Millie shares her favourite thrifty DIY tips for gardening without the price tag!
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Free plant food
Nutrients are key to plant growth and you can buy them in a bag, or you can collect them in the form of food scraps, grass clippings, coffee grounds, and more - you just need a compost bin to turn them into a form the plants can use.
Millie also collects manure from local sources and composts it for 6-8 months to make sure it’s safe for the garden. Chickens are another great source - half of their manure is produced at night so it’s easy to collect by placing trays underneath where the chickens roost.
It’s important to work the manure or scraps into the compost pile so that the nitrogen the plants need isn’t lost into the atmosphere. You can also cover the pile with straw to keep it all in.
It’s a Material World
Materials are everywhere. Sticks and string can create a simple fence to keep dogs out of beds, ladders are an instant trellis, broken stones or concrete can be turned into pavers. There’s no end to what you can use in the garden, the only limit is your imagination!
Tools ‘R’ Cool
Buy the best and make the rest. Spend money on things that will last a long time like a good quality watering can or secateurs.
Millie’s DIY digging stick, or gannan in the local Taungurung language, is perfect for running rows and making planting holes. A couple of hose clamps, some wire and stick form the perfect weeder for vegetable rows without having to bend down.
Plants...they grow on trees!
“A good quality plant is incredibly good value. I value the knowledge, the effort and the skill that it takes to grow them.” Whist this is another area to spend some money on, there are plenty you can grow yourself from seeds or cuttings.
Collecting from the wild requires a specific permit, but collecting from friends and other local places with permission is an easy place to start.
Most fruit trees are grown by budding or grafting to get an exact copy of the parent plant. But some, like peaches, grow plants from seed that are quite similar to the parent. Millie pops peach seeds into the fridge for about 6 weeks to replicate a cold winter - this is called stratification, and it will help them sprout quickly once the warmer weather hits. It may or may not work, but it’s worth the experiment!
Gardening can cost the earth or next to nothing. Finding, making, and growing things yourself is so much more valuable than money, and it also means more time in the garden and less in the shops!
Featured Plants
TREE VIOLET Melicytus dentatus
COMMON WALLABY GRASS Rytidosperma caespitosum
Filmed on Taungurung Country, Central Victoria
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1 авг 2024
