Simple ways to save money while you garden
Every fall, millions of homeowners repeat the same ritual: rake the leaves, stuff them into bags, drag them to the curb, and wonder how another pile appeared overnight. But what if you simply stopped? The answer is more complicated than the popular advice to either “leave the leaves” or remove every last one, because leaving…
That automatic watering schedule that kept your tomatoes alive through July may be doing too much work by late September. Cooler days, longer nights, weaker sunlight, and seasonal rain can all change how quickly moisture disappears from garden soil, yet it’s easy to keep watering simply because that’s what you’ve done all summer. Too much…
That wrinkled sweet potato sitting in the back of the pantry may look like compost-bin material, especially once little shoots start poking through the skin. But those sprouts are also evidence that the sweet potato is still capable of producing a living plant, so we decided to see what would happen if we planted one…
That perfectly shaped mountain of mulch around your tree might make the yard look professionally landscaped, but it could be doing more harm than good. Mulch is genuinely beneficial when used correctly because it conserves soil moisture, moderates temperature, suppresses weeds, and protects trees from lawn equipment. The problem starts when homeowners keep adding fresh…
You’ve probably seen the kitchen hack: instead of throwing away the bottom of a head of romaine lettuce, put it in water and supposedly grow yourself more lettuce for free. It sounds almost too good to be true, especially when the original lettuce has already been eaten and the stump was headed for the compost…
The tomato plants may be fading and the summer squash may have stopped producing, but that doesn’t necessarily mean your vegetable garden is finished for the year. Fall is an opportunity to squeeze another round of food from soil, containers, and garden beds you’ve already paid to prepare. Many cool-season vegetables tolerate frost, mature quickly,…
The last tomato has been picked, the dead vines are gone, and your raised garden bed is finally empty. It may seem logical to leave the soil alone until spring, but bare soil doesn’t necessarily benefit from spending several months exposed to rain, wind, weeds, and repeated temperature changes. Covering an empty bed can help…
You can spend $100—or considerably more—on a beautiful young tree, carefully drive it home, dig a hole, and unintentionally create a problem before you’ve even put the shovel away. The mistake costs nothing: planting the tree too deeply. Digging the planting hole too deep the most common mistake when planting a tree. However, improper depth…
There is something dangerously tempting about the clearance rack at a garden center. A perennial that cost $15 in May is suddenly $3, its flowers are gone, half its leaves are brown, and the frugal gardener in you starts calculating how much money you could save if it survives. Sometimes that ugly little clearance plant…