It has really astounded me just how expensive it is to build anything from materials bought at the hardware store. Sure, you might be able to build things for cheaper than you can buy them ready-made, but once you take into account the amount of time you need to invest to build from scratch, the savings become almost inconsequential. I am regularly drawn to read blogs and watch videos showcasing beautiful gardens overflowing with abundant food and flowers, but it has surprised me recently, upon closer inspection, to discover the substantial amount of infrastructure underlying many of these landscapes. Raised beds, trellises, walkways, patios... there is easily thousands of dollars' worth of structures to be found in a beautiful landscape design. Then when you read further, you come to the shocking realization that even the soil and compost have been purchased from outside sources! It has occurred to me that this could be a major factor in preventing would-be gardeners from taking the next steps to food sovereignty. It is a shame to think that there may be people who will never get to experience the joy of growing their own food because of these misconceptions, and I hope to encourage those dreamers that huge financial investments are in no way necessary to providing food for your family! With a little creativity, you too can build a low-cost garden and have a small piece of heaven just outside your back door!
Building a Low-Cost Garden
Upcycle Everything
I tell my kids all the time when they are struggling to part with some cherished item they no longer need, that in this country, there is so much overabundance of stuff, if you regret giving something away, chances are you can replace it with another for free. Seriously, I mean, it is ridiculous how much stuff is bought by the American public on a daily basis, only to be stuffed in a closet or tossed to the curb within a year. We have hardly bought a single piece of furniture for our house because there is a never-ending supply of used furniture available for us to have if we just exercise a little patience. It goes beyond furniture too! Clothes, dishes, decorations, tools, toys, books... the wastefulness of our society is a huge resource for anyone wishing to live a sustainable life with the extra benefit of creating low living expenses. When we take this same concept out to the garden, it is amazing how many resources can become available with a little hard work, some patience and also being flexible about what you need.
Two summers ago, we were blessed with an incredible gift from some friends of ours. Her parents were moving, and their 30-year-old privacy fence was in sad shape and was going to be demolished by the buyers of their home. Our friends offered this fence to us along with an entire day's worth of their labor to dismantle it, load the panels onto a trailer and deliver it to our backyard. We were absolutely thrilled! See, the houses are practically row houses on our street and to create some privacy in our outdoor eating area, we were hoping to install a privacy fence. After being quoted over $3000 for about 50 ft of fence, the possibility of having a quiet dinner outdoors was mostly squashed. This used fence wasn't pretty, but it was what we needed, and we set out to see what we could do with it. First, we rented a pressure washer and pressure washed the moss and grime off of the panels. The transformation was incredible! With the top layer of wood removed, the fence looked almost new! Then, to preserve it for as long as possible, we did buy some stain and stained it to a nice cedar color. With the remodel complete, we borrowed my uncle for a couple of days and put that sucker up ourselves. The end result is just perfect and given the amount of labor we poured into the project, our sense of pride and satisfaction far exceeds anything money can buy.
The gift of the fence didn't end there! There were multiple panels with rotten pickets that we opted not to use for our fence. Instead of trashing these sub-par pieces, we dismantled them and decided to use the good parts as lumber for other projects! My amazing husband bought me a little jigsaw for my birthday in 2023 and I was able to construct a new chicken coop for our feathered friends as well as a cold frame! (The windows for the cold frame were also hand-me-downs from my uncle's house when he replaced his windows.) If we add up the $3000 for the fence and about $1000 for a comparable coop plus $200-$300 for the cold frame, we were able to gain over $4000 worth of infrastructure for a couple hundred bucks (screws, hardware, stain, metal for the chicken coop roof) and some good old-fashioned physical labor! I'd say that's a pretty good deal!
The list of examples around here can go on and on. Rather than coming up with a design and then purchasing the materials needed to build it, sometimes it is a better idea to look for free materials, and then see how you can use them! An old tire could be made into a little pond, worn out tubs or other large containers can be used as raised beds, and trellises can be made from all sorts of things: bamboo, wood scraps, long sticks, or I have even used the front of an old dresser for trellising cucumbers! When you start with what you have and make your design based around that, you won't find yourself stuck suddenly needing to buy supplies for every new feature you want to add.
Change Your Expectations
While manicured raised beds and cute steppingstone paths may look great on Pinterest, the plants you are growing could care less what your landscape looks like! If you don't have a bunch of extra cash to throw into your garden project, then don't start your planning with building infrastructure. Just pick some nice areas of your yard for starting a garden. You can frame the area out with rocks or logs or anything you have laying around, or you can opt not to frame it at all. Then, lay cardboard on top of the grass to kill it. The grass underneath will become an excellent source of fertilizer for your new plants! If you can get some compost or soil at this point to lay down on top of the cardboard, that would be ideal. If you don't have any way of getting something to add on top, don't sweat it, you can still make this work! Try to build your garden area in the fall and cover the cardboard with leaves. Spray the leaves down with water to make them heavy so they don't just blow away. Then if you have an old tarp or blanket, you may want to lay this on top for the winter. Keep your garden covered this way until spring and remove the blankets. The decomposition process should have started. It will take a little longer to get to the point where you can grow plants this way, but you will have a nice garden bed eventually with no monetary investment! Plus, all that waiting gives you plenty of time to get your compost pile started!
Produce Soil Fertility Onsite
Sure, you can go to the garden store and grab a bag of compost or heck, you can even have a dump truck-full delivered to your house! But why spend time and money on things you can and should be producing yourself! When you are first starting out, it can certainly be helpful to bring in outside sources of nutrients. I did, in fact, have a truck full of mushroom compost delivered to our house 8 years ago when we put in our first garden here at this house. For some people though, spending a couple of hundred bucks on compost just isn't going to work. If this is you, don't give up, you can still achieve the exact same results, it may just take a little bit longer!
First and foremost, you must, must, MUST start a compost pile. This does not have to be fancy. I have had a compost pile everywhere I've ever lived, even when it consisted of a trashcan with some drainage holes in the bottom and when it once took up the entire 4 square feet of my "yard" while living in a 1-bedroom apartment. If I have done this successfully, I can guarantee you can do it too! There are all sorts of techniques for making compost, but in general, if it is biodegradable and you throw it in a pile with other biodegradable stuff, it will make compost. So don't sweat it, just start somewhere. Compost is likely to be the backbone of your onsite fertility system. Once you start producing compost, you will be able to add this "black gold" regularly to your garden beds and your plants will love it!
When you are looking for materials to add to your compost pile, think outside the box! Oftentimes neighbors have loads of biodegradable materials such as leaves that they don't want. I have picked up bags of yard waste from neighbors and have invited others to use my compost pile for their kitchen scraps! Always be sure to explain the do's and don'ts of adding to the pile. Just because something seems obvious to you does not mean another person knows what you mean! I have made the mistake of assuming well-meaning neighbors know what is biodegradable and have found myself picking trash out of my compost!
Mulch is another super easy material to source for free. Arborist companies have to pay money to drop off their woodchips at the landfill and they are usually happy to bring them to your house for free! You can sign up for ChipDrop online and wait for a drop of woodchips, or you can take matters into your own hands! Call tree removal companies and ask them if they will drop chips off for you. Once, I even stopped a team of people trimming trees for the power lines and asked them if they would let me have their woodchips once they were done. I gave them our address and when they had finished for the day, they pulled up to our backyard and dumped their whole truckload for us! Be aware when you get mulch this way that there will be plenty of leaves and sticks in the pile. All of this is perfectly fine to add to your mulched beds! Think about how the forest floor looks! However, if this is a problem for you, let the pile sit for several months before you use it. The leaves will break down first and the resulting mulch will be filled with the mycelium of all sorts of beneficial fungi! If a whole truckload of mulch seems like too much for your projects, try sharing the pile with neighbors! Most gardeners are thrilled to have free mulch!
In Conclusion
Building a garden does not need to be an expensive endeavor by any means. You may need more time before you get to enjoy the results of your hard work, but when the alternative is not even getting started, the waiting period is well worth it. As a family of four living on one income, feeding our family out of our backyard is a HUGE priority, and it would not have been possible if we had needed to spend thousands of dollars to do so. Building a low-cost garden is just so easy to do. By using things second-hand, getting creative with building materials, and producing our own soil fertility, the food we grow here really is free! Not only that, but the satisfaction we get from eating a meal we grew ourselves is immeasurable. Don't wait to get started! No more saving up money or dreaming of your future garden! Just get out there with your shovel and your imagination and make it happen!