The Small Budget Gardener: All the Dirt on Saving Money in Your Garden

by Maureen Gilmer

With consumers seeking ways to do more with less money, this book is a must have for gardening on a budget. With helpful tips and advice, gardeners can create beautiful, healthy sustainable landscapes with recycled materials and limited resources. Author Mauren Gilmer includes a chapter on food gardening and preserving precious resources.

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction, Plants, Reference

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 25, 2010

About the author

Maureen Gilmer is the author of more than 15 gardening books. She is host and project designer for the television series, Weekend Gardening, on the DIY Network. Her articles and photography have appeared in national magazines and she frequently appears on numerous television and cable programs.

Reviews

[Oldroses · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought my first house 25 years ago. It was an old Victorian in dire need of renovation. The yard was in even worse shape. Previously a rental, the landlord had paved part of the backyard with gravel to create a parking lot. The rest of the yard was a jumble of vines including poison ivy. I was literally starting with nothing. I didn’t even own any garden tools.

Over the next ten years, I tamed the yard. It was a period of trial and error, finding the best tools for the job, finding plants and seeds, learning to compost and most importantly, finally learning to identify poison ivy to which I am horribly allergic. That experience shaped the frugal gardener that I am now.

I wish I had had this book when I bought that house. It would have saved me a lot of time, energy and especially money. Maureen Gilmer has written one of the best how-tos I have ever read. Page after page, I found myself nodding in agreement. Following her clear step by step instructions, anyone can create a wonderful garden with a minimal outlay of money.

There are so many things that I love about this book. She tells the reader what tools to buy, and more importantly, what tools not to buy. She demystifies composting. She makes clear that organic gardening is not just better for the environment but is actually cheaper than using commercial fertilizers. Best of all, she not only tells you what materials you need, she also tells you where to find them. She talks about yard art, drip irrigation, propagation, seed starting and cold frames, all using free or recycled materials.

I only have two small quibbles with the material. She devotes an entire chapter to online sources for tools, plants and seeds, all of which are reputable dealers. What she neglects to mention are the many seed swap sites, that are also well-known and reputable, where you can trade your excess seeds for the seeds you desire for the cost of postage.

I admire the amount of space she devotes to improving and maintaining the health of your soil but she doesn’t go into the no-till method which is thought to be even better for your soil. It also saves you the cost of buying or renting a rototiller.

These are only minor omissions. I agree with everything she says and have field tested many of her ideas myself. I would recommend this book to both newbie gardeners and more experienced gardeners who are looking for ways to save money.

[Aubrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

To be honest, I was really quite surprised by how much I learned in this book. I shouldn't be, I'm a novice gardener. This is the first book I've picked up on gardening and read cover to cover. I went to the library with the intent, that I still have, to learn as much as humanly possible on gardening, especially gardening edibles and so I went to the gardening section and grabbed about 10 books that seemed interesting. I was really quite impressed with all that I learned in this book and am going to start applying it today and I don't even have a piece of land yet, just a balcony garden. Got to start somewhere. Here I go with my full list of notes from the book!

[Deirdre · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not so bad! The best part of this book was the part where she talks about the big things - where you plant trees to provide insulation to your house, warming it up in the winter and cooling it down in the summer. That was the most useful new information to me. It felt a bit time-specific to me, and it was indeed written during an American recession of some kind a while back, but the points she made were still valid.

It was really just nice to get back into the gardening mindset and start dreaming about what to do with our space again.

[Corinnagoodwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

great information about small gardens

[jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is the jam for "creative repurposing" stuff in the garden. Even if you are a dumpster diving, back-to-the-land, broke-ass master gardener, there are tons of ideas in here you have never thought of before. The information comes from multiple perspectives for conserving resources- mostly saving money and using "green" practices. This book takes gardening away from the idea that you can or should buy a solution for every garden issue, and helps you take a step back and think about the big picture of your garden as a self-sufficient functioning system. It's not all hippie woo-woo, just kind of straight-forward and generic. Surprising, the book does a decent job of straddling ornamental and edible gardening.

There's pointers on getting stuff for free, doing it cheaper, making it go farther, making things last longer, and so on. The pictures are not giant glossy magazine-style photos, but they are adequate color photos. The writing is good enough. The saddest thing about this book is that I have to take it back to the library before I'm done with it. I have to check it out again!

I don't totally agree with 100% of the advice in this book. For example, I hate starting seedlings in egg crates bc the cells are too shallow, they dry out too quickly, and they are a pain to transplant if the roots grow into the cardboard. One of the recommended books in the Bibliography is Mel Bartholomew's All New Square Foot Gardening, which is a book I highly recommend that people do NOT follow. So, take the advice in this book with a grain of salt. I would recommend this to someone who has some more experience with gardening and knows their own preferences and can trust their own instincts.

Sections: (as a reminder to myself)
I: Stretch Every Dollar
a. buy it right (essentials vs junk)
b. shop til you drop (bargains)
c. free dirt (building good soil)
II: Environmental Cents
a. saving energy (passive heating and cooling)
b. conserving water
c. recycle and reuse everything
d. tips for twice the garden for half the price
III: Gratis - As it should be
a. using the web
b. propagation
c. eating for free (edible gardening)
d. government support (master gardeners, usda databases, etc)

[Bobby · Rating 2 out of 5]

This had some helpful tips but overall I wasn't that impressed. My opinion might be colored by my lack of interest in flower gardening/landscaping and my enthusiasm for vegetable gardening.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

2009

Interesting.

[Kimberly Swait · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific and very informitive

[Breanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was interesting and will be a great resource for years to come. I'm ready to start gardening in the spring!

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of good ideas, and even a few (towards the end) that I hadn't seen before.

[Missy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was hoping for some new ideas but didnt really get any. But this would be great for a novice