Transcript for part 2
Lauren (00:05.902)
Today we are going to finish our budgeting in the garden episodes. Not that we'll never mention how to save money in the garden again, but for now this is our list.
Ellyn (00:27.767)
If you missed the first half of this series, go back and listen to it. I will also post a link to it in our show notes for this episode. So let's move right into it.
Lauren (00:29.984)
Yeah, tip number 12, picking up where we left off. Propagating existing plants. So I've seen this done several times, especially with tomatoes. And I don't know if you've ever done this, Ellen, but you can break a sucker quote unquote off of a tomato and plant it.
Ellyn (00:45.879)
and the sucker is when you when you have a tomato plant you'll have the main leader and then you'll have a little branch that comes off the side and then right in that little armpit, upside down armpit, will grow another little branch. So there will be two branches coming out of the same spot. The one in the middle is called the sucker and you can leave it and eventually it will grow tomatoes or you can cut it off. I generally cut off most of mine and I have made them grow roots and similarly to plants coming out to tomato plants coming up on their own. They're going to be a little bit behind your main plants just because they're so little. But they will eventually bear fruit, especially if your season is a little bit longer. But even in my zone, I've had them bear fruit. They'll never be quite as productive.
Lauren (01:54.702)
If you're a little short on tomatoes or if maybe something happened to one of your plants or you just decide that you want more, it's actually pretty easy to get more from the same plant by doing that. And you can just look it up on YouTube, tomato suckers, and it'll show you a picture of what they look like. You can look it up on Google. There's lots of examples of that.
Ellyn (02:37.269)
And everyone kind of has their own feelings about suckers. Some people are religious about cutting them off because they feel like it takes life from the main plant. Other people are really just about leaving them on because you're cutting off a part of your plant that would eventually produce tomatoes. So you know, you can do your own research and decide what you want. The one thing that you might want to think about is if you're growing determinate tomatoes. If you're growing determinate tomatoes, you may not want to cut those off because once they set fruit, that's all the fruit they're going to set. So if you go cutting off some of your flower buds, you're actually denying yourself future tomatoes because they won't set anymore.
Lauren (03:30.048)
But this is something that you could think about with lots of things that grow in your garden. For example, I actually bring back my rosemary from the previous year by cutting off a piece of it and just saving it inside all year long. Sometimes my rosemary that's planted in the ground comes back, but sometimes not. If it's a really cold harsh winter, it dies. So by keeping some of it alive inside all year long, I always have some. So I don't have to buy it again. Yeah.
Ellyn (04:13.139)
No. And a lot of those herbs are super easy to root. Basil is another one that's really good for rooting and you can do the same thing with it. I think basil is a little more finicky. I have trouble keeping basil alive in my house because I think I keep it too cold. I've always just assumed.
Lauren (04:26.158)
It is. It means more light too.
Ellyn (04:42.642)
Okay, maybe that's it. Maybe it's that mine doesn’t have enough light, but Rosemary is a really good example of one that's easy to keep alive through the winter. Set it in a halfway sunny window sill and you'll be able to plant that bad boy right back in your garden in the spring.
Lauren (04:52.558)
Yep. And then it'll be nice and healthy.
Ellyn (05:08.208)
Number 13, dump old potting soil into your garden or compost. So when you're done with your flowers for the year, particularly if you have really nice potting soil, dump that right in your garden and it will help to, for my garden, it helps to lighten the soil because I have kind of heavy soil. Potting soil is nice and light, so if you have heavy soil, it's going to lighten it up and, you know, make it easier for your roots to get down through it the following year. So I always dump my old spent potting soil, if I don't save it for the next year, which sometimes I do that too. But if it's just completely spent, I throw that in the garden or the compost. Good things happen. Yep, for sure.
Lauren (06:13.902)
Yep, alternatively you could put it in your compost. Tip number 14 is to choose perennials, which this is in particular is one of my favorite ideas. I never plant any flowers in my garden that aren't perennials. And for anyone that doesn't know, a perennial is just something that comes back every single year. Some perennials or some flowers aren't perennials, but they re -seed really well. Sure, but I think like Black Eyed Susan's reseed rather than...
Lauren (07:12.878)
Are they actual perennials? I'm not sure.
Ellyn (07:13.425)
I'm not sure I can answer that. I know that you can plant the seeds, but I would have said that the root stays alive and the plant comes back from the root, but I'm not sure.
Lauren (07:24.91)
But there are a lot of things that reseed, like, I know my lettuce anyway, it's not the root structure that's staying alive, it's the seeds that are coming back and bringing it back every year. And it's the same with things like fruit. So any kind of trees that you plant that are fruit trees, of course, that's going to be a perennial. You won't have to plant that again. berries, raspberries, things like that. They'll come back every year.
Ellyn (08:08.399)
and quite a number of herbs will come back too. Stuff like thyme, sage, and this is in my zone, so they would certainly come back in a warmer zone. I've had several varieties of thyme come back. If you want to just be happy when you walk out in the garden, plant yourself some lemon thyme. It's just Beautiful stuff. It smells so nice. All you have to do is run your hands through it and it just smells like lemons. I love this stuff. Plant some, What else, chives will come back radishes will reseed themselves Kale is a good one. That'll come back for a couple of years and Just today. I took a picture of my Swiss chard. I have a quarter inch leaf of Swiss chard in my garden. I'm so excited. That'll probably make a social media page in a day or two. I just love it. It's so cute.
Lauren (09:12.846)
to go out and look in the garden but there's there's lots of things that come back year after year what what's that radish that dad got that now we both have to yeah that and it's huge that makes like a massive radish
Ellyn (09:40.718)
Dicon. Those are phenomenal. Yes. If you want a two pound radish, plant yourself some daikons. They're just these massive radishes and they're so delicious. Anyway, you want to cook them. You can roast them. You can throw them in salads. Our mom fermented them last year and that was delicious. So good.
Ellyn (10:11.854)
So tip number 15 mulch wisely. And really what this is about is what you have access to. If you have access to free wood chips then use free wood chips and you lucky person you I'm so jealous. But if you don't have access to wood chips or mulch then use what you do have. Use Leaves. In my family, we have huge maples in our yard. So we use a lot of leaf mulch because it's what we have. So much more than we could ever possibly use. These trees are massive and drop hundreds of pounds of leaves every year. And so we use a lot of leaf mulch. You can use straw if you have access to that, especially if you can get some of that’s nicely composted down, that's really good. I would caution against maybe using pine needles just because of the tannins in it can cause, I think it's tannins, can cause problems with your pH. So you maybe wanna be a little bit more cautious with that, but use what you have access to.
Lauren (11:17.902)
You can so from what I know with pine needles you just need to be cautious about what you put it around so sometimes I like when I live down south. There were people that put it around everything in their whole yard without any trepidation at all. And something about the way that it broke down, the negative side effects were gone by the time that it fully broke down in the soil. Pine needles take forever to break down. But I know some veggies don't like the acid level That is in pine straw so Just look it up Before you start using pine straw and I would also caution
Ellyn (12:30.504)
I was going to say some things really like pine straw, like, for instance, blueberries like a higher acid level. So for me, I always put pine needles around my blueberry bushes. But I haven't around other stuff because I'm a little more cautious about it. But yeah, some things really like it. What were you going to say?
Lauren (12:47.214)
Grass hay is another thing that you can do, but again, you want to be a little bit more cautious with it because you might be inadvertently putting weeds in your garden, which is there are ways like I will lay my stuff.
Ellyn (13:00.231)
Mm hmm.
Lauren (13:15.886)
out on the sidewalk and if you let it sit in the kind of baking sun for a few days, the, and I've just read this, the seed is killed. Actually, it's best not to let your grass go to seed. But now if you're just not there as a person, then yeah, if you lay it out and just let it kind of.
Ellyn (13:24.258)
Huh, interesting.
Lauren (13:44.014)
I think it actually, now that I think about it, it was more than a few days. It was a few months. But it kind of just cooks off the bad stuff and then you can go ahead and use it. And I have, without negative effect that I could tell, I honestly have kind of a weed problem in my garden anyway. So. Because I don't use any like weed killer in the garden. I just pull weeds and put things over weeds and try and pretend they're not there and you know that kind of thing. Right.
Ellyn (14:19.009)
Pretend it isn't as weedy as it is. And I do too. So I think it's a, if you are natural gardening naturally, you're going to have more problems with pests and weeds because it's their natural And so you, you have to fight these things a little bit harder if you're gardening naturally. So, I mean, if you use Roundup, then you're not going to have a problem with weeds, but of course you're not also going to have any vegetables. So, if you did get any vegetables, you're not going to want to eat them because you put Roundup down. So it is a, definitely a trade -off. when gardening is, if you want to do it as natural as possible, you are going to fight some of these problems. And it's just the way it is.
Lauren (15:01.838)
Or you might as well just get vegetables at the store. Yup. DIY your garden decor. Or ask for it for presents. Happy anniversary. I got you another light.
Ellyn (15:47.68)
Thanks. I'm a big believer of DIY garden decor. I love to do stuff like this. And it's just more satisfying, I think, too, that I made that myself.
Lauren (15:53.838)
Yep. What are some of the things that you've made?
Ellyn (16:17.28)
My favorite thing, and I know I've said it before, is my garden trellis. I love it. And it's just a calf panel that I have bent over and stuck in my raised garden. And I put flowers and peas up one side usually, and then...the other side I've grown cucumbers and more flowers and I just love it. That's my favorite thing that I've done. How about you?
Lauren (16:42.958)
Yep. I don't really do it. I am not really a garden decor person. Utilitarian. Yeah, we've talked about this before.
Lauren (17:03.31)
There’s ideas for gardening decor are all over the internet. The DIY garden decor. So if you are a person that loves some decoration, and actually I think I'm gonna do this this year with the kids, because I love to get them involved in the garden. And of course, they're still kind of at the point right now where they'd rather play outside or make something, then they would grow something. Growing something is a little slow for most kids. So making something for the garden is still something that's really fun but has an immediate effect instead of having to wait for seeds to come up.
Ellyn (18:06.368)
One of my favorite things that my kids ever did for me, with the help of my husband, they bought a big pot, maybe an Ollie's, like one of the really big ones, and put their handprints all over it and their names, and gave it to me for Mother's Day or my birthday. And I love that thing. And it was completely their idea. And it's something that I just, I so enjoy. I get it out every year and I protect it during the winter so it'll last longer. And it just makes me so happy because their hands are a lot bigger now than when they did that. And so they're just so cute and little. I love it.
Lauren (18:45.55)
That's fun. Our next one is tip number 17, community gardening. Now I've seen this all over. I've seen it in more urban areas where they have a big plot of just available land and they have it sectioned off so that anyone in the neighborhood who wants to have a garden can go and have one in that place. I've also seen it at churches quite often, which I love this new trend of churches to have gardens and on their land. I think it's a really great way to utilize the space that seems to be available to so many churches is to have community garden. So a lot of churches do like they'll just grow vegetables for charity, but I've also seen it where they have plots and the people who go to the church or, you know, just anyone can choose a plot and grow their garden there at the church.
Ellyn (20:01.472)
I think it's a great community thing to bring people from the community to the church. Or even if it's not at a church, It's a great way to bring a community together and celebration and growing things. And it, especially for older people, it's just a great way to get out of house and be able to go do something. My mother -in -law waited, they live in a fairly large city and she waited, I want to say five years to get a community plot in her, or to get a plot in her community's garden. And she finally got one and it makes her so happy. She is there every day. She's completely retired now. So she is there every day all summer long and she's had a wonderful time meeting people and just being in the community and she shares her vegetables with the family and it's just been so good for her and it brings her so much joy and happiness. I love community gardens. They are such a special thing for people who may not, who otherwise may not have got, get to spend as much time outside and I just think it's so special. I love them.
Lauren (21:33.134)
Mm -hmm. Yep. And it's not necessarily a budgeting thing, but a lot of time the community will provide you with water and mulch and I think that's just about it. Water and mulch. So it does save a little bit of money, but it's really great if you just don't have the space or inclination to have a garden in your yard to try and find a community garden and they're everywhere. We actually have a retirement village really close to us and they have a community garden, barring the idea that you don't have one, get one. Petition the city telling that you want to have a community garden. And, this is just becoming such a popular thing that it probably won't take too much nagging to get your own way.
Ellyn (22:38.421)
Probably not.
Ellyn (23:07.765)
Tip number 18. Learn about each of the plants that you're planting so that you can get the best results from them. Going back to our tomato example from the top, learning to prune your vegetables will make them so much more productive. So going out and visiting your cucumbers every day and seeing that leaf that just doesn't look right, you know, the plant is putting energy into keeping that leaf or that stem that is never going to produce anything alive. So by learning to prune properly, you make your plants more productive. The same with harvest, harvesting at the peak of ripeness as opposed to waiting until it's past peak and maybe too big where it won't be as delicious. I
Lauren (23:55.118)
Mm -hmm.
Ellyn (24:07.061)
And it also makes the plant work harder for the fruit that shouldn't be there anymore because it's already hit peak and is past. So you're stressing your plants out. Just little things like that. And Google is an amazing resource for this. And as are the back of your plant packages, if your cucumber box package says harvest at six to eight inches, then that is the peak freshness. So if you are waiting until it's 10 or 12 inches long, then you've waited too long and it' not going to be as tasty. It's not going to be as nutritious and you've taxed your your plants beyond what you should have. So just learning about your plants gives you the best results.
Lauren (24:55.982)
Learning about your plants and just gardening in general. I've definitely heard people say, oh, I'm just not a good gardener. And maybe that's true. I mean, I don't really know, but there's not no effort when it comes to learning how to garden. You do have to do a little something to figure out how each plant best adjusts to gardening, I guess. Or really, how you adjust to gardening. Does this plant need water every single day? Well, sometimes the best way to find out is to do it and see what happens. I learn something new and amazing about gardening every single year that I do it. There's, there's no year when I go out there and I know all there is to know about gardening. Anyone who says that is making some mistakes. Maybe a tad foolish. It's been a long time.
Ellyn (26:02.192)
Right, very true. Yep, absolutely. I know that even our dad who's been gardening for 50 years, 40, 40 years, something like that, even he says, Oh, well, that's interesting. I didn't know that. He just I can't remember about what he said it just last year about something like and he had never thought about it like that before. So even he who's been gardening as long as he has still thinks about new ways to do things and better ways to make things more productive. So even he does that.
Lauren (26:53.966)
Number 19, use natural pest control. I've only tried for the last few years but seems to be working is to plant flowers that attract insects that kill the insects that I don't want. So beneficial, larvae of a particularly insidious creature that spends a lot of time in my garden. So, and they just love pretty much all flowers that you can plant in your garden. So I've been planting just like a wildflower mix around my garden to attract these bugs that kill the bad bugs. But also, companion plants can help other plants to grow. They actually help them thrive more. Some plants help loosen up the dirt so that roots can go a little bit deeper and get a little bit more nutrition out of the soil. Companion planting is something that we should probably have a whole episode on.
Ellyn (29:01.1)
Agree. Yep. So be looking for that sometime in the spring after we plant it.
Lauren (29:01.998)
but there's so much that you can do without using pesticides. I don't even use organic ones because they kill bees. A lot of them kill bees. So you do have to be careful which ones you use.
Ellyn (29:24.748)
sure. Yep and I have nothing to add. That was good. Tip number 20. Preserve your food so nothing goes to waste. And this is another teaser because I know that by the end of summer we're going to be doing a whole episode on preservation from canning to drying to whatever else freezing. We'll do an entire episode on this because this is so important if you're going to have a garden. You're going to have more food than you can eat in the season when it is best. So you have to, if you want to get the most out of it, and again, this is a budgeting episode, so if you want to make sure that you're not wasting any money, you want to preserve your food. There is some upfront costs for a lot of the preservation techniques, but once you do it once, you never have to do it again. And it's so worth it. There is nothing better than January and February opening tomatoes, jars of tomatoes that you preserved in August. Nothing tastes better. The store tomatoes just cannot compare to how delicious those are.
Lauren (30:42.286)
It really can't.
Ellyn (30:49.739)
It's just so good. And this also keeps you from wasting anything.
Lauren (30:51.758)
Yep. Including things like at the end of the season. And I don't know why we're talking about tomatoes so much in this episode, perhaps because they're so prevalent in our gardens. But I like to make something even out of the green tomatoes. You know, the end of the season, you're pulling up your tomato plants and a hundred green tomatoes fall out. Yeah. Don't throw those away. There’s a thousand recipes for stuff to make with that online.
Ellyn (31:32.011)
Tip number 21 and our last one for the day is do successive planting. So if you have, let's move on to something other than tomatoes, because you can't do success of planting with tomatoes. But, if you have a short season crop, like say beans, depending on the variety, some beans will do a second flowering and a second fruit, but some aren't as good at that.
Lauren (31:50.83)
No, definitely not.
Ellyn (32:15.626)
If you have your beans and they've done a really good production for you one time around, you can pull those up and plant another row of beans and still have enough time left in your season, even where I live, to get a second crop out of those same bean plants. Or another thing might be radishes. Radishes are one of those things you pull it up and then you're done with that plant because you're pulling up the entire plant. Radishes are super fast and then you have this big blank space in your garden. Think of something else that can go there so that that little plot is still productive the rest of your season. So not something else fast like lettuce or some greens, snow peas.
Lauren (32:58.798)
Mm -hmm.
Lauren (33:04.11)
snow peas. Yep. I plant snow peas on both ends, so it's almost time for me to plant snow peas here. I know. And then I'll also plant them again in like August.
Ellyn (33:20.488)
Lucky you.
Lauren (33:24.782)
because they like it a little more chili.
Ellyn (33:29.672)
Mm -hmm.
Ellyn (33:36.775)
Yep. And things like, cabbage is another good one. You can get an early season cabbage that will be ready July or so. And then when you pull those out, actually, they're one thing that you can leave the root in and it'll grow back smaller heads. Or you can pull the root out and put in another planting of cabbage that would be ready in October or early November, depending on when your season ends. So those are another good thing to plant like one after the other so that you're getting your ground is always productive.
Ellyn (34:33.926)
Well, this concludes our series on garden budgeting. This concludes our series on garden budgeting. We hope you've enjoyed it. If you have any tips that we missed, please leave us a comment on any of our social pages. Until next time.
Tran