Vegetable Gardening: Tips and Tricks to Save Money

Don’t trash yesterday’s newspaper, it will make great garden mulch, saving you money and work. Lay down a layer of newspaper in the garden,, then top with organic matter like grass clippings to keep the newspaper from blowing away. Your vegetable garden will need less watering and will produce less weeds for you to have to pull up.

Old newspaper strips can be wrapped around the stems of vegetable plant seedlings to prevent cutworm damage.

Remove both ends from any sized tin cans and bury the cans in your vegetable garden between the plants. Fill the tin cans with rocks and water directly into the tin cans. This will send the water directly to the vegetable plant’s roots and prevent water runoff.

Start your own vegetable plant seeds in old eggs cartons. Punch a small hole in the bottom of each slot for drainage, then fill each egg carton slot with potting soil and plant your seeds. Starting your own vegetable plants from seeds saves money over buying established vegetable plants at the garden supply center.

Use plastic milk jugs as a mini-hot house and to protect young vegetable plant seedlings after they have been set out in the garden. Don’t cut the entire bottom off of the plastic milk jug. Leave one side of the bottom of the milk jug attached, fold it back and place a rock or some dirt on it to keep it from blowing away.