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herbwicc · 4 years

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Hi, was wondering if you knew of any good plant pots that aren’t necessarily pots? And how would I keep the drainage water from spreading lol

DO I EVER

For seed starters:

Ice cream cones.

Newspaper pots. If you're worried about it falling apart when you water it, remember that this is for seed starters and you shouldn't be drowning the soil when you water it. By the time it does start to fall apart is usually when it's time to transfer the seedlings :)

Toilet paper rolls.

Egg shells . I'm actually doing this one currently and it's going great! When it's time to transfer the seedlings, crush up the egg shell a bit. This one has an added bonus of calcium to your plant babies.

Reuse yogurt cups.

Also, if you're growing a certain fruit or vegetable from seed you got from the fruit/veggie yourself, use that fruit/veggie as a pot! Like starting bell pepper seeds IN half of a bell pepper itself! It'll start to decompose when it's time to transfer and it'll add nutrients for the seedling.

Can also use plastic cups of course!

For small plants/decorative plants:

Reuse tin cans.

Glue riverstones together to make a pot. This ones in Spanish so maybe translate if necessary.

Use a Colander. This ones neat because it already has drainage holes and handles to hang it up by.

In a wicker basket. (Video).

Vertical shoe organizer. I hate those DIYs of this where they put herbs or veggies in these... There's not enough space for herbs or veggies!!! Think smaller, decorative plants that will make your wall or porch just, look nice.

Cinder blocks.

Hypertufa planters. (Video). Hypertufa looks like concrete, but it's a mix of cement + soils and is much lighter! You can make a mold out of almost anything for endless shapes/designs. And the cement mix is much cheaper than one would think!

Recyclable grocery tote bags (video).

UNWAXED Canvas. In this video they bought the canvas fabric, but if you're like me and have lots of paint canvases that you said you would use and never did, just rip off the canvas fabric and sew it into a planter. It's important that you not use waxed canvas (as with some totes) so there's still airflow and drainage. You'll definitely know if it's waxed.

Wine bottles and glass bottles. Ok so I HATE that bottles don't have drainage holes and doing the layers of draining soil has never once worked for me. Here's a video for cutting wine bottles and here's one for making drainage holes in glass.

For bigger space:

Upcycle dresser drawers. The important thing with this one is to water proof it, which you can do with a spray sealant, and drill in some holes. This is what I have some of my veggie garden in and it's doing great :)

A bookshelf laid down. Same concept, make sure you water proof and drill holes. This is my next project coming up soon!

Plastic storage bins. Here's a 44 second video but it's seriously as easy as drilling some holes and filling it. I have 2 different kinds of tomatoes, basil, and 2 bell peppers in my storage bins and they're thriving!

Other plastic containers such as buckets, water jugs, trashcans, rain barrels, and olive barrels all work! Just drill in holes and you're good!

Burlap sacks, much bigger than tote bags. I'm dying to grow a big ol' cabbage in one of these, or maybe a lil lemon tree!

Laundry basket. In this video, she plants strawberries. My grandma has a wide laundry basket rather than tall, and she grows endless turmeric in hers :)

A bigger hypertufa would work too using two cardboard boxes as a mold!

A car tire, but I chose this link for the health considerations it discusses, give it a read before deciding what you want to plant in them.

And of course there's always !!!!!

Hydroponics

Which you can do in practically anything without having to worry about drainage holes.

Other than that, literally anything you can think of can likely be made into a planter as long as you cover the important factors: drainage and water resistance (to avoid mold)

As for catching water, any dish you can fit under will do! If you can lift it, you can also water it in the sink and let it soak out. *whispers but with Hydroponics you don't have to worry about that hmm* and for the bigger bois, such as the ones i use for my veggie garden, there's so much soil that it doesn't really leak to the bottom, it all gets used up.

#oops this took me a while lol #gardening #zero waste tips #zero waste gardening #sustainable gardening #environmentalism #veggie garden #indoor garden #indoor herb garden #plants indoors #green witchcraft #kitchen witchcraft #herbal witchcraft #witchcraft #mine

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tinyshe · 5 years

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Garden Report 19.8.03

Now that the plum is done producing, I will give it what I call a ‘summer cut’. The variety I have, some unknown Burbank similar to a Santa Rosa, will flush out with more growth. When pruning this one, I don’t have to worry like some fruit trees about new wood/ old wood/ what produces fruit. I usually take off half of the new growth but I do look at limb structure and where fruit buds would be. Since I am not allowed on ladders at this time, I will get what I can on the ground and when I have help on Sunday, give over to assistance. I give it a pretty harsh pruning every other or every two years. Some people don’t like pruning plums in winter due to silver leaf. If I have to make a mean cut then we dress if with tree wound seal. I need to make sure that when they took down part of the yellow cherry plum that they did that. I can’t navigate the brush pile yet so I will send my helper over the mound tomorrow to make sure nothing is oozing/weeping.

The season has turned. The air smells like Autumn. The light has that seasonal glow to it. Both the cat and the dog are putting on their winter coats. Berry bushes like blueberries are now casting red throughout the bush. My squirreling instincts have also kicked in but the produce season has left me a bit confused … do I go by the calendar or instincts... or just go with the flow.

Found picture online of the strawberry obelisk I want to build. Need to figure out materials and plants ratio so I don’t come up short or worse, have too many planters cause then I am trying to fill it up with something!! Once I can get the berries out of their beds, I will hopscotch over the artichokes and use that old box for shade tolerant greens like lettuce and spinach since it is so close to the foxwelp that it gets shaded part of the grow season as the limbs droop with fruit.

Making a list of flowers for bees that will work in baskets and not need a lot of care plus long bloom. Will share that when it is complete as it needs to be something done from seed/cuttings which means we need to get a wiggle on in converting the laundry stoop to grow closet (no grow lights, don’t need punks thinking I’m growing pot and break that apart!). I don’t know if we will finish the remodel of the summer house to accommodate.

#catholic gardener #gardening #remodel #summer house #converting stoops to grow closet #summer pruning #change of seasons #cats #dogs #transplants #change up grow beds #shade plants #bee lures #planting for pollinators

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hazelminesims · 6 years

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Rustic Wedding Venue for TS4

Hi all!! It has been awhile but I really needed a rustic wedding location for my sims and decided to just go for it. I love how it turned out and I really want to share it with you all. At first, I wanted to make it CC free, but I wanted to do my best to recreate the vision in my head. Hopefully your sims can have some beautiful events here too!

Tested the lot with my sims and I added 2 doors (in addition to the front entrance). The bb.moveobjects on cheat was used to decorate the main door, so your sims won’t be able to walk through it.

Lot Details

Type: Generic

Size: 40 x 30

Traits: Romantic Aura, Party Place, Sunny Aspect

Rooms: Dining area, Wedding arch indoor with seating, 2 Bathrooms, Kitchen, Dance floor, Dj table

TS4 Packs: Cats & Dogs, City Living, Get Together, Get to Work, Vampires, Dine Out, Outdoor Retreat, Laundry Day Stuff, Toddler Stuff, Backyard Stuff, Perfect Patio Stuff, Luxury Party Stuff, Holiday Celebration

Origin ID: HazelMineSims

// *More photos: [1] [2] [3]

CC Used

Rustic Romance Stuff by Plumbob Tea Society

Cottage Garden Stuff by Plumbob Tea Society [woven rug, lavender tub, wood log planter, greenery wreath, hanging mugs, ethereal ivy wedding arch]

Kitkat's Simporium OMSPs [End table/ Dining+Desk OMSP]

MissTeaQueen's Anye TS2 to TS4 Conversion - Shabby Cottage Bucket with Candles

String of Inspiration - Wall 75% by Omorfi-Mera

Fitting Fridges by Nyloa

Box-O-Storage by ThePlumbobArchitect

Strawberry cupcake by Domi

1K Gift from SJane4Prez [assorted wildflowers]

Leather Bound Books from Hamptons Hideaway by Peacemaker -

Rose Vase by Around the Sims 4

OMSP Shelf by Picture Amoebae

Wedding Pergola + Wedding Table for 4 + Plate and Glasses by Around the Sims 4

Mirror from Hamptons Retreat by Peacemaker

Loose Wreath from Happy Birthday Femme set by Plumbob Tea Society

Wedding cake by Around the Sims 4

Tulips from Oasis Chic Dining by Peacemaker

ECO Living Tulips by Severinka

Hacienda Sink by Simcredible Designs

Recolor of Peacermaker's Hamptons Retreat Bedroom Bench Seat by Cowplant Muffin

Clerestory Window from Vaulted Ranch set by Peacemaker

Keenpea Flooring No. 1 - no longer available for download

Liberated Garden Stuff by Plasticbox

Liberated Desert Plants by Plasticbox

Liberated Get Together Plants

Laundry Day Plants by Brazen Lotus

Flowers in a Can by Litttlecakes

ANBS Rustic Living Deer

Tom’s Very Empty Flowerbox | Modular Plants VI by Plasticbox

Peacemaker's Mid-Century Eclectic Short Margarita Pendant Lamp

Mio Buggybooz baskets

Peacemaker Shaker Kitchen Rangehood

Atwood Dining Wall Light by Peacemaker

Solid Rug Recolors by Saudade Sims

Wood Slat Flooring by Peacemaker

Coordinated Weathered Wood Shingles by Madhox

Pot Single Wall Light Mesh by DOT

*Note: Please turn on bb.moveobjects on to make sure everything stays in its place. I also have the mod for various seating fixes.

* Download Here *

#my cc #ts4 lot #sims 4 lot #s4cc #ts4 wedding #download

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lilkittay · 7 years

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I didn’t clean the two algae tanks (fish tanks) but everything else is done. Laundry, bedroom is clean, bed is changed and made, carpets are mostly vacuumed, moved a piece of furniture that was covered in clutter and needed to be de-cluttered first, watered (most) plants including full baths for all the air plants and good watering for the orchids (that alone took two hours to get through), planted out two hanging baskets and the strawberry planters and probably other things I’m forgetting but it took up most of the day. Now I can enjoy 2-3 hours before bed and being suckered into going in to work early tomorrow.

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fictionary-tales · 4 years

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Excerpts from House Huntress

Here’s a place where we could live together: an apartment in the city, up some concrete steps with a discolored wrought iron railing that’s more likely to impale someone than do any kind of saving and the palms of my hands have the scars to prove it. Yours do not. The building is brick-red, or rain-stained-concrete gray, and the door, though the ivory paint is peeling in places, has a brass knocker and an eye hole for testing whether it’s worth ever opening again once we’re inside. There are some tiny planter boxes you made with your brother – the oldest one who can do things like that, whose name I never remember – and maybe I said I’d grow vegetables but I forget all about that when I see flowers, so instead of half-dead tomatoes we’ve got half-dead snapdragons and African daisies that I am clumsily trying to save after weeks of mistreatment.

There’s a kitchen just big enough to turn around in, everything that came in it already off-white or fake wood overlay, and the countertops are scattered with unorganized half-used glass jars of rosemary, thyme, basil, paprika, and old husks of garlic cloves that were rubbed clean and then forgotten. The cupboards rattle with too many coffee mugs, thrift-store finds that will never match one another and they rattle and clink against each other when you’re trying to select a particular one. The cutlery matches in that it doesn’t, so many knives and forks taken home from assorted twenty-four-hour diners to make up for the ones I keep losing and the ones you accidentally throw away with the leftovers. The fridge has at least two different kinds of non-dairy milk in it at all times, and no meat. It buzzes and groans.

Over the half-wall of the kitchen counter we have cobbled together the furniture we retained from past lives. What was once second-hand is now third-fourth-fifth-hand; at least the stuff that I bring is. You bring the overstuffed powder blue couch I love and this is its first time being co-owned by anyone, or even this far away from the nearest dirt road. Nashville is a cool city the way Austin is a cool city: an oasis of metropolitan tolerance in a desert of fucking bigots. In time the couch will be stained with candle wax and wine and what’s left behind any time you push my skirt up to discover I’ve forgotten to do laundry and so I’ve run out of underwear again. There’s books of poetry by Dickinson and Lowell on a coffee table scratched from cups, bottles, keys, lighters. There’s two poorly done paintings on the wall above the couch, portraits of two girls: one yellow-haired and the other a brunette, dressed in some early twentieth-century pink or blue gowns complete with parasol and over-the-shoulder coquettishness. A palette of faded blues and yellows and greens, the girls have the hollow black eyes of distant dreams. We found them on vacation together and had to save them.

The bedroom is small and the bed is smaller, dressed in lilac and crisp white. There’s a certain throw pillow in the center of other throw pillows that holds a secret, a zipper in the folds of its hemming to keep it. The nightstand beside my side of the bed I found next to the dumpster at my old place and it’s filled with bracelets, multicolored rings, knotted nests of necklaces, and weed in unlabeled bottles. The nightstand on your side of the bed has been in your family for three generations and I don’t know what’s in it. The bathroom smells like your perfume, like a pre-scented sample on a perfume ad insert that comes in any women’s fashion magazine. When I turn the shower on, old love-messages written on the mirror with your finger re-appear like magic.

…

Here is a place we could stay together: an antebellum house in the countryside, maybe close to your family. Close enough that you can walk a dirt path through the dry grass that’s tall as your hips. It’s a path lined with day-glo orange and gold poppies, and purple nettle flowers that sting to touch. You visit your father, your brothers, whenever you want. The middle brother who you’re so worried over all the time despite his being older than you, Angus, he comes over regularly to sit in our cool parlor decorated with see-through white linen curtains where he drinks bourbon and talks about Edna St. Vincent Millay and W. H. Auden and grumblingly refuses to show you or anyone else any of his own recent poetry.

The house is smaller than the one you were raised in, and bigger than any house I’ve ever called home or even been inside for very long. It’s an adjustment for both of us. Outside there are columns that sit beneath the second-story balcony. When we bought the place it was all whitewashed, but since then most of it has been painted a muted pink and I’ve planted ivy and bougainvillea that creeps up the columns in deep greens and explodes across the sides of the house in shades of magenta that refuse to die, despite me not knowing what I’m doing. Errant cats wander the property with dusty brown paws that leave prints across the white planks of the front porch and on the seat of a swing. Light streams in through windows half as tall as I am and onto end tables and decorative shelving to reveal intricate doilies and gold-rimmed porcelain candy bowls, ancient copies of books thick enough to kill a man with if used properly, and glass vases filled with bouquets of wild flowers we both pick for each other on any given weekend.

The ceilings are so high that I can hear you singing to yourself in the kitchen from the other side of the house; your smoky lounge-singer voice that you typically only show off for family Christmas carols now bounces off of support beams to reach me wherever I am. Our guitar in the corner stays tuned and clean and in the evenings I play and you sing, or the other way around, or we take turns. In the kitchen, brass pots and pans hang from above, over a restored-vintage stove, along with hanging bundles of drying herbs: rosemary, sage, basil, lavender. Storage containers of descending size with painted-on sunflowers contain flour, sugar, and rice separated by variety. The freezer is stuffed with mason jars equally stuffed with jam: blackberry, marionberry, raspberry, orange marmalade, strawberry, blueberry, fig. There is one hook for multiple aprons, there is a multitude of decorative dish towels which are separate and different from the actual dish towels and this is true even when used interchangeably like I do on accident (to your chagrin). Coffee grounds and cat hair and the plastic ties from long-gone loaves of sliced bread fall between the gaps in the counter and the stove.

The stairs will never stop creaking. The second floor has endless guest rooms for friends and family to stay in, the kind of family who will never be introduced to your own, the kind that will wake up early and make breakfast for us to say thanks, and then they say it again with their lips and their eyes and their embrace on the way out the door. Our bed is big, queen-sized, with a white iron frame that twists and turns like it grew that way from nature, and the sheets have tiny blue flowers on them the color of your eyes. We cover rings in the wood on the nightstand with squares of pale green linen. Batteries roll around back and forth against silicone inside the drawers, and we’re careful not to be too loud for the neighbors’ sakes, but that is half the fun. On weekends and days when I can’t get out of bed, you close the curtains to the sun, crawl under the covers with me, and we spend all day trying to come up with a good reason to get up.

…

Here is a place where we could grow old together: somewhere forgotten by the sea, away from the dry heat of summer. A house that is wider than it is tall, with new paint and an old garden that we make new again. Everything I plant turns to green. There is sand stuck into the fibers of the welcome mat, and smooth stones that we have collected and arranged into spirals and borders for garden beds keep everything from touching that we do not want touching. The door has more glass than wood on the front, multi-colored and mosaic so when the sun shines through it makes patterns on the floor for our feet to dance in. There is a backyard with a fence so high no one can see into it, except for the sunflowers which stretch up and up and up and over.

Inside there are bare wooden floors that we cover here and there with rugs collected from our worldly travels, purchased from artisans with a smile and many thanks. The furniture we use is purchased in a similar fashion; it is made of sturdy pine and oak, built to last, and stain resistant, with covers and cushions the colors of the ocean outside. The bookshelves hold volumes of poetic verse written by Keats, the fragmented desires of Sappho, biographies on Frida Kahlo, and lamentations of Sylvia Plath. At night the sounds of the waves can be let in or shut out through the many windows, and when it rains the whole house sounds off with the plunking of drops on glass like the pickings of my guitar.

The bay window in the kitchen over the sink holds flowers waiting to be pressed or dried or just picked in haste and then forgotten: violets, little daisies, hydrangea, and lots and lots of lavender. The counter tops are wooden, like you could cut right on them, and there are knife marks to prove it here and there in collections. There’s a china-blue bowl of oranges with only two left. Bulbs of garlic hang in a basket by the sink. An errant smell of sage and sea salt sinks into all our food, and the flecks of soil on the tile near the backdoor can never fully be swept out for good. To drink we make lemonade of all kinds: blackberry, strawberry, raspberry, mint, or water infused with cucumber and lemon, or hot tea with names like Rasperry Zinger and Orange Spice, and Sleepytime for late nights. A glass jar of honey sits on the counter next to the stove and it is always oozing. There is a table for two tucked into the corner, with bare wooden chairs we picked up from antique sales. They don’t match, but it’s hard to tell.

In the bathroom the shower has walls of tall frosted glass and connects to a bath tub deep and wide, soap scum fitting into the corners of the walls and in the grout of the tile. The rim of the tub is littered with half-empty bottles: baby pink, sea-foam green, and pearly white. It is so good for washing the salt from your hair.

There is no guest bedroom. Our bed is four-poster, with lavish fabrics draped around the beams, all indigo and white and cornflower blue. There are so many pillows of similar colors that it takes a concentrated effort to remove them before bed each night and replace them again in the gray mornings that follow. And sometimes we don’t replace them, and sometimes we do. The drawers of the nightstand beside it are stocked and arranged in an arsenal of silicone sexuality that we never worry someone might stumble upon. We are as loud as we like.

In the winter when the wind howls, there’s a blackened fireplace that we bring back to life. It crackles and spits while we turn against one another under the covers. A hamper in one corner is overflowing at all times. There’s a dresser that is taller than it is wide, almost to the ceiling, filled with scarves and summer dresses and sweaters; and, in between the socks and stockings in one of the smaller drawers, a collection of love poetry I’d forgotten I’d written to you. Your vanity holds pearls and perfumes, necklaces on silver hooks like branches worked to resemble a dead tree, and the mirror is pristine and round the way all mirrors ought to be. Sometimes in the evenings before bed, you let me brush your hair in front of it even though you think it’s silly. You sit on that little white wooden bench in front, with me standing behind you so you watch me in the mirror working the brush through your beach-blown curls. You don’t ever have to tell me when I’m hurting you because I already know.

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thecoroutfitters · 5 years

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Written by R. Ann Parris on The Prepper Journal.

Starting, expanding and maintaining a garden can be expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. From developing and increasing soil tilth and fertility to what we grow in and the tools we use, there are plenty of ways to save money. Some of them are handy for saving time, too.

Free Fertilizers

Leaf mold and compost can be done in any sized yard, just about, even without turning to keyhole gardens, worm towers, or tumbling bins that speed the process and keep it compact.

Mow over leaves or rake them up whole, stick them in a bag, and in 3-15 months there’s rich organic matter full of nutrients to serve as powerhouse amendments and mulch. Composting can also be done by digging a trench right in our gardens, covering it as we go.

There are still easier ways to boost our gardens.

We can add coffee and tea right to the surfaces of pots or planters or plants out in larger plots. Leftover brewer’s mash also works, although there’s a bit of a smell. Algae is a powerhouse of nutrients, and can also be collected and spread right on the surface around our plants.

Mulches

Mulching helps us in numerous ways, making soils, crops and our time much more productive. Different types of mulching accomplish different things, but there are freebie and lower-cost options available for almost anyone.

Cardboard from liquor and appliance stores or newspaper and shredded paper we source from recycling bins are excellent weed exclusion barriers for both rows or beds and for walkways.

Grass clippings can form dense mats that also function as a weed barrier. I typically only use them around perennials (I don’t love the decomp and they typically have seed heads by the time I mow). However, others very successfully use them in the garden.

Just poke them with a hay fork or run a weasel over the top (just enough to puncture, not really stirring it), because that mat solidifies much like shredded office paper, and can create a rain/irrigation barrier and anaerobic conditions.

If we’re after lowered irrigation and evaporation, or the ability to water faster, straw, leaves, pine needles, and chipped wood all work well.

If you’re buying either straw or bagged bark mulch, comparison shop locations, and check out alternatives such as shredded and flake animal bedding.

When our local Big Box and smaller stores put “real” bark mulch on sale, it’s typically four or five for $10, working out to be about $1-$1.25 per cubic foot (some are doing bags of 1.75 cu/ft instead of 2 cu/ft now, so watch that, too).

Tractor Supply, Fleet Mills Farm, and others all carry animal bedding at about $6-$8 for 8-10 cubic feet, working out to well under $1 cu/ft.

That pine bedding is less likely to have odd bits of painted furniture and big chunks left in it, too, and is typically heat treated and animal safe, making it a good option for people who worry over chemicals in their gardens.

It’s also light to carry and haul, even though it’s tight packed, is less messy to spread with less dust/mud in it, seems less attractive to slugs and ants, and eliminates the big chunks that poke holes in the bags.

Buying in loose “bulk” loads by the bucket, pickup bed, tarp-lined trunk, or dump-truck drop-off can also help lower costs if no DIY options are available.

They’ll all last differing amounts of time by climate and soil health (the happier and more active our soil biology, the faster our mulches get incorporated into the O layer).

Woody types and whole leaves last longest; green leaves and grass clippings the shortest. Newspaper and cardboard typically fall in the middle. The depth we use also affects lifespan – deeper layers last longer.

Tool Shopping

Depending on what we already have, tools can really add to the cost of setting up a garden shed. Buying secondhand can significantly reduce outlay.

Many pawn shops have sections with our basic construction tools (see if you can get a 7-10 day if not a 30-day return/exchange/credit guarantee on power tools). Some thrift stores will also periodically carry garden-oriented and basic household-yard management tools, but it’s usually worth calling instead of popping in to find out

Flea markets, yard sales, and estate sales are even more likely to yield everything from our rakes and spades to clippers and pruners.

While shopping for wheelbarrows or garden carts and cultivators or watering cans, repeatedly scan the full materials list for anything we’re building, and stay open to suggestion.

Pre-owned step ladders, carpenter’s squares, levels, and somebody’s can/jar of mixed nails or screws can seriously reduce our Lowes/ACE/Walmart bill. High-test fishing line and rotten electrical cords can form trellises and plant ties instead of screws/nails or cord, sheets can be slit for plant ties or used as frost blankets, loose-woven curtains become bug barriers, and old hoses work as row cover supports or drip irrigation lines, further reducing the cost of our builds, expansions, and upgrades.

Internet Hunting & Gathering

We can source all sorts of materials for gardens without paying a penny. Check classifieds for yard sales, too – near the end of the day and the next day, many become open to deep discounts and there’s a fair chance of curbside pickups.

All sorts of furniture comes apart to help us build beds or serve as stakes. In other cases there are blankets, curtains, or clothing that works as mulch, hoses and tubing we can repurpose, or specific tools for breaking ground, building, or maintaining our veggies.

Bed frames, old bikes, and mattress springs become trellises or fencing. Canoes, bathtubs, sinks, and totes can be planters or rain “barrels”. Laundry baskets, clothing and shoe organizers, lamp shades, cookie jars, bookcases, and even boots can also serve as planters.

Baby pools, trampolines, buckets, and pallets have entire articles and whole websites devoted to their usefulness, many of which apply to the yard and garden.

Whatever we’re looking for, hit the internet to see if there’s a same-shaped item that can be had simply for detouring on our way to work or while we’re out shopping and running around anyway.

Trash to Tasty Treasures

While we’re poking around upcycling, don’t forget to eyeball recycling bins and broken goodies that can have a very different life. Hollow bed frames or busted lamps can the watering tubes for sub-irrigated planters, but so can plastic bottles.

There’s a million and five ways to turn former food containers into both irrigation assists and small container gardens for herbs, companion flowers, strawberries, greens, and peas.

Everything from puppy-chewed wicker baskets to badly worn jeans can be planted in, and curtains, blankets, or badly stained and ripped towels or clothes all work as weed exclusion cloth in our gardens, or can be rigged to provide shade or frost protection, keep mosquitoes out of our water catchment, or serve as wicks and water sinks for our planters and beds.

Sticks & Saplings

If we don’t generate our own, chances are, somewhere nearby somebody is pruning trees or there’s a road verge, power line cut, or abandoned pasture in early stages of succession. Early succession means small saplings that are nice and straight, and pruning means smaller branches we can use to fill in around them.

With those offerings, we can build beds several different ways, provide supports for our plants, and fence it all in.

With smaller, supple sticks, we can also make squirrel and bird exclusions and frames to support netting around brassicas and berries, or form the hoops for season extenders.

(Bamboo is also a good one if you see any driving around somewhere – don’t plant it.)

Those freebie sticks can also be easily cobbled into frames for curbside pickup windows and storm door screens, creating cold frames and insect exclusions for beds and rows.

Cheap Out to Do More

There’s plenty to spend money on when it comes to preparedness. Starting, expanding, and maintaining gardens are only part of the draw on our finances and time. From our soil amendments to garden tools and equipment, taking a frugal route can alleviate some of the inputs required, so we can produce more groceries, faster, and with less stress to our budgets.

The “fugly” solutions can be of issue for some, although there’s usually a relatively inexpensive fix (just about anything can be painted and-or tied up in old Goodwill or yard sale sheets/curtains, or surrounded by old house paneling).

Sourcing lower-cost items and learning to see things anew has other advantages as well, especially for preppers. Both personal crises and national/international issues can upset usual supply lines. Training ourselves to accomplish our goals with whatever’s at hand is a pretty good life skill across the board, and even handier in tough times.

These are just a handful of ways we can apply that to our gardens, from secondhand shopping to freebies. Even just gardening, there are plenty of others. Before spending, run some searches to see how others are saving money on the same project.

Be sure to check out The Prepper Journal Store and follow The Prepper Journal on Facebook!

The post Survival Gardening: Cutting Costs appeared first on The Prepper Journal.

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