Successful Garden on a Shoestring Budget

There are many ways to a successful garden without breaking the bank on items that can be made out of junk that most people have lying around or can be found easily. I will show you a few things I have done with my garden this year that increase its success without added expense (and with the added benefit of re-purposing items that would have otherwise been thrown out).

Step 1 Raised beds, the easy way

I had tons of firewood that was a bit past its prime and no longer suitable for burning in my fire place. I took this wood and outlined my garden bed. I then filled the outline with compost (this area had been double dug last year following the procedure described in John Jeavon's book). The wood border serves as a great way to attract beneficial insects and fungi to my garden plants. I eventually added edible pearl oyster mushroom plugs to some of the logs so that I'd have some mushrooms to go with my veggies.

Comments

[WILL62]

Did you use the "CUTWORM" collars this year?

[jdonmoyer]

Yes, I tried them this year and they worked like a charm. Thanks again for the tip. Of course as is always the case with gardening, I have new problems to deal with this year ;)

[WILL62]

Have you ever tried "collars"? just a circle of cardboard...make a strip of card board long enough to circle the stem of your plant about 3/4" away from the stem all the way around staple it together and bury the bottom 1/2" in the soil make the whole collar about 3" tall....I save paper towel tubes and cut em up, this will keep those $%^#@ cutworms from destroying your plants, I used to have cutworms cuttin my tomatos but with collars no problem anymore, and the price is "RIGHT" 

[jdonmoyer]

Thanks for the tip.  I'll be sure to try them around my corn plants this year.

[lemonie]

As a contest entry you should rotate the images that need to be displayed as "portrait" L