Frugal Gardening

This was taken from Frugal Gardening...

http://www.frugalgardening.com/

Gardening 10 Commandments

1. Thou shalt have fun: If you aren't having fun while gardening, find another hobby.

2. Thou shalt save money, not spend money: If you are planting a frugal garden, the bounty you receive should ultimately save you money over the amount you put into the garden.

3. Thou shalt not acquire needy plants: Nothing makes it into my garden if it has specific needs or is just constantly needy (I sat through a garden club lecture & demo once where the speaker included the word critical more than a half dozen times...nothing goes in my garden that has a word like "critical" attached to it!)

4. Thou shalt not acquire fleeting plants: Anything I plant needs to stick with me. In other words, it can’t be a fleeting, flash in the garden bed sort of annual. No spot-of-color sort of event in my garden. Plants have to come back again and again; and on their own too!

5. Thou shalt keep digging to a minimum: The less digging the better. I’m all for raised beds, container gardening and getting anyone else to do any necessary digging!

6. Thou shalt be willing to try new things: I will try anything once. I know, this is a slight contradiction to Commandment #3, but it is my garden & I reserve the right to try anything once. I can always pass it along to someone else if it doesn’t behave itself and it may turn out to be something that is perfect for my garden that I can use again and again.

7. Thou shalt not acquire thirsty plants: Besides my veggie garden area, I don’t want anything in my garden that will expire if it doesn’t get a daily drink of water. Things need to hold their own here as I don’t have a drip or irrigation system and I just don’t seem to be the kind of gardener that remembers to water everything at exactly the right time. Plants with good root systems will win out every time, over those that are more delicate.

8. Thou shalt favor plants with multiple uses: Plants that do two things, instead of just one, will win a spot in my garden every time. Shrubs that are green all year and flower sometime during the year are great, as are trees that show off early spring blossoms as well as provide shade during the summer. Plants that are interesting in my borders or cottage gardens plus provide veggies for the table are favorites and any plant that has a fragrance is a sure addition.

9. Thou shalt not hide your garden in the back corner: The older I get, the closer my gardens get to the house. When I began gardening, most of my beds were in the back forty; nice because there was lots of room and they could be interesting...or not. No one but me usually saw them. With my move to this current property, my gardens are located right outside my front door. This was initially due to not having any other ground ready to plant plus the proximity to a water faucet. I will never do the back forty kind of gardening again. This is just way too much fun. Everyone that comes to my house, from family to the UPS driver, has some sort of comment about the gardens. And, since people are always visiting; I’m so much more interested in working to keep the gardens up to snuff!

10. Thou shalt disturb weeds often: My last commandment has to be the advice I received from a great old gardener friend: Disturb the little, almost invisible weed seeds on a regular basis (read this as daily) and there will be no need to spend hours weeding. So true. The more time I spend just cultivating the dirt in between the plants & rows, the fewer weeds I ever see, the little weed sprouts just get too discouraged to grow.

I found these ten commandments interesting. We are (most of us) trying to save money right now. I am planting seeds and will not buy those flats of flowers this year. I hope that I have success with this venture. I have all you gardeners out there to give me advice and help when I need it. Many of us will be dividing our special plants this year and sharing with others. I am planting a couple of tomato plants. Trade with neighbors...they give you zuchinni you give them banana bread. We should support our farmer's markets....some of these people are in the same boat. In the fall, I will gather seeds to use next year. This sounds like a plan to me. I think that our country is going through a cleansing period right now. Things are rough, but we can all learn new ways to help ourselves and not depend so much on others. If we do a few things to help ourselves and support our food banks...hopefully we will come out of this better than before. Little Audra was here today...she said, "I will be so glad when I don't have to go to school and I can come over and help you garden." We should all look at the world like a child does . She only wants to help.

Balisha