Dirt-Cheap Gardening: Hundreds of Ways to Save Money in Your Garden [Paperback]

Rhonda Massingham Hart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 5, 1995

The author of Bugs, Slugs, & Other Thugs shares her years of practical experience and imaginative, time-tested ideas for saving money and cutting costs in the garden, and explains why some plants make better investments than others.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Hart offers readers advice on buying the most cost-effective garden tools and less-expensive seeds and plants, on collecting and storing seeds, and on taking cuttings from your plants (rather than buying new ones in the spring). The author lists plants best suited to various climatic conditions; disease-resistant varieties ; and drought-tolerant, cold-tolerant, and heat-tolerant plants. She also presents readers with a list of money-saving vegetables, herbs, shrubs, and flowers. A chapter on plant wellness ("healthy plants are productive plants" ) deals with fertilizers, composts, pest and disease prevention, crop rotation, and beneficial insects. There are also tips on making garden benches, birdbaths, ponds, and cold frames and on low-cost watering strategies. George Cohen

From the Back Cover

Create the landscape of your dreams -- from just a dirt-cheap investment!

Producing a beautuful yard and a bountiful garden doesn't have to cost a fortune. Gardners really can "have it all," says Master Gardener Rhonda Massingham Hart, and they really can get something for nothing. In Dirt-Cheap Gardening, Hart shares years of practical experience and imaginative, time-tested ideas for saving money and cutting costs.

Dirt-Cheap Gardening offers a wealth of tips, tricks, and hints on how to:

-- Reuse and recycle to save in the yard and garden

-- Identify and acquire useful tools

-- Avoid tools that are useless "toys"

-- Institute low-cost ways of assuring healthy plants

-- Buy, save, and start seeds

-- Obtain plants for free -- or at least as best buys

-- Find money-saving plant varieties

-- Create inexpensive garden accents and accessories

-- Evaluate which plants make a better investment than others

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC (January 5, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0882668986
• ISBN-13: 978-0882668987
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #298,232 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read!!! very informative and helpful and creative., June 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Dirt-Cheap Gardening: Hundreds of Ways to Save Money in Your Garden (Paperback)

this book gives all kinds of helpful advice and can definetly save you all kinds of money. It cuts to the chase and does not waste any of your time. I would recommend it highly.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is an informative guide to tight-wad gardening., November 10, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Dirt-Cheap Gardening: Hundreds of Ways to Save Money in Your Garden (Paperback)

What? Another gardening book? This book, "Dirt Cheap Gardening, Hundreds of Ways to Save Money in Your Garden," is a guide that every gardener needs, whether or not he already owns other gardening books. It has some very practical advice, from starting seeds inexpensively, to drying your own produce. Rhonda Massingham Hart, the author, packs a lot of info into this paperback of only 166 pages. You can skim-read it in an evening, and the information you read will help you with your gardening all year. This book mostly covers vegetable gardening, harvesting, and storage. If you are an avid gardener who enjoys saving money, too, this book is for you.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Resource!!, June 17, 2010

By 

H. CONDIE (Idaho, USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dirt-Cheap Gardening: Hundreds of Ways to Save Money in Your Garden (Paperback)

If you are in any way a cheapskate, this book has so many little tricks that WORK! The index is a little lacking, but I usually write in the margin for future reference anyway. Sometimes snippets of information is hidden in an unlikely spot, but overall, the book is laid out very logically.

Covers starting a garden, kinds of mulches, tools you need vs want, how to propagate plants and when, how to make a cold frame, cheap and easy watering methods, storing seeds, you name it. Lots of organic solutions in this book too.

I have shelves full of gardening books, but this is the one I turn to most often and with the best results.