How to Keep Down The Cost of Gardening in Retirement

Here’s a hobby that many of us up the ante on when we stop work. To be honest I wasn’t very green fingered in my earlier life. In fact, as a singleton I chose my house with its small backyard so that it would be low maintenance and wouldn’t be a space where I could kill plants.

But then my partner Paul, a keen gardener, moved in during COVID lockdown. He missed having outdoor space to tend so got an allotment in his name. I was roped in to help, caught the bug and got another plot of my own. Now I’m pretty hooked on growing my own fruit and veggies and the occasional flower to attract the bees.

Now here’s a hobby that can be enjoyed by anyone whatever their budget. Sure if you’re going to have a professionally landscaped space and buy all your supplies from fancy garden centres you can spend a packet. But if you’re thrifty like us it can be a pretty cheap hobby especially if you offset your costs with the value of all that produce. Here’s some of the things that we do to keep the costs down.

Freebies

There are plenty of freebies to be had in the gardening community. We’re a generous bunch. I’ve acquired lots of things for my allotment that I haven’t paid a penny for. My list includes two greenhouses, a water butt, lots of tools, three compost bins, more plant pots that you can shake a stick at, a wheelbarrow, a redcurrant bush, manure, wood chippings for mulch and to make paths. I’ve found t Each year I also swap seeds and plants with my allotment neighbours.

Many of my finds have been when others are giving up their allotment plots. They’re happy for their stuff to go to a good home. I’ve found freebies in people’s gardens that they’re giving away and on Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree too. My grubbing around, as my partner calls it, has saved thousands of pounds.

Growing From Seed

I rarely buy plants from a nursery or garden centre. They’re so expensive! If I can grow them from seed I do that instead. It literally saves hundreds of pounds each year. Saving seeds after harvesting some of my veggies is an even more thrifty approach. I could have free borlotti beans for years and years.

Propagation

I’m fascinated by propagation but no very good at taking cuttings. It’s a skill I want to develop in the future. But I have been successful in splitting rhubarb and dividing up soft fruit plants. As a raspberry cane comes in at about a fiver at our local nursery I reckon I’ve saved myself hundreds of pounds.

Seed Swapping

You sometimes get more seeds in a packet than you could possibly ever use. So why not share them with a friend? You never know you might get given some back. There’s also properly organised events for seed swapping. Just do a search to find ones that are local to you.

Composting

Onto a little passion of mine. I’ve written a separate post about composting and the number of bins that I have seems to multiply on an annual basis. I didn’t think that ir was a moneysaving exercise, just a properly ecological thing to do with our plant and food waste.

And then, last year, I ran out of my own compost and needed some to fill my newly made strawberry planters (see below!) I spent £30-40 on commercially produced compost and still had to mix it with soil from the plot. Having said that the plants are doing very nicely indeed in their second season.

Cheap Compost Bins and Water Butts

As I’ve already mentioned I’ve sourced free compost bins. But I’ve also bought a couple from my council. Many local authorities around the UK provide both compost bins and water butts at a discount. It’s a win-win situation. It encourages water conservation within an area and means that there’s a bit less rubbish that needs to be collected, And while we’re on the topic of those water butts remember that all that water collected means a saving on household bills. Rainwater is free water needs to be your mantra.

End of Season Bargains

Remember those fancy nurseries that I mentioned earlier? They’re a favourite place to take the oldies for lunch even if we don’t do much spending in the actual retail area. But we do find an occasional bargain, normally at the end of the planting season. I’ve found cheap ginger and potatoes before that were at a price that was too good to miss.

Growing from the Supermarket

There’s a guy on my allotment who grows quinoa successfully from the regular packets that you can buy from Sainsbury’s. Now I haven’t been as ambitious as that but I do experiment every so often. We grew some wonderful multi-coloured cherry tomatoes from seeds gleaned from the centre of fruit that I brought on holiday. I just rubbed a tomato in a plant pot filled with fertiliser and got about fifty little plants from each. There were lots to give away to friends too.

Using What You Have

These are those strawberry planters that I was talking about. During one of my scavenging trips I picked up some water butts. Alas they were leaky so I repurposed them into these. The cutting in half caused no physical damage but I had a badly sprained wrist caused by kick back from the drill that I used to make the holes in the side. Those strawberries better be worth it.

As I look around there’s quite a bit that has been repurposed. I use clear plastic drinks bottles as little propagators, air filled parcel packing to keep seedlings warm and old stain remover containers make good slug traps filled with a bit of beer.

Cheaper Landscaping

We’re in the process of re-landscaping our backyard on a budget after some drastic measures to control the existing plant life. The former owners planted a eucalyptus tree and masses of bamboo. It look like they were trying to set up the national collection of invasive plants! I had tree surgeons in to deal with the tree just after I moved in a decade ago but I’d buried my head in the sand about the troublesome, invasive bamboo. We’ve tackled it over the last couple of years. Unfortunately it’s taken some hefty herbicide which I don’t like using but sometimes needs much.

I hope to show off my little haven when it’s done but we’ve already built raised beds from reclaimed stone that we salvaged from a knocked down wall. A local stonemason took the rest and saved us costs of skip hire. Of course we’re be doing the work ourselves with help from friends who we swap favours with.

We’ve also saved money by shopping around for our paving slabs. Indian sandstone from a local supplier was less than half the price that it was from national DIY stores and builders merchants. We’ve also managed to rescue some of the more benign plants from the old garden including a beautiful palm, a bay tree and an agapanthus. Rescuing these mature beasties has saved us a pretty penny.

Disclaimer

This post contains links to companies and organisations just because I’m happy with the products or services that they supply or I’m spreading the word about what they do. There may also be affiliate links to Amazon for books and other items that I am personally recommending. If you decide to make a purchase from them, I might get a little bit of commission at no cost to you.