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Garden on a Budget
August 27, 2013 at 9:33 AM
It is a great chance to find a small space in the garden or on the patio to plant some useful vegetables or fruit trees which will save you money. If space is an issue and some vegetables are cheap when in season then concentrate on the vegetables or fruit that are never particularly cheap such as tomatoes, peppers, eggplants or lemons.
For example, tomatoes are so easy to grow. Buy your favourite tomato from the supermarket to eat and save some of the seed. Plant the seed as soon as possible with the gooey stuff round the outside. You can use toilet roll inners as a pot, with cardboard at one end and the openning in the other end. When starting the seeds off, just leave them in a warm place in the house (it can even be dark) but when the seed starts to grow then place the seedlings in a warm sunny spot indoors. Wait until the seedlings have at least four leaves and need a stick for support - you may want to transfer them into bigger pots at this time. Try to keep them inside until closer to Labour Weekend before planting them outside. If you have kept them inside and they have started to flower then you may have to pollinate the flowers yourself. Use a small paint brush and carefully brush inside the flower and move from flower to flower. Then just wait for the wee tomatoes to form.
You should be starting to eat your first tomatoes by January. If you get too many tomatoes to eat immediately then you can freeze them by just putting them into the freezer, in a bag or container as is. Later you can make a tomato based sauce for pasta dishes, chutneys, relishes, or tomato sauce/soup. If you have some tomatoes which come late in the season and are still green then why not make a green tomato chutney.
With Peppers and Egg Plants, if kept in pots after the fruiting season, bring them inside for the winter. If kept healthy and warm then they will survive to give you an even better crop the second year round. If you want to know more just send us an email and we will help answer your garden questions.
