25 thrifty tips fpr a family garden
1. Use it as a free craft resource and make the most lovely flower fairies and flower crowns. You can als0 pop over here to see how to make a butterfly feeder
2. Grow beautiful flowers you can have in your home. sweet peas are my favourite and they just keep growing and growing
3. Grow your own vegetables..money saving and hugely fun. We grew this from seed …our first attempt! My friend Fiona suggests growing food amongst your flower beds! Gooseberries and cabbages are very decorative and easy.
4. Make your own herb garden and use it in your cooking. Andrea at All you need is Love and cake is sure these herbs taste better too as well as cost much less!
5. Turn to Pinterest for advice guidance and inspiration
Follow Becky Goddard-Hill’s board Beautiful Gardens on Pinterest.
6. Follow lovely gardening blogs such as Growing Family for advice and inspiration.
7. Paint strawberry rocks
Apparently you surround your fruit plants with then and the birds soon learn not to bother swooping for fruit there. Not sure this will work but its free and fun to make!
8. You can use the sticks in your garden in so many ways to create free play opportunists. Here are 10 cool things kids can do with sticks
9. You can also use the stones in your garden to create lots of fun play opportunities. Here are 10 cool things kids can do with stones
10. There are also many MANY educational and learning resources in a garden for kids that are free and at your fingertips. My lovely friend Cathy has just released a book all about this ! The Garden Classroom is full of inspiring ideas.
More thrifty tips for a family garden
11. Grow lavender and use it to make your own lavender air freshener home , to give you lovely lavender baths and to inspire your baking.
12. Liz at Me and My Shadow upcycled some old deckchairs with linen tea towels and made use of a old cable reel to create this fabulous kids bistro set How cool is that!
13. Carolin from Mummy Alarm suggests you can save money in your garden by making your own weedkiller which is better for the environment and thrifty . Great tip from Carolin and I found a whole page of them here
14. Cat from Yellow Days suggest bulbs as her top money saving tip Bulbs are a great investment as the come back year after year for beautiful spring colour. Bluebells are gorgeous and will multiply each year to give you a lovely natural woodland look
15. Making art is lovely to do in the garden whether you sit out there and paint, incorporate petals into you sketching or make brushes form twigs and leaves. Nature provides the best free art materials around.
16. My lovely friend Anne who has an allotment suggests you re-use anything from your home and garden to protect, support or plant your crops in. Lace curtains for netting, cds for scarecrows, water tanks / iKea bags for planting I think this is a great idea, both green and thrifty!
17. Composting your food waste recycling garden and kitchen waste into a compost bin provides you with excellent free compost for your garde
18. Bees are crucial pollinators and will really help make our gardens thrive without any need for our intervention. But we do need to attract them. Have a look at this wonderful post from Penny on the 10 most bee friendly plants you should put in your garden.
19. The very savvy Cerys from Rainy Day Mum suggests uses compostable seed pots like egg cartons and loo rolls to start seeds off so they can go straight in the soil. Time saving as well as thrifty and great recycling too.
20. Cathy (from NurtureStore) suggests asking for donations. ‘Gardeners love to see other people starting gardens too and are usually happy to pass on extra seedlings, plants and cuttings.’
Jen at Mum in the Madhouse and Mary at Keynko say they love to seed swap with friends. Lovely excuse for a get together too I reckon!
21. If you fancy making your own seed packets and plant labels have a look at these sweet ideas from Thinly Spread. Chris also advises learning to propagate properly. Collecting Seeds, taking cuttings, layering, dividing as ways to make new plants for no money!
22. Jaime and Lisa both suggest a water butt for you garden. Lisa got hers free from her local council along with a compost bin so well worth asking. Jaime says hers saved her a fortune when she was on a water meter and wow look at her garden flourish.
23. Aly at Bug Bird Bee suggests sowing extra seeds so you can sell surplus at car boot sales. It’s a great idea to get your garden making you money!
24. My very creative friend Jess loves to reuse items in her garden and make the very best of what others might consider scrap. How fabulous does her planted cistern look.
Chris puts hers plants in old wellies and colanders and calls it Potment Gardening
25. And last but not least where to shop. Lisa suggests exploring your tip for old tyres to plant in and car boot sales for cheap pots. Both Helen from Business Plus Baby and my savvy pal Jess suggest Aldi as a great place for cheap plants and tools. Who knew!
Bonus Tips for your thrifty family garden
What I have learned in this post is that by throwing out the question how do you save money in your garden on facebook, twitter, on Pinterest and to my neighbours…. I got a huge wealth of ideas back.
Good gardening is all about sharing from your cuttings and seeds to your inspired ideas. Sharing, as always, is the best way to save money.
I think you might also love to grow a herb garden – herbs are amazing not only for cooking but also for beauty. Do take a look at my post on the best herbs for anti-ageing
I do hope you have enjoyed this post on 25 top thrifty tips for a family garden
what a super post Becky with such fantastic idea! .. i may drag out my old sink from the shed to plant up!
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OOh you must Jaime that would be cool
Amazing post Becky – we have a planted cistern just like that one – ours is spray painted bright blue and came out of our original outhouse from 1895.
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Oh wow that is brilliant a piece of history and totally unique
I absolutely love this post, brilliant!
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Thankyou Amanda I so love the mini dens you built with your kids in my sticks round up post. They always make me smile
What a FABULOUS post! Such a wealth of wonderful ideas!
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Ah and quite a few are YOURS my dear, creative, lovely friend x
Brilliant post, so many great ideas – proof that gardening isn’t the expensive hobby many people think it has to be. So refreshing to see gardening talked about as a collaborative thing too 🙂
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Just as it should be!
What a fantastic round up of ideas… It’s quite hard to get enthusiastic about gardening and planting nice things when I think we are on our way out of Bavaria in the next year or so, but I will be referring back to this list one day when I do have a garden of my own – can’t wait! 🙂
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ah won’t that be lovely Emma
All of those ideas are awesome and I now know what to do with all the pebbles the kids bring back from the beach – make those strawberries!
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Those strawberries are a big hit Anya
Great post Becky. Sorting our veg patch is on the list for this weekend!
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ooh yes and us Liz
Such great tips! I love the strawberry stones and that little table in the garden.
Some great tips, I’m especially loving the painting stones like strawberries
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Probably my fave too
What fab ideas and inspiration ! Love love love Growing Familys blog too 🙂
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She lives right by us too Annie..isn’t her blog lovely
I would suggest you join your local allotment society – you don’t always need an allotment to be a member. Ours has a shop which sells goods at cost – my gloves cost 90p, my 50l compost was £2.50. I don’t have an allotment!
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Love this tip Chrissy thank you
Don’t thank me! Thank my uncle T who is slowly making a gardener out of me!
I really like the strawberry rocks, we often paint stones so we will have a go at that. Mich x
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OOh show me them if you do Mich
Lovely, sharing and really helpful post thank you!
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Thankyou Natasha
This post is a fantastic resource! Pinning right away!
Brilliant ideas – I’m just starting to enjoy my gardening a little more now so I’ll keep these in mind x x
Great post Becky!, And all tips are awesome and so useful for them who enthusiastic about gardening including me, because my garden is old and I want to renovate it. So this post are so useful for me.
Awesome post Becky!, And all tips are wonderful thus valuable for them who eager about cultivating including me, Couple of couple of days I upgrade my home furthermore my garden.So this post are so helpful for me.
This is such a informative post about garden. For me garden is so important and we should care for it.
Hello Becky, I really like to read your article where you have shared very worthy tips for gardening and I would like to follow you and work with you if possible. I sincerely want to share what I have learned, so others can discover the blessings healthful living can bring.