JUST at that time when most things seem to be about spending money, our gardening expert JOA GROWER offers all you vegetable growers her best money-saving ideas for 2018.
THERE are few things more frustrating than needlessly giving away your money. Here are a few of my money saving suggestions for you to try out in your vegetable garden, and make quite a saving throughout the coming year.
Old compost bags
Great for shovelling horse manure into, tiding the garden, collecting leaves to make leaf mould and when split open and weighted down with bricks or stones makes a great weed suppressant. Remove in 12 months time to find beautiful weed free soil.
Stinging nettles
Soak fresh young stinging nettles in a barrel of water, leave for 10-14 days, strain and water tomatoes, spuds, courgettes and beans – well almost anything really. (The same goes for Comfrey leaves). Oh I ought to just add that you may want to keep your barrel of liquid feed as far away from the house as possible. Cos it sure does stink!
Old feather pillows
They used to recommended that you plant a large dead bird in the ground and then plant your Rhubarb crown on top. Over the years this has become more civilised and an old pillow will do the same trick of slowly releasing nutrients into the soil.
Horse manure
Most stables are only too pleased to get rid of the stuff. The older the better, but if it is really fresh, stack it for 9-12 months. It will be worth the wait as it will have turned it a fantastic soil conditioner.
Wood ash
This can be used in two ways. Firstly as a deterrent for slugs and snails. Sprinkle a good helping around young plants such as courgettes and squashes. Secondly, wood ash is a rich source of potash which, when applied to fruit bushes, will help them ripen and it protects plants from some diseases. The onion patch will also benefit from it. Sprinkle on the surface and rake in.
Garlic
Crush a couple of cloves in water and spray the liquid to kill aphids.
Washing up liquid
It’s not quite as good as traditional soft soap but a very good substitute. Make a mix about three times as strong as you would for doing the dishes and spray bug infested plants. When you’ve finished with the bottle you can cut it into 15mm wide strips and make plant labels out of it.
Food trays and pots
The plastic punnets that mushrooms come in make fab seed trays, but don’t forget as they are smaller than proper seed trays you won’t need to sow the whole packet of seeds. Yogurt pots also make lovely little plant pots. Please remember to make holes in all reused containers for drainage holes.
Plastic bottles
By removing the lid and cutting the base off a 2lt or 5lt water bottle you can make a perfect mini cloche for individual seedlings. Brilliant for keeping your baby plants safe from late frosts.
Bean poles and pea sticks
Winter is a great time to cut hazel sticks from hedge rows. Long straight ones for climbing French beans or Runner beans and short branchy ones for supporting Peas and Mangetouts. Always get permission from the land owner before you start hacking away at someone else’s hedges!
Save your own seed
With some vegetable plants this can be fairly easy. The first thing to check is that the parent plant you are collecting from is not a F1 hybrid as the seeds from this will not come true. Most seed packets or seedling plant packs will say whether they are or not. The easiest seeds to collect are probably beans and peas. Leave some pods on the plants towards the end of your harvest and allow them to dry and go yellow. Once this has happened, pick them and allow them to carry on drying on a window sill or greenhouse bench. When completely dry, store in an envelope until sowing time next year.
Wooden pallets
So many things can be made from these. Probably the most useful one is a compost bin. Four pallets of similar size can either be nailed, screwed or even tied together to create a good sized bin. I have also seen and made myself in the past a very comfy garden bench out of them.
I hope you have enjoyed reading some of my suggestions for things you can do in the vegetable garden for free (or at least for very little money). l Just a reminder that Growers Organics nursery (next to Ben’s Farm Shop in Yealmpton) will reopen mid February 2019 and we shall also be back in the Totnes market square on Fridays from mid February. Happy Growing!