GET GROWING!
LESSONS FROM A FRUGAL GARDENER
Being a frugal gardener means upcycling, propagating, and utilizing every resource to stretch your budget. Image credit: PRAMOD TIWARI on Unsplash
By LADYBUG
My gardening buddy Linda was over to check on the progress of the tomato seedlings she had brought over few weeks prior.
One of those gifted (and committed) gardeners who enjoyed a high success rate with starting plants from seed, and as someone who grew many heritage varieties of plants from which she saved seeds, she was also a very generous gardener.
And I, the novice gardener on the block, was the beneficiary.
She would pop over with trays of seedlings, clumps of plants she’d divided, or jars of tomato sauce or roasted peppers, depending on the season.
So, there she was, interested in seeing how the seedlings – lovingly raised from seeds from her aunt’s cottage garden – were doing.
I took her to the backyard, happy to show I had managed to keep them alive and healthy.
“Good job!” she said with a grin. “You need to stake them, they’re getting nice and bushy”
She went on to say I didn’t need to buy tomato cages or even metal stakes. Sticks from my garden would work well.
A branch poking out from a clump of tall delphiniums looks more organic and part of the garden than a shiny new bamboo stake.
Sticks from my garden? We didn’t have any! Having inherited a yard with impeccable grass but no plants whatsoever, I was just beginning to fill it in. But there was nothing old enough or large enough to yield sticks for staking other plants.
Linda took a look around the yard and deciphered the look on my face. She returned with a few sticks from her garden and I’m happy to report, the tomato plants flourished and we enjoyed a good harvest.
Though I did sneak in few bamboo stakes past her, as years went by, my garden grew in size and variety as well as age and now I have several shrubs I cut branches from.
They are just so much nicer, I feel. Strong and weathered, more natural looking.
A branch poking out from a clump of tall delphiniums looks more organic and part of the garden than a shiny new bamboo stake. But those are infinitely better than metal ones painted that fake green.
And the nubs of side branches that I remove make great “hooks” to twine tender stems around. Like those of a morning glory that sprouted in a pot with my curry leaf plant, adding a pop of colour.
Of course, I have also repurposed other “sticks”. The wooden handle of an old spade, for instance, was just the right strength to rein in a rambunctious anemone robusta.
But by and large, I use the bounty of my garden.
I cut, clean and stash sticks season-round in the garden shed and come spring, they are ready for use.
The slim ones are inserted into pots to keep plants like my passionflower from flopping over. Or to give my moneyplants something to cling to.
And the thicker, sturdier ones hold everything from tomatoes to monkshood and mums in place.
And I look around my garden and thank Linda for teaching me yet another way to garden frugally and naturally, and for showing me that gardens give us not just flowers, fruits and vegetables, but so much else in so many ways.
Think seeds and plant cuttings, and also leaves for the compost pile!