Organic gardening is even more fun when it's free.

Where once a few purveyors offered supplies to organic gardeners, now dozens of companies vie for your gardening dollar. Save your money for a new greenhouse or irrigation system by cutting corners in other areas.

Free Compost

Of course, if you make compost at home, you can consider this a free source of compost. Many communities also maintain large compost piles from yard waste the waste management department gathers from residents. Call your public works department to find out if your town offers free compost to its residents.

Free Compost Bin

If you don’t mind a compost bin with a rustic appearance, you can make one from discarded wooden pallets. Warehouses regularly discard damaged pallets, so ask the warehouse supervisor if you can haul away the least damaged three or four pallets. Wire together four pallets for a closed bin, or three pallets for an open model.

Free Containers

Think in terms of “shabby chic” for planting containers amongst your trash. Fill an old boot with succulents. Line the drawers of a dresser left on someone’s curb with trash bags, and plant with herbs and dwarf tomato plants. Fill unraveling baskets with dirt and petunias until nature finally claims them.

Free Manure

Check with your local zoo, or offer to muck out a farmer’s stable in exchange for free manure from herbivorous animals. Do this once every autumn to obtain ample compost booster to help your leaves break down.

Free Mulch

Check with your local public works to explore the possibility of free mulch. Utility companies must often trim trees, and can drop the shredded remnants in your driveway rather than pay a dumping fee.

Free Seeds

If you grow non-hybrid flowers or vegetables, you can save the seeds to grow plants identical to the parent plant. If you fell in love with the flavor of the heirloom cantaloupes you bought at the farmer’s market, save those too. Seeds saved from hybrids produce inferior offspring, so make sure the plant is non-hybrid or open-pollinated.

Free Plants

Starting plants from cuttings or divisions is even easier than growing from seed. If you haven’t had luck with plant propagation in the past, pin down a branch from your favorite shrub and cover it with soil. The mother plant continues to nourish the new plant until roots form. Check for roots after six weeks.

Free Row Covers

Dry cleaning services usually send your garments home encased in a large plastic bag. Recycle those bags by stretching them over supports you’ve fashioned from bent wire or bamboo stakes. This plastic is thin, so layer several sheets for added protection from late spring frosts.

Free Garden Cloches

Heavy glass bell jars look lovely as a garden accent, but few gardeners can afford to buy enough of these protectors to cover every plant. Cut the bottoms off 2-liter soda bottles and gallon milk jugs to help transplants adjust to the garden. Remove the caps on hot days to provide ventilation.

Free Garden Advice and Literature

You already know about the wealth of gardening information on the internet, but try your local cooperative extension service. Most offices run a garden hotline in the summer months, and master gardeners can provide information and literature tailored to your region.