Incredible Garden Hacks to Save You Time and Money

Materials Needed: Ziploc baggies
Cost to Make: $4.99* (36-pack gallon bags)

Caterpillars and bugs love ripening fruit, and keeping those pesky little insects from ruining your fruit crops can be troublesome. Sure, you can go the chemical spray route, but there are a million and one valid reasons why you might want to avoid that. Chemical sprays are still chemicals, after all.

Protect the Fruits of Your Labor @bobvilahome / Pinterest.com

You will be able to protect your fruit without chemicals by using Ziploc bags. Slide a Ziploc bag over the fruit after it has set. Seal the Ziploc as closely to the stem as possible and leave it alone. Once it’s ripe, you’ll be able to harvest your fruit, blemish- and bug-free.  

Materials Needed: Old cans
Cost to Make: $0* 

Almost every single household consumes some type of canned drink at least a few times a month. Instead of sticking them in the recycling when you’re done, you might want to think about saving them. They could actually be a very valuable – and totally free – gardening resource. 

Old Cans as Drainage @paulaswetland15 / Pinterest.com

Placing a few old Coke cans at the bottom of a planter before you fill it up with compost acts as a drainage aid, making sure your plants don’t wither and die before they’ve even got off the ground. After all, the aim is for things to live!

Materials Needed: Soda bottle, knife, hose, tape 
Cost to Make: $1/free* 

Sprinkling systems can vary in price, ranging from $15 to considerably more depending on what kind of product you choose. Not everyone can afford to shell out that type of cash, but we can all agree that watering the lawn with a can isn’t ideal, either. 

Soda Bottle Sprinkler @balconygardenwe / Pinterest.com

Luckily, we’ve got a solution. Take a large soda bottle, make several holes in it with a knife, and tape it to the end of your garden hose. In no time at all and for an almost non-existent cost, you’ve got your very own garden sprinkler!

Materials Needed: Eggshells, compost, seeds 
Cost to Make: $1.46* 

Getting seeds to start can be a risky business. They need just the right conditions to grow and thrive, but buying seed starter trays can cost you upward of $10 a time on sites like Amazon. Instead, you could have the answer already lying in your compost bin: eggshells!

Eggshell Seed Starter @survivallife / Pinterest.com

Eggshells provide the perfect safe, warm space for seeds to get started. All you need to do is carefully place soil and seeds within the shell and wait for the magic to happen. The box itself can act as a stand. Even if you don’t have eggs at home, you can pick a dozen up at Walmart for less than $2.

Materials Needed: An old purse, waterproof lining, plants 
Cost to Make: $15-$25*

There are many different ways to brighten up a garden, but if you go to a major retailer you’ll find garden ornaments can be pricey. The more elaborate they are, the higher the spend, but that doesn’t have to be the case. 

Purse planter @balconygardenweb/Pinterest

If you’ve got an old purse lying around, you can line it with waterproof lining and use it as a very fancy, very unique planter. You might want to varnish it to make sure it withstands the weather, but this creative idea will still cost you less than buying something new from Home Depot. 

Materials Needed: Perennials, annuals
Cost to Make: $10-$20 per plant*

When you’re thinking about what to plant, you’re probably focused on getting healthy plants. Secondarily, you should think about the way you want your garden to look. Do you want leafy greens? Or a pop of color? If you want color all year ‘round, don’t be afraid to mix annuals and perennials together.

Mix Annuals and Perennials In Your Garden ©dvoevnore/Shutterstock.com

Interplanting perennial varieties with annual flowers will keep your garden colorful as the perennials bloom. For example, marigold, zinnia, and calendula, all annuals, go well when they are teamed with perennials such as daylily and coreopsis. You can even sometimes combine the two in a pot, as long as they have needs that are compatible.

Materials Needed: Wine bottle, water 
Cost to Make: $5* 

Even novice gardeners know that keeping plants watered is the key to keeping them alive, but it’s not always as easy as it looks. For a start, what happens when you go on vacation and can’t get someone to water the garden for you? 

Wine Bottle Plant Waterer @soapwarehouse / Pinterest.com

As it turns out, all you need is a few empty wine bottles. If you’ve got them lying around the house, then this hack will cost you nothing, but you can pick up a bottle for under $5 at stores like Walmart. All you have to do is fill it up with water and stick it into the planter. The water slowly seeps out, keeping the compost moist.

Materials Needed: Metal spoons, paint, hammer 
Cost to Make: $5*

If you’re lucky enough to have a herb garden, then identifying the different plants might be easy – but if you’re new to the herb game, it can be a challenge, especially when the seeds are just starting to grow. Signs solve this problem, but the standard ones can be quite boring. 

Old Spoons for Signs @enora82 / Pinterest.com

If you feel like flexing your creative muscles you can buy some all-surface paint on eBay. Use a hammer to flatten the spoons out, decorate them as you wish, and there you have it – fun, colorful signs that will put an end to herb-induced confusion.  

Materials Needed: Planters, glow-in-the-dark paint
Cost to Make: $12* 

When summer comes around, lighting in the garden can be a nice way to add ambiance, but getting creative can often mean spending an awful lot of money. In reality, the solution to a chic outdoor space might actually lie in a coat or two of paint. 

Glow-in-the-Dark Planters @lucilouholley / Pinterest.com

If you’ve already got the planters, then all you need to do is shell out around $12 for some glow-in-the-dark paint from somewhere like Amazon. Simply coat the planters in the paint and watch your garden come to life at night! Even if you need to spend $15 on buying pots, it’s still a bargain. 

Materials Needed: Epsom salt, spray bottle, water
Cost to Make: $9.48* (Pennington, 7 lb. bag)

When you think of Epsom salt, you probably assume it’s for a home remedy. However, humans aren’t the only things Epsom salt can help. Our plant friends can also benefit from the magnesium the salt has. For under $10, you can score a seven-pound bag of Pennington Epsom Salt at Home Depot.

Epsom Salt Fertilizer @family_handyman / Pinterest.com

The magnesium in Epsom salt helps seed germination, nutrient absorption, and chlorophyll production. Dilute two teaspoons of Epsom salt in a gallon of water. Pour the mix into a spray bottle, and mist plants once a month. This gardening hack works especially well on roses and vegetables. 

Materials Needed: Citrus rinds, soil, seeds, water
Cost to Make: $10*

After snacking on an orange, you might be tempted to throw the orange peels away. However, did you know that citrus rinds from fruits like oranges, grapefruits, pomelos, and tangerines make great seed starters? You can even use lime and lemon rinds in a pinch, though they aren’t quite as effective.

Citrus Rind Seed Starter @vkennedy123 / Pinterest.com

After the rind is hollowed out, just fill it with potting soil. Then, add two of your preferred seeds and water them. After your seeds grow a little, thin them to one plant per rind. After they’ve matured, transplant the rind into a garden plot or planter. The rinds will compost into the soil, nourishing the still-growing plants. 

Materials Needed: Cinnamon powder
Cost to Make: $8.59* (McCormick, 8oz. bottle of cinnamon powder)

Cinnamon isn’t just a delicious topping on a latte from Starbucks. It also has strong anti-fungal properties. Cinnamon can be used for fungicide control in both seedlings and old plants. Sprinkling cinnamon onto the surface of the soil when the seeds are young can prevent damping-off disease, which is a soil-borne fungus that rots the stem and root of new plants.

Cinnamon Powder Prevents Plant Disease @likemagfeed / Pinterest.com

Cinnamon kills these fungal spores. It can also work to stop fungal problems on older plants, deterring mushrooms from growing inside planters and preventing slime mold from growing. Cinnamon is a great way to give your new (and old) plants a fighting chance.

Materials Needed: Baking soda 
Cost to Make: $0.65*

Growing vegetables can be a sure-fire way to live a more sustainable and independent life, but no one ever said it was simple. Some crops never come to anything, while others end up tasting bitter and inedible. However, if you’re trying to grow tomatoes, there’s an age-old trick that could help. 

Baking Soda for Sweet Tomatoes @krazycouponlady / Pinterest.com

You can pick up a bag of Kroger’s own baking soda for just 65 cents. According to experts, sprinkling it over the soil around the tomatoes makes for a bigger, sweeter yield when the fruit starts to grow!

Materials Needed: Potatoes, rose bush clippings 
Cost to Make: $3*

Beautiful rose bushes are the crowning glory of every garden that’s well-tended and looked after, but growing them from scratch isn’t for the faint of heart. If you’ve always liked the idea of planting cuttings but the idea of propagating scares you, look no further. 

Potatoes for Rose Bushes @freshideen / Pinterest.com

All you need to do is take a trip to Kroger and pick up a pack of spuds for just $2.99. Wash them, stick the rose bush cutting your mom gave you in the top, and plant them in the ground. Not only does the potato hold the cutting in place, but they supposedly grow wonderful bushes. Who knew?