How To Build A Sustainable Vegetable Garden Without Spending Money

Before starting to build your sustainable vegetable garden, it’s essential to take stock of what you’re working with. Very few people I know have gardens the size of a standard allotment (250 square metres) and indeed my own back garden is 20 square metres, with my front garden a similar size. In fact, many people have far less than that, if they live in towns or cities.

While examining the advice in most gardening books – including how the sunlight affects different parts of the garden, contours, etc; it became clear to me that the single most important factor is how to get the most yield out of a very small area. This is definitely useful if you’re an urban gardener!

In this article, I’m going to look at what sustainable gardening is, along with how to garden on a budget and of course, tools! I do hope you enjoy it and that you walk away feeling empowered and excited to move forward with building your very own sustainable vegetable garden.

Table of Contents: Sustainable Vegetable Garden

What Makes a Sustainable Vegetable Garden?

You may be wondering what makes a vegetable garden sustainable? Well, to start with, the soil – more details further down. Then, the budget, obviously. It doesn’t have to be expensive to garden sustainably – and should, over time, become more affordable.

Sustainable Garden Soil

Whatever soil you start with, adding compost, well-rotted manure, mulch etc each year will ensure it’s more productive. I started with compacted clay soil, which is just about as difficult as can be imagined for growing purposes.

There are different types of soils in different areas and each type can present challenges or opportunities. Other areas may have chalky soils, or stony soils, or actually good soils. Some really unlucky people have found all sorts of rubbish buried underneath the soils in their gardens, so it’s really worth investigating what type of soil you’ve got in your own situation.

I’ve only ever had clay soil in the gardens of my various places, so can only really speak to that, but there’s plenty of information online about soil types.

I had already experimented with No Dig in my previous place, so had no intention of taking on the arduous task of digging up that clay, but instead decided on raised beds. There is absolutely no need to buy raised beds and I go into that later, but if you do decide on them, it should be an informed choice.

Raised beds come in different types – I’ve seen those metal-sided ones that are high-sided, but they’re quite expensive and then you have the problem of getting enough material to fill that height. I do like the brick-sided ones, particularly those sturdy enough to sit on the sides, but again those are expensive and I only have the two brick ones my predecessor here put in.

There are various kits for lower-sided raised beds, made of wood, plastic, etc, and while these aren’t as expensive as the taller ones, they are still quite costly.

Although you can buy raised bed kits, as I mentioned earlier, there is absolutely no need to do so. Just adding different layers on top of the soil will produce the desired raised beds. The only thing is they won’t have raised sides.

And that can be an advantage. Snails like to hide from birds and other predators, under any shade or in hollow spaces. The sides of a raised bed provide shady spots and my plastic raised sides have hollow spaces at the corners, where the plastic joiners attach the sides to each other.

As time progresses, I expect to have more structure from decayed roots left in place, so that soil erosion should become less of an issue in future years.

Sustainable Gardening on a Budget

My preferred budget is free, or at least cheap. I mean, it’s perfectly possible to spend a fortune on gardening, but I’m always looking for ways to do things without spending money.

As previously mentioned, I’m a fan of the No Dig method. This requires compost to start, but unless you have spare cash, then making your own compost is the way to go.

For all you newbies out there you may be relieved to know that composting is extremely easy. Forget exact ratios – just bear in mind you need roughly half and half green garden waste to brown compost stuff put in layers, so it’s more or less mixed as it builds up.

Let’s have a look at how to get both green and brown waste for free!

How to compost without spending money

Green waste is almost anything from the garden and brown waste is twigs, card or scrunched up paper. With green waste, the things to avoid using are pernicious weeds that will spread further if composted. Things like ivy, brambles, bindweed, etc. Anything like that I put into an old dustbin and drown for at least a year, before thinking about composting it.

I don’t toss those out, because making a sustainable vegetable garden means reusing as much as possible of whatever the garden produces – weeds or vegetable waste, it all contributes.

With paper and card, the things to avoid are shiny, plasticised card or paper. While some shiny paper/card is made by clay materials, it’s hard to know, so I just don’t use shiny stuff and put all of it in the recycling bin instead. Also avoid glittery cards – glitter gets everywhere!

The best sources of green garden waste are your neighbours. Round where I live, they get charged for their garden waste bin collections, so if they’re giving it to me instead, that saves them money.

When it comes to card and paper, think envelopes, letters, Christmas cards, birthday cards…anything that you can successfully recycle and have easy access to every day.

The Advantages of No Dig

Let’s have a closer look at the advantages of No Dig when it comes to building a sustainable garden.

I chose to go No Dig, because it seemed like a whole lot less effort for a person of my age (65+). Contrary to what you may assume, it doesn’t involve absolutely no digging ever – I dig out my compost heaps, I dig out root veg, I dig out pernicious weeds – but what it does mean is not disturbing the soil unnecessarily, to allow for microbial life in the soil to flourish and help vegetables flourish as a result.

It also means less weeds over time. Again, not no weeds, but less of them. And that makes the whole operation of a sustainable vegetable garden more sustainable, in that if it’s less of a slog, I’m more likely to keep doing it!

Setting up for No Dig is all about deciding where you’re going to lay out your bed/s, laying out cardboard to cover that area, then covering the cardboard with compost a few inches high. Each year another thin layer of compost and/or well-rotted manure is added on top, then left for the worms to do their thing mixing it.

Some people add compost/manure at particular times of year, but I do this when I’ve harvested something, as I’m experimenting growing things all year round, aiming for two harvests a year in most of my beds.

Container Gardening

You’ll notice I’ve been talking about garden beds, but many people living in urban areas don’t have the space for beds and use containers for gardening instead.

In my garden, I tend to use containers around the edges, in awkward areas, for trying out new stuff, for shrubs and bigger plants. Containers are very useful!

Always an opportunist, when I’m walking around my local area, I look to see what people have put out that they no longer want and I’ve had a surprising number of free containers that way. I found some great terracotta containers I eventually put out for someone else to help themselves to, as they were too dry during a recent hot summer.

Other people love them though, so they were snapped up pretty quickly. I’ve also had a number of ghastly off-pink plastic ones though, but they were big enough and I was happy to overlook the garish colour.

Walking round and checking what other people have put out means you might get something nice and you’ve saved it from going to landfill, which is better for the environment.

All in all, container gardening can be great for those of you who are looking to build up your vegetable garden quickly and cheaply, using recycled containers.

Sustainable Garden Tools

I think people tend to go very over the top with tools. It’s not uncommon for people to have sheds full of tools they have never used. The key thing is to get started with the tools you need, then you can look to acquire others once the necessity arises.

I’ve been shocked at the vast array of tools some gardening books tell people they will need. That’s a huge outlay for things you don’t know if you’re going to use or not and definitely isn’t sustainable.

So, the below list is of tools I found actually useful, but you may or may not have the same needs and should make your own decisions. Just stick to buying one thing at a time rather than trying to get everything at once.

And, I got given some really nice tools too by friends who no longer wanted them, so there’s no harm in asking around.

Here’s my essential tools list…

Gloves

I have two pairs, a light set and a heavy duty set. The light cheap ones I use all the time and don’t worry about caring for them more than laying them out to dry, so the dirt can be brushed off. The heavy duty ones are for dealing with brambles, thistles and other thorny plants. Those ones I don’t use unless I need to, so they’ll hopefully last longer.

Secateurs

To me secateurs are essential, but I got really cheap ones a few years ago and they have lasted well, without any special care.

Twine

I use twine around my plants. If you tie it with a loose bow, you can untie it at the end of the season, to re-use the next year.

Wire

I use this for tying pallets together or other structural uses. You can get the cheap stuff and that will work fine for a year or two, but it has a tendency to disintegrate after that. Better, thicker wire costs more, but lasts longer.

Spade

I have a kiddie spade. Most spades are designed for six foot muscly men turning the soil heroically, so not me!

Mostly I use a spade for digging out my compost heap, one bucket at a time. A small spade means I get a small amount on my spade, so it’s easier for me to move. It all gets done, just at my pace.

Buckets

Very useful things. It’s best to shop around as the price difference can be astonishing. I got ten for ten pounds in one place, another place had them significantly more expensive than that. I use my bucket for transporting compost, manure, stones, weed bits, anything really.  The reason I have multiple buckets is to catch rainfall, to fill my water butts.

Hoe

I use mine to reach and remove awkward weeds, particularly before planting. Some weeds I’ll leave in place, as I now know they are easy to pull up, so they may as well act as ground cover, until I’m ready to plant a vegetable seedling in their place. Other weeds I pluck as soon as I see them, because I now know they’re a pain to remove if they get bigger. Experience tells you that – at first I used to fanatically remove all weeds.

Plastic milk bottles

I used to worry about recycling, but as only 12% of plastics have actually been recycled, it’s better for the planet to use plastics as many times as possible, before tossing them in the rubbish. I use milk bottles for winter sowing and for sowing seedlings throughout the year, even until August or September.

Water butts

Rainwater capture is a brilliant way to maintain your sustainable garden. You can also put your rainwater to other use in your home.

With our now unpredictable weather – rainy months, heatwave months, some other unlikely weather patterns – rainwater harvesting is only sensible to ensure you can keep your plants nourished.

Check out local freebie groups for water butts (or for anything else), as it’s quite surprising what people will give away. I now have seven water butts, two fixed to downpipes from my house and, to be honest, could do with more. This year, there were enough, but in the years there are heatwaves, seven is not nearly close to enough.

I put them in shady spots, in awkward spots, anywhere I’m not growing something. Anyway, the more the merrier. And, if you have to buy them, buy the cheap ones, not the beautiful decorative ones. It’s the volume of water that counts, not how beautiful the water butt is…

Sustainable Vegetable Garden – Final Thoughts

Well, I hope that’s given you some ideas of how to get started with a sustainable vegetable garden. The key is to think out of the box and spend time working out what works best for you and making it happen.

When it comes to tools and equipment for a sustainable vegetable garden, the best advice I can give is don’t buy anything at all, until you notice a need for it. Buying a vast array of things that you then discover you never use is deeply frustrating, as well as being the opposite of sustainable, in my opinion.

It’s also important to experiment and not lose faith. Gardening is largely trial and error and there can be frustration along the way. To garden is to be curious, you need the patient of a saint and the motivation of a scientist!

Be cheap and enjoy your results. Good luck!