Guerilla Gardening For Free

I type this blog post with earth under my fingernails and muddy patches on the knees of my jeans.  Yes, you've guessed it, I've been gardening!  Non-gardeners, don't groan and role your eyes in despair, this blog post is actually about random acts of kindness, so read on!

As regular readers will know, in my new thrifty life I have set myself the challenge of maintaining and improving my garden using as little cash as possible, and for zero spondoolucks whenever I can.  So far I have been propagating seeds and rescuing plants from skips! But this latest garden adventure really takes the biscuit.

Before; Weedy Mess!

You see, beside my house there is a little thin strip of land which is always covered in weeds and litter.  It is no bigger than 5 metres by 1 metre, but it is in a sunny position and has potential to be so much more than the current weedy eyesore that it is.

I decided to pick up the litter (baby's nappies and all!) and clear off the weeds from this patch of ground.  The weeds were mainly Ivy, so there wasn't even any bee or butterfly fodder.  My intention was to plant up some lupins that I had grown from seed (I had collected them at the end of last summer from my own lupin plant, pretty good huh). I knew the lupins alone weren't going to be enough to fill the whole area, but I thought it was as well to make a start and then over time, I could gradually fill the space with more and more nectar producing plants.

Anyway, as I was working away, a man walked past and said "hello" and I said "hi there" back with my best neighbourly smile.  The man kept on walking for a step or two and then changed his mind and turned back around.   He said to me, "would you like some plants?"  I thought I heard what he said, but I was a bit taken aback; was that an offer of free plants from a person I had never even seen before?  You know what? It was just that!!!

The next morning, I found myself, dividing up and picking out some plants from a neighbour's garden a few streets away (along with my sister KitKat, just in case it was some elaborate honey trap, plant style, plan! It so wasn't by the way, I met his partner 'Jim'). I got some crocosmia, geraniums, pretty pink frondy things and two different types of grasses!  All for a bottle of wine to say 'thank you!'

Gardening Complete; now they just need to grow!

How kind is that?  I took away a boxful, with more than enough plants to create my own little nature reserve from the scrub land plot.  I tell you, it made my day; my week even.  Who would think that a stranger would be so kind? I just hope my neighbour takes as much pleasure from seeing the plants grow up as I will.

I think that has to be the best random act of kindness I have ever experienced.  What about you?  What's the best thing a stranger has ever done for you?

A Skip-full of Plants: Gardening for free bounty lands in my street!

As part of my aim to live a better life, I have been trying to get going in the garden.  I figure that spending more time with my hands in the earth is as pleasant a way to while away my time as any!  But in true Goodbye Magpie style, I have been attempting to do this, while spending no money.   So, alas, there are no more trips to the garden centre for me!

So far, I have just been doing little bits and pieces on the free gardening front, so I couldn't believe my luck when I noticed my neighbours down the street were digging up an area of their front garden and had put several big plants into a skip.  Hooray, plants for free! 

Being far too chicken to ask the neighbours myself (what a wimp, I know!), JW volunteered to go and knock at their door.  They were a little surprised to be asked, but were quite happy for us to take their plants.  So, like little Wombles, JW and I trooped back and fore, up and down our street, with several big bushes between us (we sure got some funny looks from passing traffic!)

And here they are:

 A really nice variegated bush.

A decent sized conifer

And a couple of other conifers, which I "guerrilla gardened" into the area of scrub next to the pavement beside our house!

I can't quite believe it. I just hope they live, as they might be a little shocked after their transplantation.  Sorry about the inadvertent pun! 

A set of big, mature plants like these would have cost us well over £100 from the garden centre.  This is the first time I have pulled something out of someone's skip, and with such a great result, I sure would be tempted to do it again. 

What about you?  What is the best thing you have ever rescued from a skip??

Patience

Veg Plot

It is interesting to note, that sometimes if you leave a problem to sit for a while, the answer often appears of it's own accord.  I experienced this recently in my efforts to Garden for Free.  You may remember that I dug over a piece of ground in order to create a vegetable patch at the end of summer.

Having dug over the ground and taken all the scraggy plants and weeds out, I found I had a lack of soil and a big dip in the earth which would need filling in before I could plant anything up, (you can see the way the soil slopes away on the left hand side of the fence in this photo.)  Leaving the patch, I went away thinking that I would have to buy some compost to fill in the hole.  I even did a bit of googling to see if I could buy cheap compost anywhere, but I couldn't find anything, so left it at that.

Leaves Added

Several weeks later and the leaves are falling from the trees in huge drifts into my back garden.  While hoovering them up from the grass with the lawnmower, JW suggested that we dump the chopped up leaves and grass clippings onto the veg plot to fill in the hole.  He is a genius sometimes!

We will need to clear the leaves from the lawn several times before they are all down from the trees, so there should be plenty to fill in that dip before spring.  Leaf mulch is extremely nutritious and I should just have enough compost in my own compost bin to mix it up in spring to get a good soil mix for my veg seedlings.

You may also remember the little self-seeded holly tree that I potted up earlier in the year.  The gorgeous, big holly tree that it came from is currently shedding its lovely red berries, so I thought I would try an experiment to see if I could get lots of little holly trees for free.  I collected up about 15 of the berries and popped them into another bare batch of earth that I have to (hopefully) create a holly tree nursery.  I also collected up a couple more self seeded holly trees which had sprung up in places where they were unlikely to grow very big and popped them in the nursery too.  So we shall wait and see what happens in the spring.

Holly Tree Nursery Bed

The little holly I potted up earlier is doing really well, so fingers crossed I will have a holly hedge growing at the front of the house next year.  The birds will love it!

My final Garden for Free moment was to pot up a Horse Chestnut Nut, that I picked up from a friend's garden this time last year.  I am not sure it will germinate, but we shall see.

The only job that I must get done before the snow comes is to take cuttings of my lavenders, to insure them against frost damage over the winter.

A Happy Little Holly Tree

Another great day in the garden

I was feeling quite grumpy last night, having spent all day yesterday inside.  So today myself and the guinea pigs spent the whole day outside and it was glorious.  I am in a much better mood and the pigs had lots of fun too.

Mr Morgan

Spicy and Rumbles

My first job was to burn down a whole load of dead branches, which had been pruned back a couple of weeks ago and left to dry out.  That took me a couple of hours!  But it was very satisfying work.

Dusty Bin - He's Great!

 Next I cut the grass, see the before and after shots below:

Grass Before

Grass After

Then I gave my borders a good tidy up.

Borders Before

Borders After

I also moved a few roses around which had finished flowering and were in the wrong position.  And I enjoyed lots of general pottering and cups of tea!  Gardening is great!

Wow, I managed to grow some beans

I can't actually believe that I managed this....

I grew these green beans from seed, and I got the seeds for free from a nice man at a local plant sale.  I had them for tea last night and they were yum!!

Challenge Three: Gardening for Free

It has taken me a while to realise what the point of gardening is.  For many years I felt that it was just housework that took place outside, with a list of chores that needed completing every so often.  But that was because I was spending all my time weeding and raking up leaves, with a bit of occasional pruning thrown in.  I have only recently realised that gardening is really about being artistic and creative and seeing the pleasure that there is to be gained from creating a flowing flower bed, or an enticing view from a gate that makes you want to come in and explore.  So I now spend far less time weeding and more time digging things up and moving plants around, which feels more like designing and creating than doing a household chore.

My Third Challenge is therefore to continue to explore the benefits of gardening, while spending a minimal amount, ideally nothing. Over the past 12 months we spent £480.97 on the garden and I would like to reduce this to an absolute maximum of £100.

I have started already and have planted up a lovely pot which is now happily sitting beside my old garden bench.

The pot I had sitting in my garden shed for about five years.  I filled it will ordinary garden soil.  I put a bit of ivy in it which I had cut off an established plant, (a piece which had just started rooting in a new area of ground). The other plants are coriander seeds, which I got free with a recent tub of fresh soup, and an attractive 'weed' which had self seeded itself elsewhere in the garden.  It may not look like much at the moment, but it will grow itself into a nice little tub.  Previously I would have spent a minimum of £10 filling up such a tub by using plants from the garden centre.

I also planted up a little holly tree which had self seeded in a position where I didn't want it to grow and where it wasn't going to get much light.

I have put it into a nice sunny position to get it established properly and then I will use it as part of a new hedge I want to grow.

The other thing I have been up to is collecting seeds from my lupins:

So that instead of paying £5 for a new plant, I can try and grow my own for free in the spring.  I also collected some yellow poppy seeds and will try to grow more of these next year:

And my final job was to completely dig out an overgrown area of garden which hasn't been used at all since we moved in.  I am not sure what I am going to do here as yet, but it may be a vegetable bed, depending on the amount of sun it gets.  I am keeping my eye on it for the moment.

Digging this area up was certainly really good exercise and much more enjoyable than going to the gym, (not to mention it was joyfully free of charge!)