Thrifty Gardening - ideas to get your garden going

Time for some fun Garden Crafts and gardening with kids (or without to be honest!). This morning I “made” a super simple, super quick DIY Propagator and I just HAD to share it with you. And then I thought, hang on a minute… all our seedling growing and gardening is thrifty and upcycled – we have newspaper seedling pots and loo roll seedling pots and juice carton pots. So, I brought them all together here for you. So here you go some thrifty gardening ideas for you!

Upcycled Garden Crafts - a great way to get planting thing spring. Turn old to new and grow. — First published in April 2013

You don’t have to spend a lot of money to have a pretty garden! In fact we have geart article for you on upcycled container gardens to check out!

Why do Gardening with Kids?

There are lots of great reasons why you should garden with kids, and I am going to put an article together about this is in the immediate furture!!! But in summary, kids benefit so much for working in the garden:

Being outdoors (even if it is by an open window or a balcony)
Learning about how things grow and learning to look after things
Gardening is great for fine motor skills and of course is also a sensory experience
Opportunities for maths and literacy skills (writing plant names or keeing a gardening journal)
A great way for introducing new fruits and vegetables as well as flavors such as herbs

How to Garden with Kids

I would say: keep it simple and keep it low cost!! This is why I love these thrifty gardening ideas so much. As you really do not need to invest a lot in order to get kids gardening. You basically need a little compost and some seeds. Compost is relatively inexpensive OR you might even be able to get some from a neighbour for free!

Seeds come in a huge variety and again – the basic ones – are not expensive. There are even some schemes online, where you can apply for seed kits!

So keep it basic, keep it simple.

Also.. be prepared to be significantly involved. I have been gardening with my kids for years now.. and end up doing most of the work. But that is totally fine, so long as they are picking fresh strawberies and tomatoes and enjoy trying out new herbs, I am happy! Also, this year, my daughter has taken a great interest in flowers and collecting wild flower seeds, so it all comes together eventually.

You can also make it fun, with projects such as growing Cress Heads and Grass Heads!

Anyway.. on to our

Thrifty Seedling Pot Ideas

The DIY Propagator

Seriously, it doesn’t get much simpler than this – you need two fruit punnets (ours happened to be from grapes). They usually already come with holes at the bottom for drainage. One was slightly larger than the other, I put the larger one at the top, so the plants have more room to grow. Simple, isn’t it? And it looks the part too. Will be doing LOTS of these next year!

The Toilet Paper Roll Planters

We love Toilet Paper Roll Crafts. This is another easy one – cute a Toilet Paper Roll in half and make cardboard tube planters. I squished in a little a strip of newspaper to help stop the heard from falling out and done! Technically you can plant these straight into the ground. I need to do this soon, as my tomato plants have slowed in growing a sign, that they are running out of space.

Newspaper Seedling Pots

We made these newspaper seedling pots EVERY year. Again, quick and easy. They have the advantage that they are bigger than the loo roll seedling pots, so your young plants can stay in it for longer. Our courgettes thrive in these. Again, you can plant these straight into the ground. Click through to my seedling pot video how to to see how easily they are made (do not be tempted to buy a “gadget” from the garden centre for these!). (See how we also sneaked in a little writing and reading practice!).

The Juice Carton Seedling Pots

Simple DIY Seedling pots to "make" at home. Click through for more thrifty and upcycled garden craft ideas.

AS part of this Gardening with kids post, we made mini journals to record our growing process… turning this into a botanical science experiment. But if you just want to make the juice carton seedling pots, remember to make some holes at the bottom for draining. They are great as, they don’t get soggy over time. To pop over and check out our Garden Journals (and how to make a mini book from one A4 sheet of paper with clever folding and cutting, no gluing!)

Container Garden

Finally, I had a fantastic Container Garden guest post from Thinly Spread a while back – this is perfect for when you are ready to transfer your seedling into more permanent containers. Great ideas from colanders to wellie boots.