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Starting A Productive Garden For Under $30. Gardening Does Not Need To Be Expensive! Save Money π°
Apr 27, 2022
More people are trying out the world of gardening. But many may be wanting to try an inexpensive garden setup. This gardening in Canada video is going to look at how to start a garden for less then $30. A low input garden with high yeilds is entirely possible!
Starting A Productive Garden For Under $30. Gardening Does Not Need To Be Expensive! Save Money π°
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0:00
I'm here paying reparation payments to my manager, my room rental manager. If you guys did not know
0:07
this is Ella's room. This is her little vivarium that she gets to sit in, her little paradise
0:14
Rent is due. I have to occupy the space every once in a while to do my videos. Yes. I have
0:19
ways to suck up to her. She really likes hot pepper seeds and granola. But you, well, you're
0:27
putting quite a bit on my shoulder which is kind of disgusting yeah hello
0:32
pond people how are you guys doing today if you're in your own here my name is Ashley I'm a soil scientist on this channel I like to take that science and
0:39
apply it to all things pond both indoors and outside and today's video we are
0:44
talking about how to garden on a budget so I know a lot of you are looking at
0:50
gardens for the first time this year let me guide you through this I don't use
0:54
hacks or tricks or anything like that I literally use science to help you grow
0:59
you've been on this channel for a long long enough you already know this but
1:03
I'm gonna give you some ways to start an entire garden for less than $50
1:09
literally less than $50 so let's just jump straight into it so with inflation
1:15
and everything else the idea of gardening is obviously a viable answer
1:22
for those of us that want some form of food security for our families. But once we start
1:28
thinking about it, we start getting intimidated by the cost of everything, the cost of fertilizer
1:34
the cost of seeds, the cost of just making a garden. So I'm going to walk you through how I
1:40
started my initial gardens. I am not by any means rich person at all. And so I started my gardening
1:48
journey with the bare minimum and to this day I actually have very minimal inputs into my garden
1:56
to produce food. It's only since I started a YouTube channel and you guys have asked questions
2:01
or you want me to do demos on more advanced products that I actually started adding stuff
2:07
to my garden and quite honestly I still enjoy my OG version of gardening which is like no inputs
2:14
no real anything and I do find that my yields are a lot higher in my gardens
2:21
that I don't do anything with my control garden always seems to be the best
2:26
garden hands down so let's jump through it I'm gonna go literally through
2:30
everything from soil tools and right up into harvest the absolute must you
2:36
should purchase again all accumulating to being under $30 so if you're trying to
2:42
to do this on a budget and you don't want to buy inflated prices for potting
2:47
soil the first question is soil whether that be for starting indoors container
2:52
gardeners maybe you're using old rubber means whatever the case is all the way
2:57
to in ground how do we provide the medium in which to grow the plants and
3:02
the answer to this is if you are using a potting soil medium meaning a peat or
3:07
coconut coir based medium in the past or you're thinking okay I'm not to buy
3:11
this many bales each of which is around 20 bucks blah blah blah blah blah forget
3:16
it all you need to use is leaf mold so you're gonna run around the neighborhood
3:22
and ask all your neighbors for their leaf bags that they left over the winter
3:28
that they did not compost or they did nothing what they tied them up in a
3:32
garbage bag maybe they have you know the pump the jack-o-lantern on the outside
3:37
what are the cases and you're gonna take that and you're going to run it over
3:41
with a lawnmower and we're going to shred it into a million pieces and that is
3:47
going to be your potting soil you can mix this leaf mold with a really
3:52
inexpensive bale of peat moss so you could do premier straight peat mix in
3:58
some pure late but even then you don't really have to you can literally just do
4:02
straight peat and leaf mold your plants will be fine I promise you especially if
4:07
you're using like a cloth or if you're particularly worried and you're using a
4:12
plastic container system just drill some holes in the side your plant will be
4:16
fine I promise you so that is what you're going to use for the actual potting
4:21
soil you can use this for your seed starter mix and it's gonna save you a
4:25
ton of money in the long run it's not going to break the bank the other option
4:31
would be going to a local composting station in your area a majority of city
4:37
Compost the compost from them is free. So Saskatoon has a free compost
4:42
Set up and you can collect your compost All you got to do is bring your own bags or truck or whatever the case is fill up and then bring that home
4:52
You can plant in container gardens outdoors plant into straight compost now I've said in
4:59
videos prior that compost is my less favorite option only because it could potentially affect
5:07
the germination rates of your seeds but if desperate times call for desperate measures
5:13
then of course give it a shot see what happens it's going to affect your germination slightly
5:20
but it's not going to just completely eliminate the the issue and you could always ask the uh
5:26
compost station how long the finished compost has been allowed to cure if they say two to three
5:32
months or over the winter whatever the case is then it's likely just fine if
5:37
they say oh we just turn this over a week ago then it may be time to actually
5:41
question whether or not it's a viable use and then you may want to switch to leaf mold product so the next way to look at just gardening in general is
5:51
everyone does raise beds or they'll do no dig and they'll you know have the
5:57
cardboard and they'll buy you know yards of compost or they'll get soil
6:02
brought in from somewhere what I want you to do is I want you to rototill up
6:08
whatever hunk of land you have so if that has a lawn on it whatever the case
6:15
is you're literally just gonna rototill the whole thing under I heavily suggest
6:19
you get your lines marked out first it completely free to do they mark out like your internet or your cable telephone energy that sort of thing obviously so you don run
6:31
to tell over top of those but after that's all marked out you have an area I
6:34
want you to rototill and I want you to rototill pretty deep if you can get like
6:40
12 15 inches deep you are just going to blast the whole area up I am a huge
6:49
advocate I guess you could say for tillage being a tool that you can use
6:54
it's not forbidden I promise you no one's gonna come knock on your door and
6:59
give you heck me I will have people razzing me in the comment section but
7:04
for the majority of you you'll be just fine rotatilling so just rotatill that up
7:09
if you can or you can afford it you can add some organic amendments but overall
7:13
your soil if you use a combination of leaf mold which you can incorporate into
7:18
into the soil when you rototill, or you use the compost from the city
7:23
and then the rototiller, all of which you should be able to do for relatively cheap
7:31
The rototill rental may be your most expensive, but if you can go in with some neighbors
7:36
maybe you know someone with a rototiller, or you could do a double-dig method
7:42
which is gonna give you a really intense workout where essentially you're going to take a shovel
7:47
spaded shovel and you're going to shovel and dig up the whole area and basically dig and flip and
7:53
then break up the conglomerates of soil into itsy-bitsy aggregates so that would be your
8:00
option that would obviously be free so long as you have the shovel itself and again I'm sure
8:05
that's something you can borrow from your neighbor if you need it so don't waste your money on like
8:11
crazy irrigation or raised bed this, you know, no dig that importing. So just use what you have
8:19
on your lot. It will be just fine. If you are unsure as to whether or not your soil that you're
8:26
using is going to work, or you're kind of worried that it's maybe too sandy or too much clay
8:31
send me a DM over on Instagram, send me like a photo of what the land looks like. And I may be
8:38
able to help coach you through how to use that land or get it going for free I
8:45
mean like with no additions despite the fact that it may be less than ideal so
8:50
the next one I have my list is the actual seed starting equipment so
8:54
obviously there's plastic trays there's like the peat whatever so you're gonna
9:00
use a leaf mold or the compost from your city and then you are going to use
9:05
toilet paper rolls yogurt containers you can actually make out of newspaper make
9:12
newspaper planters all that sort of stuff and you're just gonna literally
9:16
use single-use plastics and papers that can be easily folded and made into pots
9:23
so I think it did a video two years ago now about the paper newspaper pots you
9:31
can do that very easy very easy to fold and put together and that is going to be your pot and you
9:37
can place that just in a cookie sheet or on your windowsill whatever the case is so that is going
9:44
to be completely free zero cost to you now the next one is transplanting shields so you can
9:53
actually start accumulating these now it's basically mini greenhouses that you're going
9:59
to transplant your plants into or that you could use to start plants slightly earlier in the soil
10:06
with and it can be cut off milk jugs it could be again yogurt containers butter containers coffee
10:14
containers i use five gallon pill buckets because my grandpa used to work in an industry where they
10:21
were a dime a dozen so i have plenty of those but those are around like five dollars now so i can
10:27
understand why someone wouldn't want to cut the bottom of a bucket off anymore it's going to get expansive so you can use other methods but you essentially
10:36
are going to have an open top and an open bottom and you're going to place it
10:40
around the plant and it's going to act as like a mini heat sink an easier way to
10:44
water the seedling and to reduce transplant shock from wind and all that
10:48
sort of stuff so save your plastics especially if they're tubular in nature
10:53
because you're actually going to use these in the spring and I have several
10:57
videos on transplant shock and reducing transplant shock and I actually am using
11:02
those containers all the time so the next one is mulch mulch is expensive you
11:08
can get wood chip mulch it's expensive you can get straw bales it's expensive
11:14
and not to mention straw and hay may or may not have pesticides in it depending
11:21
on how the farmer dealt with the product itself so for mulching I'm suggesting
11:28
using grass clippings newspapers flyers and cardboard now I'm gonna be doing a
11:34
video on cardboard because that was a subscriber ask questions and some of the
11:39
concerns that come with using a cardboard as a mulch but regardless if
11:45
you I use grass clippings for mine it's going to help preserve water and it's
11:50
going to also increase microbial activity while suppressing weeds so that is going to be our mulch it's going to be completely free if you need more mulch
12:01
because you wrote it held up your lawn I'm sure your neighbors will be more
12:05
than willing to allow you to cut their lawn for them so when it comes to
12:11
composting there's a lot of fancy bins out there like tumblers all that sort of
12:15
stuff and all you're gonna do if you want to start a compost pile is literally
12:19
pile it up in an area and then you can rotate it with your shovel or a fork
12:25
whatever you have on hand but don't invest in any sort of crazy bins you can
12:31
literally put compost in a pile that is like the initial version of composting
12:36
before we had these crazy tumbler bins and all that sort of stuff it was a pile
12:41
so just pile the compost up don use anything fancy and everything will be fine For fertilizer don worry about it I know that sounds super weird coming from a soil scientist but i personally for many years didn use any sort of fertilizer
13:01
i still as a gardener use fertilizers when i have like a company that gave them to me
13:09
and they want me to test them out I'll do some like PR with them that sort of thing but for the
13:16
most part before that I didn't really use fertilizer at all I maybe bought like one
13:24
jug of it and I didn't even use all of it because the reality is is if you have outputs from the
13:32
soil so you're harvesting but then your inputs you're just literally putting the same biomass
13:36
back on top of the soil there's it's a closed cycle like there's no it's staying in the system
13:43
so I don't use fertilizers and you shouldn't either especially if this is your first year
13:48
and you're literally rototilling your lawn up you definitely do not need fertilizer trust me
13:52
it's going to be just fine so fertilizers just don't worry about it just do not bother with them
13:58
that goes for organic or otherwise I can promise you your yields will be just as impressive as the
14:06
person using miracle grow and that's just kind of bottom line so seeds this
14:11
is gonna be where it's gonna cost you money so you're going to be having to but
14:18
I urge you to stay under the $30 mark stay away from fancy seeds or crazy
14:27
looking seeds go with the basics go with root vegetables peas and beans
14:33
cucumbers you can do corn so long as it's under a hundred day corn or under 60
14:45
day corn you don't want something that says days to harvest 90 plus you want to
14:51
stay under that when it comes to things like tomatoes and peppers you if you
14:57
don't have grow lights then you can start your tomatoes but just start them
15:02
a lot later in this season so I would urge you to start your tomatoes April ish instead of March now
15:11
it's gonna be scary because you have smaller plants but you're not gonna have that legginess
15:16
and so the legginess is what's gonna set you back when it comes to tomatoes and you are likely going
15:22
to be able to limp it through with you know milk jug greenhouse setups outdoors if we start in April
15:28
And then we transplant outdoors like mid-ish April, beginning of May. So that is something to keep in mind there
15:37
When it comes to zucchini, I have on here, radish, that sort of thing
15:41
Go with whatever you're choosing to grow. So if it's peas and beans, for example, go with the harvest with the least number of growing degree days
15:52
so if it says days to harvest 60 and days to harvest 45 you're going to choose the 45 option
15:59
the reason for this is because the plant will grow and you will be able to harvest from that plant
16:06
that you are directly sowing outdoors within 45 days the nice part about this is for example in
16:12
zone 3 we have around 107 ish give or take on some years growing degree days that means
16:20
we could then plant a second round of the same crop and potentially get two harvests also combined
16:27
with the fact that something that produces in 45 days isn't necessarily dead after 45 days meaning
16:33
it will continually reproduce so long as we are continually harvesting and cutting the plant back
16:41
to make sure that we're not stimulating the end of any cycles we can get more harvest off of that
16:47
exact same crop over and over again over time so go with the lesser number of days needed same thing
16:54
goes with cucumbers zucchinis all that sort of stuff some of these can get really exotic in
16:59
especially corn can get exotic in the number of days it needs just go for the least number of days
17:07
you don't need to add anything crazy skip the inoculants skip all the fancy stuff stick with
17:12
just the seeds a really good place to start if you're really trying to keep this budget nice and
17:19
tight is to find a local seed swap or a local perennial exchange site and see if they and
17:27
facebook's a really good place to start with this um reddit sometimes as well for bigger cities will
17:33
have something and then what you're going to do is you're going to swap seeds with people in your
17:37
area so they may put out a call someone may put out a call for peas um and you have extra peas
17:45
because you know you don't need all of them and they're willing to give you some tomato seeds for
17:49
example so use the seed swaps to your advantage in very few circumstances should you be planting
17:56
literally all of your plants or all your seeds in your packages i never plant all the seeds in my
18:02
packages i do take um some and i leave some so that is a great way to help encourage that as well
18:10
as keep your eyes open on kajiti when springtime does roll around gardeners such as myself
18:18
generally will over plant things like tomatoes and peppers and that sort of stuff and so they'll be
18:23
sold for very very inexpensive prices over on kajiti by a local grower especially when compared
18:30
to like a big box store or something of that nature um the next thing is to watch for toonie
18:36
tuesdays for your greenhouses so here in saskatoon we have floral acres which is um where it's on
18:47
valley road so it's out towards pike lake they have like toonie tuesdays all the time so they'll
18:54
have to eat Tuesday tomatoes plants so you can literally plant get plants tomato
19:00
plants for $2 I mean you really only had to get like five of them so ten bucks
19:05
worth of tomato plants and you will have quite a bit of tomato in many cases so
19:11
that is another place to start and then when it comes to trimmers and weeding tools forget all of them you do not need them I to this day do not have a weeding tool or a trimmer I
19:26
literally use my fingers to top or to pluck or deadhead I use my fingers to
19:33
weed I just use my bare hands I mean it's the basics you don't need the fancy
19:39
tools so just skip them entirely the next one is stakes trellises poles that sort of stuff
19:47
so stakes trellises um baskets all get expensive i mean there was one year where there was like a
19:55
tomato trellis shortage or something and i remember seeing them for like nine bucks
20:01
a trellis it was just ridiculous so what we can do here is we can use obviously sticks but we can
20:08
use willow weaving which is if you did girl guides it's really common in girl guides
20:13
um it's basically weaving willow or just tree branch in general to make kind of like a
20:22
a fence i guess you could say um so we can use things like that and then we can also take notes
20:28
from the three sisters method which is the first nations method of growing where we can plant like
20:35
a corn or a sunflower at the back or the base and then we can plant climbing beans and peas around
20:44
the bottoms of that and then our peas and beans will run up the sunflower or the corn what if the
20:52
case is so keep that in mind as well always remember to thin space you name it and i think
21:01
You guys will be good. You can pull this off for literally next to no money
21:06
I personally have had times in my life where it's just not an option to go crazy and redo my whole backyard or add a plant or whatever the case is
21:19
And I've gardened for next to no money. Trust me. It's easy
21:24
You can do this. You can do this for under $30. dollars you're just gonna have to throw a lot of influencers suggested tips and
21:33
tricks out the window is what it comes down to we as influencers are totally
21:39
useless sometimes because we're promoting commercial goods and products
21:48
and whatever else and I'm I don't promote products very often but I do
21:55
feature products and talk about them and so I'm also feeling that fire regardless of my best
22:04
intentions not to but you can garden with nothing you do not need anything to garden you literally
22:11
just need the ground there was no such thing as the Home Depot garden section a hundred years ago
22:19
So just keep that in mind. We can get through inflation and achieve food security in our own backyards
22:28
Just let me help you along the way. If you guys have any other tips and tricks for food security and that sort of fun stuff
22:36
please let me know in the comments down below. Let everyone else know in the comments down below
22:41
People will find it incredibly helpful. I get that all the time that usually the comment section is more helpful than I am which is pretty
22:51
funny because you guys are just that awesome and yeah I think that's it I guess one one thing to
22:57
keep in mind when it comes to seed packets so I'll leave a link down below for some affiliate links
23:06
or affiliate seeds if you want to try to support the channel but for example with the
23:17
west coast seeds it'll say approximately 30 seeds for example and it's not a lot um or it may not
23:24
be exact and i can't remember i don't think i did a video about this i think i was a live stream
23:30
with an ontario's teachers union when i was talking about this or it was like a lee valley live that i
23:36
i mentioned this but um the number of seeds being approximate technically is a good thing um if you
23:45
get a seed pack that says approximately 30 seeds and you end up with 35 seeds you're technically
23:51
not getting a deal you're technically getting ripped off because that means the starch content
23:57
in the seed is lower meaning you've got more seeds because the seeds weigh less
24:01
and therefore the seeds may or may not have the energy needed to germinate or to supply a healthy
24:09
seedling so if anything when you get your seed packages if it has 20 seeds rather than 30 seeds
24:16
that means by weight you've got 20 better quality seeds than the packages with 40 seeds when it's
24:22
to be approximately 30 if that makes sense so west coast um has that on it uh zappa seeds doesn't
24:32
but they give you a ton of seeds literally a ton so if you're thinking of doing like seed swap type
24:38
stuff zappa may be the way to go you can buy uh the west coast seeds in different types of gram
24:45
quantities so they have like your standard small packs and then they have medium and large and
24:50
bulk so they have several different sizes depending on like what your goals are what your
24:55
aims are that sort of stuff so and then i guess another tip and trick um just because the world's
25:00
gone a little crazy um you could mark out plants in one plant in every type of species that you're
25:09
growing for one that you do not harvest because you're going to seed save from something to keep
25:14
in mind that may help you with the seed swap the next year or may help you in
25:20
case the world ends because frick knows right anyways I'm thinking you guys so
25:26
much for watching if you enjoyed the video be sure to give it a thumbs up miss Ella was very talkative also very helpful this entire videos you're very
25:36
help you're very helpful I'm sure people loved hearing you scream at them I will
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