10 Tips for Budget-Friendly Gardening

10 Tips for Budget-Friendly Gardening

As inflation continues to rise, managing expenses in daily life has become increasingly challenging. In this article, we present ten practical tips for gardening smartly while optimizing your budget and making more responsible consumption choices!

✍️ Milena Bauchet • 📸 Canva, Jardinot and CNJP

Table of Contents

🌱 Sort and Harvest Your Seeds 🫴 Utilize a Seed Library 🌿 Multiply Your Plants 🪴 Opt for Second-Hand Greenery! 👋 Visit a Plant Resourcing Center 🎁 Enter Competitions 🍏 Use Your Local Press 🥕 Cook with Zero Waste 🏡 Garden in Public Spaces 🧑‍🌾 Join a Family or Community Garden

Seed harvesting and exchange workshop at Jardinot school garden in Albi, October 2024

🌱 Sort and Harvest Your Seeds

Over the years, you may have collected numerous seed packets that you haven't fully utilized. The first step to saving money this gardening season is to sort through them! Take the time to optimize your storage to avoid waste.

You can also harvest and reuse the seeds from your annual plants. This accessible and cost-effective technique requires following a few basic principles: select the right varieties (non-hybrid), choose healthy and productive plants, harvest seeds at the right time (when the fruit is ripe or the flower is dry), and ensure they are properly dried for optimal storage.

Jardinot regularly hosts gardening workshops on this topic! Additionally, our YouTube tutorial on creating your own paper seed collection or storage packets is available below.

🫴 Utilize a Seed Library

Similar to a book exchange, a seed library consists of an outdoor cabinet or shelf where you can donate seed packets and cuttings you wish to share. In return, you can take seeds of varieties that interest you, contributed by other gardeners!

The advantage is that you often find local varieties suited to your environment and regional biodiversity. This also helps prevent the loss of certain heirloom seeds by keeping them in circulation. If you are part of a family or community garden, have you considered setting up a seed library to foster cooperation among gardeners?

A propagation workshop led by Didier, a Jardinot volunteer, at the Climate Academy in Paris

🌿 Multiply Your Plants

Cuttings are a straightforward technique that allows you to multiply plants endlessly, saving money or providing plants for friends. If you missed our last workshop, check our schedule or subscribe to our newsletter for upcoming demonstrations and activities.

Eager to get your hands dirty right away? Discover the technique of air layering, which enables you to propagate trees, with our YouTube tutorial from Jardinot!

In recent years, many donation, exchange, or resale platforms have emerged (you might be familiar with Gens de Confiance?). New websites and apps dedicated to plant exchanges among "plant lovers", like Meet for Branch, are also on the rise! This anti-waste app serves as a space for exchanges among enthusiasts, fostering connections among residents of the same neighborhood.

At Jardinot, volunteers regularly organize plant swaps among gardeners, aiming to gather and freely exchange plants produced in their gardens while enjoying a friendly moment with fellow plot owners!

These spaces (or rather greenhouses) are filled with unsold or abandoned plants waiting to be adopted by motivated gardeners for a second life! You can find various species at low prices, allowing you to indulge while also benefiting the planet by rescuing plants from landfills. Ready to embrace second-hand greenery?

🎁 Enter Competitions

Nothing ventured, nothing gained! By participating in competitions, you might win a prize and save significantly. For example, at Jardinot, we give away a book with each new issue of our magazine La Vie du Jardin: five winners are drawn!

Each year, our members also have the opportunity to enter the National Vegetable Garden Competition, organized by Jardinot and its partners, rewarding responsible gardeners who promote environmental preservation and biodiversity in their gardens with numerous prizes. For more information, visit the competition's dedicated page.

Grand Prix Ex-Aequo Coup de cœur du jury du Concours National des Jardins Potagers 2024, Lisa TOURSCHER at Husseren-Wesserling (Haut-Rhin)

Have you had a bumper crop? If you're looking for a way to utilize your surplus fruits and nuts, visiting your local press is a great idea: you can turn your harvest into homemade apple juice, grape juice, wine, or walnut oil. This way, you can savor the fruits of your labor and share them with loved ones during the holidays!

“With 100 kilos of apples, you can produce 70 liters of apple juice. The cost per liter? Between €1 and €1.30, three times cheaper than quality artisanal juice bought commercially. Sure, you provide the raw material, but there's nothing quite like drinking the fruits of your garden!” Julian Bugier and Valérie Heurtel*

🥕 Cook with Zero Waste

As a child, my grandmother used to make her famous radish greens soup, a true delight! Once again in vogue, zero-waste cooking is an excellent way to make the most of vegetable scraps or other edible plant “waste” to create delicious savory or sweet dishes that will surprise your guests: vegetable chips, carrot greens pesto, vegetable-based cakes… To get started, join one of our workshops with our volunteers!

🏡 Garden in Public Spaces

Do you live in a city? Check with your local council, which may grant you a permit to green and even provide a custom-designed container for your urban plantings. This initiative is flourishing in many cities across France, significantly enhancing the atmosphere of certain neighborhoods, especially when neighbors spread the word!

🧑‍🌾 Join a Family or Community Garden

Is there a community or family garden near you? Having a plot to grow your own vegetables can supplement your grocery shopping and often lead to complete self-sufficiency in fresh produce year-round. This can quickly represent savings of several hundred euros per month, a significant amount given the current context.

Moreover, joining an amateur gardening association often provides numerous benefits:

• discounts at partner horticultural businesses;
• exchange of gardening tips among neighboring plot owners;
• free participation in gardening workshops or nature activities to enhance your skills;
• access to educational resources, such as the magazine La Vie du Jardin from Jardinot, etc!

Potager at Jardin Jardinot in Tarbes (65)

We hope these ten ideas will help you save significantly while enjoying the pleasures of gardening!

If you’re interested in discovering 95 more ideas to apply at home, work, while traveling, or on vacation, we recommend reading the book 100 Ideas for Spending Less and Living Better by Julian Bugier and Valérie Heurtel, published by First (2024) – which inspired this article's writing.

And for more practical gardening tips and readings, consider subscribing to our newsletter l’Actu Jardinot!