IN these columns each week there are tips on making your gardening life a little easier.
Tips on how you can save money doing something one way, rather than another.
These days it certainly seems a lot harder to make ends meet with food and service costs seeming to be at an all-time high.
So, how do we save money on gardening?
Well one sure fire way is to grow the vegetables you like from seed, rather than buying seedlings from the shops.
Plant costs are passed on to the consumer, mainly from wages and service costs to the grower.
There should be little cost associated with seeds used.
So, with a little time and effort on your part, you can grow a lot of what you like to eat from your own seed, thereby saving heaps of money.
Not only is it a pleasure to watch your plants grow but knowing that in the end the food we are eating has not had chemicals used and is not forced to ripen quicker than usual.
Now there are two ways of doing this, first by buying your seed from the shop in packets, this may cost a little to start, but seed should last around two years.
Second, takes a little more time but it is worthwhile trying.
Tomatoes are the first that come to mind, everyone loves tomatoes, they can be eaten raw or cooked as desired.
Next time you buy tomatoes from the store, save the seed from just one tomato, the seed inside will keep for a whole year.
Even a small tomato will give you a yield of about 35 plants over the year, making it an all-time favourite.
Just scoop out the seed and separate from the bulk that surrounds the seed and dry off with paper towels.
Place them in an envelope and mark what sort of tomato and the date.
Try growing seed from vegetables you buy each week, some will work, others may not, however there are plants that can be grown from cuttings, like sweet potato and some herbs and parsley and of course, my favourite, pineapple.
You could also be lucky with dragon fruit seed; however, a piece of a plant will do the trick.
Any seed of a food plant could be tried, even lemon seed will sprout.
By buying a few lettuce seedlings and allowing one to seed, will give you hundreds of plants to continue the growing cycle.
There are a number of plants that allow you to grow again, another easy one is to let your onions, potatoes, garlic, chokos go to seed and just plant.
Planting in the right season is important as some plants revel in the heat while others prefer the cold areas.
And don’t throw away your pumpkin seeds, they will last a long time as well, dried and stored.
Maybe today, this column has given a small insight into what is possible to save some money, get the kids interested and maybe, just maybe, gardening becomes your hobby of choice.
