Ask the cemetery if you can have the pots they throw away after Memorial Day. (You can dry the almost dead flowers for potpourri too.)

Of course yard sales have great cheap containers so be sure to check them!

Look in dumpsters. Many garden centers at the discount stores throw away the dead plants, pots and all. Ask permission first.

Containers just don’t have to be traditional pots; anything that will hold soil and you can put holes in the bottom for drainage will work. Boots, cooking pans or pots (enamel is great!), an old sink or toilet (yes I have seen this!), a basket (line with pantyhose if you need the soil to stay in better), plastic dishpans, or old trash cans. Use your imagination.

Use 5 gallon buckets as large planters. Ask for them from restaurant. Drill holes in the bottom for drainage. Add some plastic pots or foam peanuts in the bottom to make them lighter weight.

Use broken terra cotta pot pieces over drainage holes in pots to hold in soil but still allow the pot to drain.

Use Styrofoam peanuts in the bottom of pots for drainage. You can also use small plastic six-inch pots, soda cans or plastic bottles in the bottom of larger pots so you don’t have to use so much soil and to make the pots lighter in weight.

From a reader: I use the onion bags to put in the bottom of flowerpots. Helps keep the potting soil in and lets the water drain out. When the plants are ready to be removed to the garden you can rinse them off and use them again. I used some in the bottom of this work boot.

Years ago, I purchased at auction an old wringer washer minus the wringer. To fill it with potting soil would have bankrupted us — considering we paid $1 for the ‘flower pot.’ We saved plastic water bottles for a few days and put them in the washtub; filled it with soil and it has been producing beautiful annuals each year.
We now use the same technique with all the larger flowerpots and continue to have great results! From: Kate

Pot filler for big pots:
6 pack, 4 pack, 6 ” and 2″ containers the plants come in. Turn upside down in larger container.
Cans
Styrofoam peanuts
Meat trays
Bunched up bags
Pieces of wood
Pieces of terra cotta pots

Plastic milk or juice cartons

It is time to start preserving all the wonderful things you have in your gardens. Depending on where you live some of you have already started. We get a lot of questions on canning and preserving. I wrote on the blog about it and gave you some info last August so here it is once again and I hope it will help you new timers.  It deals with using a dehydrator, freezing and Canning and Preserving.

Jill

From: Paula
Tawra...I feel your garden pain. Our land was
rootbound from loads of trees. We broke our backs
trying to put in a garden. I got the idea of
getting old tires (free),stacking them 2
high,filing with compost/topsoil and planting…We
had the best garden going. The tires kept the
tomatoes feet hot for huge crop, the small opening
kept the weeds down, and you don’t have to bend.
if you can handle the sanford and son jokes,like
we got, you’re halfway there..Sorry no tips on hail…

Hi Tawra,

Congrats on the new baby!

About the zucchini, one year after having a dynamite of a veggie garden.
We had zucchini coming out our ears!! What to do with it??? I tried
giving it away, some friends took it, most did not. A few ways I used
them was:

#1. Made cookies with them, using a carrot cookie recipe. I also made
the cookies with yellow summer squash. They were good (be sure to drain
shredded zucchini or yellow squash really well before using them this
way, or your batter will be really runny.) I took the squash cookies to
work, everyone loved them! Some wouldn’t believe they had grated yellow
summer squash in them.

#2. I used my deceased Mamaw’s recipe for Cucumber Pickle Relish. It was
awesome!! We used it in potato salads, tuna salads, ham salads, chicken
salads, etc. No one knew it wasn’t cucumbers till I told them!

#3. If you’ve never tried Chocolate Zucchini Bread, you should do so
especially if you’re a chocoholic!!

Sincerely,

Terri H.

I like to use shreds from my paper shredder and the shreds from work in various ways in my garden. I put it into my compost barrel. Makes great compost! I also use it as mulch on my flower and veggie beds. I put several inches down and cover it with a thin layer of bark mulch.

After it rains, the paper is squashed to about an inch thick and the layer of bark covers the stark white (and sometimes multi colored) paper mulch. To save even more money, I have sprayed the white shreds with tea to make it look more attractive and natural and didn’t put down the bark mulch. That was completely free mulch and didn’t look too bad after the tea was sprayed.

Dawn

Many ladies are familiar with the cookie swaps that go on in December and how they work…bake a set number of dozens of the same cookie (like everyone brings 5 dozen) and then everyone trades in dozen-increments so you end up with 5 different types of cookies on instead of all one type.

Try organizing a plant-swap with cuttings/starters of different plants using the same concept.

Megan

I’m putting in some tomatoes this week so I am going to try this. I hear it works great but haven’t ever tried it myself. Tawra

We use this tried and true method for getting bigger tomatoes in our garden. When planting tomatoes, place one teaspoon of Epsom salts in the hole before placing the plant in it. Water the plant well afterwards. This will yield bigger tomatoes and longer life of the plant.       Julia

You are probably wondering why I am posting things on how to start seeds this late in the season. Since I’m on modified bedrest right now I won’t be doing a lot of gardening this spring so I’m going to start seeds for some perennials to plant this fall.

If you’re like me and can’t get out in the garden this spring plan ahead for this fall.  I will baby the plants through the summer in pots and then when they are larger plant them this September in the garden.

Here plants don’t do that well if you plant them June-August because the heat just kills them.  This is a great way to save on perennials.
Tawra

Hi
I went to several stores to find more seedling pots but they are all gone.  So I bought cheap muffin pans!  At least I can reuse them year after year!
From: Giovanna

photo by: amandabhslater

Hi all these are a few ways I save money on my garden:

1. I purchases items from our school. Our school has a horticulture Dept and the way they make money is buying selling plants the most expensive item being $1.50 for ex. tomato plants are 4 for a dollar and so are all there other veg. , herbs and annuals. The $1.50 would come in for perennials and larger geranium.

2. I wanted apple trees really bad but boy are trees expensive however I found a nursery that sold bareroot trees. What a savings that is.

3. We have a field behind us a lot of times seeds will blow from trees and grow along the fence row when we had trees die we just went in the field and dug up existing trees (right on the other side of our fence where the farmers do not care)

4. mulch our county offers free mulch

5. Of course word of mouth let friends know you need things for your flower gardens and share your perennials (plant perennials they come back every year instead of annuals but if you must see #1)

Hope this helps enjoy your newsletter.

Thanks!

From: Lora

I knew in high school when I had grown more plants in Botany than any other student in the history of the class that I had a knack for gardening. Of course, we sold our plants at a plant sale and it is a great way to save some $ on quality plants. Tawra

Hi

Thanks so much for your wonderful newsletter, I really enjoy it and look forward to it every week.

I just read that you need tips on saving in the garden!  I always save my 8 ounce cans of tomato sauce (cleaned of course).  I poke holes in the bottom, fill with dirt and start many a seed in them, (veggies, flowers, herbs).  I get usually 10 packs for a dollar for the seeds when they are on sale , so I  I stock up and place them in an air tight container which prolongs their shelf life.   Works really well, both in spring and fall and saves tons of money!

I also make climbing trellises by combining three 4-6 foot sticks with a small clay pot on top to secure the sticks together.  You may then place the end of sticks in the ground and “walla”, a great climbing tool for beans, vines, anything that climbs.  Looks cute too! You can even paint flowers, etc on the clay pots.  Just make sure you get a pot small enough to combine all sticks so it fits secure, if it doesn’t, place syrofoam securely in pot and press sticks in.

Hope this helps someone with garden ideas.
from: Silvia