part - soil enrichment. An organic garden is always hungry for organic material. In the fall I drive around the two closest cities and fill my pick-up with already bagged leaves. I figure I usually get at least 300 bags. These go on the beds as a fall mulch and are plowed in first thing come spring.
I look for ads in the paper and put a free ad on the radio for manure. Most places practically kiss me when I haul it away. I will take anything - cow, horse, goat, sheep, rabbit, chicken or more exotic manures. I also put out the word that I will pick up sawdust, grass clippings, moldy hay and broken bales. I also offer to clean out the leavings in hay barns before the new crop goes in.
Not too far from where I live is Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. There I get coffee hulls, burlap bags, and pallets. The coffee hulls are an excellent soil amendment. I use the bags as bags and as mulch. The pallets make compost bins and great platforms for stacking firewood.
Be careful what you ask for! I went to a couple of car repair garages and asked them for tires. I now have hundreds - all delivered free. I stack these 3 or 4 high and fill with manure and compost. They are fantastic raised beds for heat loving crops. I grow winter and summer squashes, melons, cucumbers, pumpkins, tomatoes, peppers and eggplants in them.
Our soil is very acid. I could spend a lot of money on lime, but instead I gather wood ashes. The local elementary school burns wood for their boiler, so I generally get enough right there for my 2 acres of raised beds. We also have the output from our own woodstoves.
Barre, VT is touted as the granite capital of the world. I live right nearby. Granite dust is another excellent fertilizer and soil amendment that I get tons of for free. You can check local cemetery monument sellers to see if you can get the dust from sculpting.
We save all our gallon milk jugs and use them in many ways; to mix up fish emulsion and organic pesticides (label well!!), as jugs for our home-made cider and as plant caps. Sometime I cut out the whole bottom from the jug and bend out the flaps so they can be covered by soil to anchor the jugs. In the very early spring, the caps stay on the jug - later I leave them off for ventilation. Many crops can get an extra-early start by covering them with milk jugs.
Wire coat hangers are another one of my favorite tools. Some of my raised beds are covered with black plastic, or the crops with polyester row covers. The easiest way to keep these materials fastened down is with earth staples. You can buy these for a ridiculous sum, or get coat hangers and cut them in half. Snip off the hook and then cut the bottom wire of the hanger in half. This gives you two pins to push into the earth.
For many years I piled up soil to make raised beds, then I decided I wanted wooden sides. I went to the local cedar mill and got permission to take all the loose slabs I wanted. These are pieces with a side of bark. Once I had the material on-hand, I found many other uses - like siding for sheds and thick slabs for benches.
One of the most versatile garden tools is a 5-gallon bucket - or several hundred! I get these at donut shops and restaurants. I use them to haul picked fruits and vegetables or water, manure, sawdust, granite dust and anything else that will fit. Most places are glad to have them removed from the premises. Also, ask sheet-rockers and carpenters for their extra buckets.
OK..... I'm back to dumpster diving. Use your imagination when scrounging through other people's garbage. Panty hose is excellent for tying tomatoes or hanging onions to dry. Food makes a good compost activator. There is no end to the jars and tins you can find for seed starting, planters, storage, or canning. I have found many useful and some whimsical uses for the discards. How about some designer scarecrows? My garden is now graced with several sculptures and a birdbath that somebody didn't want.
Look around where you live. Any sort of food waste or organic material can be composted. A tree service can supply you with the ground wood and bark for mulch. Go to the local greenhouse after most people have bought their starts and see if you can have what's left over. Keep your eyes open and you imagination engaged. Use your brains before opening your wallet. You will be pleasantly surprised.
Wendy S. Martin
PO Box 69
Calais, VT, 05648
