It's the middle of winter, and Spring seems far away.
But while there is a few months till spring arrives, now can be a good time to think ahead and prepare for the upcoming gardening season.
By thinking ahead, and preparing for the upcoming gardening season in the winter, you can help yourself save money.
Gardening doesn't have to be expensive, you can save yourself money on gardening by saving up and reusing everyday items for the upcoming spring.
One of the best ways to save money in the garden is by reusing everyday items as planters or plant pots, you can do this by using toilet roll tubes, milk bottles, milk or juice cartons, plastic juice bottles, or/and plastic tubs from Christmas boxes of chocolates.
Items like this can become useful in the garden in the coming months, so saving some up over winter can come in handy for later.
Toilet roll holders can be used for growing seeds, once they have grown a bit you can plant them in the ground or in a bigger tub, things like plastic bottles or yogurt tubs can be used as plant pots, make sure to carefully put some holes at the bottom of your pot to let rain water out if you are putting them outside.
You could even get creative and decorate your own pots if you want to, for me, I've created plant pots this way and used fabric to decorate it. For others, I've just used plastic bottles or yogurt cartons to use as plant pots. If you haven't got money or are looking to save money then this is a money free way to create plant pots, and it's a way to reuse and upcycle things.
You can also save money by creating your own plant stick labels, you can do this by cutting up a yogurt tub to create sticks you can write on for the seeds you have planted, saving up ice lolly sticks is also a good idea to do this, as they can be used for the same thing.
Finally, one other way that you can prepare for the upcoming spring is to buy seeds. Spreading the cost can be easier than buying seeds in one go, you could buy a packet of flower or plant seeds every week, or maybe every second week, or month, and save them for the spring.
These are some things that you can do over winter to prepare for the coming spring season. Starting to prepare for the new garden season can help you garden really cheaply, you don't have to spend lots of money in the garden, we can get a lot out of the garden by budgeting and thinking ahead.