Frugal Gardening Tips

[sleepyowl]

onion tea in a spray bottle is good for aphids & one part human urine too 4 parts water is a good tomato feed

[niknik]

Onion Tea????


how fdo you make that?

[okra]

onion tea in a spray bottle is good for aphids & one part human urine too 4 parts water is a good tomato feed

First time that I have seen anybody mention the human urine feed for tomatoes - is it good for cucumbers and peppers too?

[Berti]

and why exactly is the human urine a good feed for tomatoes? whats in it that makes it so?

[boboff]

Bert, I think they are taking the P......

[wulf]

Urine contains nitrogen (in the form of urea), potassium, phosphates and other trace minerals. All in all, very beneficial (although dilution is recommended for use on plants).

Bob Flowerdew refers to it as Personally Initiated Soil Stimulant!

Wulf

[pops]

[red]

Best Way to Garden on the cheap?

Buy your spuds and Carrots and Onions in a shop!

Seed potatoes £2 kilo, Shop bought spuds 27p a kilo.......

Only Joking of cource.

you say that.. but we have come to conclusion its not financially viable to grow our own maincrop. its wet and mild here, and we always seem to get blight, so we cant save our own seed potatoes. we can buy a 25 klio sack of spuds that are grown locally, and sold from local shop for 6 quid.

we will grow earlies though cos they do make financial sense and taste great too.

[red]

frugal tips:

swap plants and seeds with family, friends and neighbours

we dont use *any* pesticides.. homemade or otherwise. we slug pick at night by torchlight. and rub the eggs off cabbage plants by hand. and we grow loads and loads and loads of the cabbage family.

save seeds from previous years - peas and beans dont work well but the cabbage family beetroot etc work fine.

i dont feed my tomatoes any tomato food. we add a layer of compost (from the compost heap) to the green house border and that seems to work fine.

i do buy new seeds, but work out the sense of it. its either because the taste is so much better, or because its an economy. often both. a packet of sweetcorn seeds will be about 2 quid - for about 35 seeds. . you would only have to harvest 2 cobs to get your money back on that. generally growing your own will always be cheaper.

[*stuffed*]

Only grow stuff you like.

It sounds obvious but I have, in the past, grown stuff that I would never eat much of just because it was easy to grow lol

[okra]

Only grow stuff you like.

It sounds obvious but I have, in the past, grown stuff that I would never eat much of just because it was easy to grow lol

Jerusalem Artichokes spring to mind - I like them but nobody else in the family did

[sarahkeast]

Not free, but I am very happy with the soil warming cable I brought last year. Use it with sand in a couple of large deep trays it works as well as a fancy heated propagator, for a fraction of the cost.

I agree that compost is the biggest expense/hassle these days, just cant make enuf, even with a stables just up the road.