It’s competition time!!! Win a copy of Dave’s new book

[Dave]

Over the last year Dave has been busy writing his new book ‘Grow your food for free ...well almost’, the book is now finished (finally-Dave) and is published by Green Books in the UK on 12th May and in the USA by Chelsea Green from the 1st June.

The publishers Green books (who are taking advance orders for the book) describe it as a book which explains - "How to go through the gardening year on a shoe string, from making your own raised beds and compost to fixing broken tools and taking cuttings."
Dave himself calls it ‘A one stop shop for the budget gardener.’ Going on to say “Rather than re-write another book you can find in any charity shop this book aims to teach people how to improvise with what they have around them. I wanted to write the kind of book I’d like to read, a sort of Douglas Adams meets Gardeners’ World. I’m not sure I quite achieve the genius of Mr Adams (it’s especially difficult in a gardening book!) but I hope you find it entertaining anyway.”

To celebrate the release of the book Selfsufficientish.com are giving away 2 copies of the book and some special edition ‘Grow your food for free’ seeds for runners up.

To enter you will need to be a forum member, if you are not so already then join here before saying a quick hello in our Welcome new members section. Once registered post your favourite money saving idea in the garden here in this thread.

Examples could include, making a shed from pallets, building a brick path, making a salvaged greenhouse or cold frame, making a chicken coop or simply a really good recipe for your fresh or foraged produce.

You can explain your idea in words, photos or drawings or a mixture of all three. We're not looking for 500 word or more articles, we just want to see how inventive you can be. So, just aim to get your ideas across the best you can. You might get some ideas from this sneak preview http://www.scribd.com/doc/52246412/Grow ... ee-Preview

• The winner will have their entry posted on the main site and will receive a signed copy of the new book and 3 packets of special edition seeds.
• Second prize will win a signed copy of the book and a packet of special edition seeds
• Three runners up will all receive special edition seed packets.

We will short list the best entries then choose the winner by public vote on the forum. The winner will then be announced on the main ish front page.

Entries should be in by the book's release date - 12th May, judging will take place in the following fortnight and a winner will be announced by the beginning of June. The competition is open to anyone, anywhere in the world

[niknik]

Great!

Don´t think I´ll have anything gret to contrbute tho´. but I´ll have a think

Wish I could open the preview link thoúgh

[Arbor]

Thinking cap on and hoping for inspiration!

I can't open the link either.

[MKG]

And when you do remove the word "preview" from the link, it leads to to a sample chapter from "Inequalities in Geometry".

It was very interesting, but a sample from Dave's book might be better

Mike

[Dave]

Cough, uh hum, sorry about that, should be okay now.

Inequalities in geometry is one of my favourite parts of the geometry notes text book, strange it should pick that chapter

[MKG]

Well, I have to say that the snippet looks really good, Dave.

Just one question - when, if you find yourself foraging without a bag, do you happen to be carrying a handy newspaper to perform origami miracles?

Seriously, though - it looks like a 10 out of 10 job.

Mike

[Ginpan]

Hmm... tricky tricky tricky.

I'd say asking people in my neighborhood for cuttings or seed from their plants. Oh, or maybe it's offering to take away bricks from whoever has bricks they don't want to use for path making in my backyard. Oh no! It should be getting food-grade empty barrels from all the restaurants nearby. Great for everything from cutting in half for planting or converting to a rain barrel.

Too many choices...

[Dave]

Hello Ginpan, great ideas, if you can, pick one of those and send us a few words with a photo. I used to take cuttings when I worked as a gardener, I needed to take away the prunings anyway so it helped to double up the job.

Mike - Well, yes. I often travel by train or bus where there are always free newspapers or I'd have my own to read. When I lived in Bristol or been in London the Metro or one of those other 'newspapers' where always around. I'd much rather use a found newspaper than a found plastic bag, would you?

[rissy]

Last year the council houses near us were being renovated. They were having new central heating systems put in and lots of cold water cisterns were being chucked out. I asked is I could have some and I now use them as planters for my veg. They are brilliant. They are made from rubbery stuff so don't rot. I drilled holes in the bottom for drainage and set them along the edges of paths/patio/fences etc. nearest the door are herbs and salads, down the garden are carrots, beetroot, peas/beans, courgettes and squash (only 2 in each one though) and tomatoes. Oh I have a great big one which I am putting potatoes in too. You have to make sure that you keep them well watered and feed them (nettle "soup" - rotted down nettles in water) but the advantages are great. No cats toilet. No slugs (they don't like the rubbery stuff for some reason). Easily moveable. All in all a great find and I'm looking for more!

[boboff]

Very Strange Virus stuff came up when I clicked on that link in Daves original post??????? looked like a spoof windows virus checker page.

[MKG]

I just checked, and it's clear.

It gets around, the virus checker. Simply don't ask for the check - it ALWAYS reports a virus on your system.

Mike

[jbanana]

cootie water. we are in the middle of a drought, the third dryest period in our history and that includes the dustbowl. so when folks lose track of a bottled water and nobody wants to drink it b/c it has cooties, take it home to your plants. or share it w plants nearby and make new friends!

[pops]

ok here's my little suggestion

we get through a fair amount of squash/pop/etc and used to recycle the bottles at the council 'amenity' (tip!)
but now we cut them in three and use the bottom as pots for seedlings (very useful for showing the kids root system development)
the middle for protective collars around transplanted baby plants
and the tops buried neck down as funnels for watering roots of established plants

of course you're all already doing this and i feel like i'm a margot again! (but i shall still hope i win!)

[Radu]

I arrived in Luxembourg almost 3 months ago and have to say that from all the places I've been living in, here is the place with the most incredible ammount of waste. While at first I was discouraged to see so many things being thrown out or kept in storages from beds to old, antique cabinets and anything for the kitchen or the household I soon saw a potential in all of this. The waste could find new chanels through which to flow back into capable hands of either repainting, redoing or simply and most often just reusing all the things left out in the streets for the garbage truck to pick up or in the rooms of the house as "space invaders" and dust collectors. I first tried to set up a freecycle.org account for the country but the whole process being so troublesome and bureaucratic I gave it up in the end in exchange of gaining an extra hour to spend in the garden every other day. Why spend so much time on something so simple as giving people a platform to give and ask for things they need and others might have for FREE? So instead I set up a facebook group entitled "Free Your Stuff Luxembourg" and from it's opening up till now the members have been doing a great job at putting into recirculation the things they didn't need anymore or searching for things that were bound to be somewhere in someone's storage area. From the first week I've made around 5 or 6 administrators from the local community who are dealing with deleting old posts, letting people know what the group is about and so on so now the group basically runs itself. This money saving idea on a personal level worked in the sense that I found all my seeds for the season from the group and only paid around 5 euros for three packages of special seeds that noone had. I still haven't found strawberry cuttings but seeing that I saved a a good sum of money on seeds (I have about 30 plant varieties and a package here goes from somewhere around 1.5 euros to 2.5 so you can do the math) I can now afford to buy these more easily. The only thing I am not so happy with is the logo I made for the group but somehow the 350+ group members that are currently involved don't seem to mind:

174751_182773338427180_7359897_n.jpg (13.39 KiB) Viewed 10555 times

If anyone here is more artistically inclined and would want to design a new one I would definitely be interested.

I am eager to read more other money saving ideas since I am a volunteer here in Luxembourg and the money issue for volunteers here arises whenever they want to go further than the basic living arrangements so a bit of inventiveness and self sufficiency is necessary when one is thinking of starting a garden from scratch.

[spacekadet]

I hope you don't mind me offering two suggestions.

Super cheapo polytunnel

Made of discarded water piping and plastic tarp. Just hammer some stakes (I used cut-up bamboo) into the ground and fit the piping over it, then cover with the tarp. Secure the tarp with bricks.



Brick raised bed

If you happen to have some bricks laying around, turn them into a quickie raised bed. I made this one (pictured on the right) against a garden wall:



I'm a noob to all this gardening stuff so this might seem like old hat to you seasoned green thumbs, but I still felt really clever when I created these things. :)

Cheers,
Monica