Frugal Gardening

'Tis time to get on with 'garden' things.

Junior is looking at which flowers she would like to grow from seed. She is, as I've mentioned before, a flower person. She just truly LOVES them. Yesterday she forked out some of her pocket money to buy some tulips, which are now proudly displayed in her room:o) I do think she may be a future flower shop owner..the Jane Packer of Hillbilly Land. So, seed selection is the order of the day. A bit of Latin, too as I want her to learn the correct botanical names.

Me, I'm trying to think of frugal ways to get some raised beds going. I don't, have materials, or money, for the traditional, expensive planks of wood/railway sleepers so am improvising. lol I have bagged some wooden pallets for the 'yet to be constructed' compost bin but they'll be a while before landing here.

Anyway, I've eyed up all and sundry and am going to recycle my bed base. Bed is knackered (divan base type of thingy which I hate!!). So, instead of taking the base to the tip, we are going to use it as a raised bed..well, there are two parts to the base, so I have two raised beds!! Just waterproof the sides and fill with soil and veggie plantlings and away to grow! Maybe I can figure out how to polytunnel one of them on the cheap, to grow more tender stuff? Yay! Where can you get tough enough polythene for this?

I've also got a rattan wardrobe that has seen better days and that would be a super, posh-looking raised bed, too. But bro thinks it's too nice for that! (I'll sneak it into the garden when he's not looking. lol)

It was Geoff Hamilton who got me interested in this stuff. I used to watch Gardener's World religiously, Friday evenings:o) Shame he's not around anymore. Nice, softly spoken bloke:o) Wonder if he realised how many ordinary people like me he inspired to get off arse and garden?

Bob Flowerdew has some good organic ideas re gardening, but I went off him when I read one of his articles where he said that he 'feeds' his chickens alcohol-soaked food (presumably to chill them out alot) before chopping their heads off!!