Flower Bed on a Budget

When it comes to planting, my focus is generally herbs. They are my passion, and my comfort zone.  I know herbs.

But every once in a while, it is fun to step outside the box.  Although Herbs are our business, Diann and I are both Advanced Master Gardeners, and we do like to plant other things as well.   But for years every inch of ground we had available to us had to be carefully hoarded and allocated, to grow the herbs we needed to make our products,  and we only got to squeeze in a bit of flowers here and there.  Luckily with the new opportunity available to us with the farm this year, we now get to use some of our own space for other things. So we decided to make ourselves a flower bed.

But just because we are planting something else, there is no reason to go out and spend a ton of money.  Diann has been carefully teaching me for years the science of being frugal.

So, I set our to build a flower bed, knowing I was going to do it on a budget.  Generally, my projected budget for projects like this is usually zero, then if I have to go over budget by a little we evaluate and adapt as needed.

I started out with some wood that I got on Craigslist recently.  Out of Pocket Cost $0.

Then some bricks that my father in law had removed when he built a new walkway at his house. Out of Pocket Cost $0

I traded some work and some of my time for some of the left over soil at the end of planting season at the nursery.  Out of Pocket Cost $0 And the cat even helped me load it.

I traded some sunflowers that I had rescued earlier this year and repotted:

for a peony, and added some lillies that were given to us last fall.  Out of Pocket Cost $0

So, with a cost of zero, which is within my budget, here is what I came up with.

I scattered some wildflower seeds that came free with a seed order, and some marigold seeds that we got from a friend.

Now we will keep our eyes open for plants on Craigslist, plant exchanges, and places we can barter for plants, and see if we can fill it with color by the time summer gets here.