 If you are a plant enthusiast like myself, you already know how expensive it can be to love, care for, and purchase plants. Especially if you don't have the greenest thumb. Say aloe to my little tips on how to acquire plants and plant supplies while on a budget. (Once again, consider yourself warned. There will be more puns to come. MANY more.) 1. Sign Up For Emails From Garden & Home Improvement Companies  Signing up for emails with companies like Lowes, Home Depot, and other garden center/home improvement chains can earn you rewards and coupons. You will also receive emails with "How To" videos, invitations to local workshops, gardening tips, and more. 2. The Clearance Section Head straight to the discounted plant section at your local nursery or corporately owned chain. This is not always to walk away with a cheap plant or a plant that you can nurse back to health, but it is also to get your hands on an otherwise expensive pot. There have been many times I have walked away paying less for a plant and pot than I would have paid for just the pot and the voila! A cheap planter mint just for you! 3. Plant From Seeds  Planting from seeds saves an unbeleafable amount of money. You can find seeds in stores and online, but occasionally you can even find extremely cheap seeds from Dollar Tree, Big Lots, and other retailers online for a discounted or even free price. Some online seed retailers will send out free product if you sign up for their newsletter or email list like Wintersown.org. There are also seed swaps online through sites such as Garden Web. 4. Find Cheap Pots In Unusual Places This year I found most of my new pots in stores such as TJ Maxx, Home Goods, and even Ross. Towards the end of the summer season, those cheap pots get even cheaper.  5. Propagate Propagate Propagate!  Use your plants, to make more plants! MANY plant varieties allow you to sprout new roots from cuttings. If you would like to speed up the process you can purchase a root boosting powder, but it is not necessary. I will intentionally buy plants that I see have several mother plants or "baby" plants sprouting from the mother plant - to make more plants. Clearly I am very frond of the word "plant" in that last sentence, but you get the idea.  Succulent propagation is extremely easy, but it does take a very long time and lots of patience. I am just cheap enough to wait. Same as above, I will buy succulents that have an overabundance of leaves to pop off and propagate to make more succulents.   (A small section of my current propagation station showing another variety of succulent) Below are more photos showing multiple plants (in this case succulents) being sold in one pot which can be spliced off into multiple planters. 6. Buy Local Soil Very often you can purchase soil from a local farmer for the same or less money than getting a bag from the store, but it would already have all of their wonderful growing properties in it. 7. Have A Plant Swap Yes! That's right! Plant swaps are becoming a rising trend. You can have a plant swap party or even just set a table out in front of your house with a sign and see who stops by. I love this idea from my head tomatoes and will be having a plant swap of my own very soon. 8. Let Your Plants Flower To Harvest The Seeds When your plants bloom and flower, collect the seeds and save them for another planting. I have successfully saved cilantro, scallion, chive, and basil seeds from my own plants that I allow to flower. I have also saved and dried seeds from the inside of my squash, tomatoes, and pepper plants to replant in their season. 9. Use Recycled Items As Planters You would not believe some of the amazing ideas people have come up with for repurposing what we could consider to be trash. I follow a wonderful gardening group on Facebook and have seen planters made from milk jugs, soda bottles, buckets, tires, bathtubs, canoes! You name it, you can plant in it. One of the best I have seen which I have used myself is just planting directly into the soil bag. Recycle planting is great for your plants and for the environment as well. 10. Buy The Plant You Want - Just Smaller  Love fiddle leaf plants, but don't want to spend $100? Buy a baby for $20 and aloe it to grow into the plant you are dreaming about. 11. Compost  Make. Your. Own. We throw out food scrapes, newspaper, toilet paper rolls, and all of that could be nestled into some warm, nutritious soil to rot away leaving amazing properties for your plants. Less food waste and more nutrition for your plants. 12. Keep Your Receipt Some stores will refund you for plants that die within 6 months of purchase. Usually you will see this in writing on your receipt or you can ask customer service at each store what their policy entails. Now, am I saying to neglect your plant and return it - NO. But if you were properly caring for your plant and it dies, it could be the suppliers issue which can be refunded. 13. Regrow From Scraps Below is growth from only one week's thyme on a romaine stalk. Before:  One week later:  Many vegetables and herbs can be regrown from the pieces we leave behind. Romaine, onions, scallions, celery, potatoes, and sweet potatoes along with basil, mint, and cilantro. You can regrow pineapples from the heads as well! I hope you didn't stop reading and leaf because of all these corny plant puns. I am just a succa for them. Please comment below with your tips for frugal plant ownership!
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 You read that right. FREE and DISCOUNTED organic foods delivered right to your door! I would like to welcome you to the amazingly pear-fect world of *Misfits Market* I have been using Misfits Market for a loooooooong time now and I am here to: 1. Tell you about them 2. Show you how to save $10 off your first box 3. Give you tips and tricks 4. Show you how easy (and fun!) it is to order About Misfits Market Misfits Market is a farm to consumer site. This company strives to help local farmers sell their local organic produce that does not meet the grocery store definition of "produce beauty". Rather than farmers throwing away ugly or unique fruits and vegetables, Misfits Market "produced" (ha!) a way to buy those items and sell them back to you at a discounted rate. Not only does this benefit you and local farmers, but it helps prevent food waste and ultimately helps our environment! I love this entire concept from my head tomatoes! Your items are delivered to you in a large box filled with recyclable packaging to keep your items cozy as well as ice packs to keep everything cool. How To Get $10 Off Your First Box If you use my code or use the link below, you will receive $10 off of your first box with Misfits Market. So not only will you be receiving already discounted organic produce and foods, but you get an additional $10 off of your first box! Use my code COOKWME-FH1WAT or copy the link below: https://www.misfitsmarket.com/?promo=COOKWME-FH1WAT Tips & Tricks When we originally signed up for Misfits, I was having deliveries come every week. We quickly found out that even in a family of 4, we could not put away that much produce that quickly. Instead, I switched to bi-weekly deliveries. You will receive an email from Misfits once it is time to build your box (more below about building your box) and you will have several days to complete the process. You will be receiving the "misfits" from local farms. The yellow squash that comes in your box may have one the size of your hand and the other the size of your arm. The red onions could be the size of a shallot or the size of your head! It's a fun little mystery to see what crazy looking things pop up in your box. The sooner you build your box = the more options you will have to choose. Make sure you pay attention to when you can begin building your box! Some more unique or popular produce items can sell out quickly, depending upon what your local farmers have in stock so be sure to beet everyone else to it! If you receive damaged goods, Misfits Market is 100% amazing at making it right. It will happen occasionally that the shipping company may not take proper care of your box and items inside get damaged. You may also receive produce that is too overly ripe for your palate. Simply do an online chat or email Misfits and they will reimburse you - and quickly! I have had ZERO issues with being refunded for lost, damaged, or poor quality items. You have to purchase a minimum of $30 in products/produce to be able to get your scheduled shipment, regardless of frequency. If you have opted for weekly shipments, it is still a $30 minimum. Let me tell you - you get a hell of a lot more than you would at a grocery store with that $30. You will see examples of discounted rates and pricing below. Building Your Box Here is the fun bit I have bean waiting to tell you about! I put a recurring calendar reminder in my phone to notify me when its time to build my box. It's just so satisfying to jump onto the website and start adding all of the discounted yummies into my cart. You start with a blank cart.  There are many categories to shop from, but I generally always start in the fruit and vegetable category.     There are also breakfast foods, snacks, dairy alternatives, pantry items, and more!    I have even found several of my kids' snacks on here at a severely discounted price. New items come and go all the time. You never know what you are going to see on there!   Lettuce turnip the savings and beet down your grocery bill with Misfits Market! Copy the link below to save $10 off your first box. https://www.misfitsmarket.com/?promo=COOKWME-FH1WAT Please write below if you carrot all to leave me a comment! Thanks for reading!  |
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