What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[gtaus]

Frugal Newsletter: The Dollar Stretcher - Living Better... for Less
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[gtaus]

Frugal tip: Use your tow behind garden cart as a brooder.
I have three tow behind the mower garden carts that look like this...

I can't use my garden carts in our snow months. But I found a good use for them as a chick brooder in early spring, when the snow is still on ground, but the right time of year to order new chicks. I move one of my carts into the garage, set it up on blocks, and use it as a brooder. It easily worked for the 10 chicks I ordered.

I don't have a picture of my exact setup last year, but here is something close to the idea...

I don't want my chicks to jump out of the brooder into the cold garage where they would freeze to death overnight, so I built a wooden frame on top with 1/2 inch hardware cloth to keep the chicks inside the cart and under the heat lamps.

Of course, my wired frame was built to custom fit the dimensions of my garden cart, but here is a picture of the idea...

It's actually a dual-purpose frame. For the brooder, I put the wire side up on top, giving the chicks more headroom. The frame is tall enough for the chicks for the entire 8 weeks they are using the garden cart as a brooder.

Later in the spring and summer, I can use that same frame with hardware cloth as a manual compost sifter on my cart simply by flipping over the frame and having the hardware cloth on the bottom.

The frugal part is that I did not have to spend any money on the garden cart I already had, and the top frame I built is also used as a manual compost sifter when I'm not brooding chicks. You don't need to buy expensive lumber and take all that time to build a new chick brooder if you already have a garden cart.

It might even make sense for you to buy a garden cart instead of putting all that money into building a brooder, and then you would have a good cart to help you with hauling stuff around the house for the rest of the year. I use my garden carts all the time. In fact, I have one mower just for towing my carts around my property.

I use the deep bedding system in my garden cart brooder. I start off with about an inch of brooder litter and continue to add fresh litter as needed for the next 8 weeks. I don't bother to remove any old litter. At the end of 8 weeks, the litter is about 6 inches deep, but that is fine. When I transfer the chicks to the main coop, I can just hitch up the garden cart brooder and tow it out to the coop. After the chicks are in the coop, I just dump the old brooder litter in the chicken run. Done!

Some other advantages worth mentioning are that the frame top with wire also acts as a physical barrier between the heat lamps and the brooder litter. If, for some reason, a heat lamp should fall, it would end up on the hardware cloth and never get inside the brooder and start a fire on the litter. Of course, if you use heat lamps, I always recommend using both a chain and a separate safety line to secure the lamps. But I am very confident that the hardware wire would prevent any heat lamp from getting into the brooder.

I also save money on my brooder litter. Years ago, I would buy straw or pine shavings at the store. That stuff works, of course, but in recent years I found a free source of wood chips at our local county landfill and that works great. Last year, I used paper shreds I make at home for free, shredding up newspapers and such in my paper shredder to make fresh bedding as needed. Paper shreds are my current favorite bedding material because not only are they free for me to make, but it also uses up those paper products that I would otherwise have to haul off to the recycling center.

Another bonus with paper shreds is that they will compost much faster than pine shavings or wood chips when you add them to the chicken run or a compost bin. If you have chickens and gardens, all that spent bedding and litter with chicken poo will make wonderful compost in a few months. Make good use of it!

I have had many different brooder setups over the years, but using the garden cart as a brooder is my current favorite method. I hope the idea might be useful to someone else and save them money. Later.

 

[gtaus]

What? Are we all out of frugal tips and suggestions? I certainly hope not. I would hate to see this valuable thread pass off into oblivion. Sending out a wake up post to see if we can get any new ideas...

 

[ChicksnMore]

New ideas eh? Well, I'm still friends with a previous neighbor and when our bathroom countertop got chipped recently, their bathroom came to mind. When theirs got damaged years ago, instead of replacing the whole thing, they bought tile and did a mosaic design over it. Fixed it right up and looked beautiful. Thought it was such a great idea and I'm in the design planning stages for mine. Lovely way to keep a bathroom cabinet out of the landfill, can be cheaper than replacing, and gives a wonderful custom look.

 

[saysfaa]

I went to the store for another full spectrum light for my seedlings. After I looked at the options and prices, I decided it wasn't too much trouble to move the flats around after all.

The tip part is probably nothing new but the sun and wind are much better than lights and brushing. They looked so much greener and sturdier after only one day outside!

It takes quite a bit of tending this early. The temps are barely warm enough for the hardier vegetables so I have to find or encourage micro climates. And I have to pay attention that they don't get sun burned.

Inside, they have to shift every ten or fifteen minutes.

I'm hoping to build cold frames in the next week or so - it is still early enough I will need to either bring them in some nights or leave gallons of hot water in the with them.

 

[gtaus]

I went to the store for another full spectrum light for my seedlings. After I looked at the options and prices, I decided it wasn't too much trouble to move the flats around after all.

After watching a number of YouTube videos and reading stuff online, I ended up buy some 4 foot LED shop lights that I got on sale for $10.00 each. Much cheaper than the $80.00 grow lights. From what I understand, the LED shop lights should be plenty good for seed starting and preparing the plants to go outside. I checked the K value and the lumens of the LED shop lights I bought, and they were within the "grow" light range - although on the lower end of the spectrum.

I'm hoping to build cold frames in the next week or so - it is still early enough I will need to either bring them in some nights or leave gallons of hot water in the with them.

Yep, I have some pallet projects to build this spring including a cold frame top and a mini greenhouse top cover for my raised beds. Haven't settled on the design yet, but we still have 2 feet of snow on the ground.

 

[NanaK]

After watching a number of YouTube videos and reading stuff online, I ended up buy some 4 foot LED shop lights that I got on sale for $10.00 each. Much cheaper than the $80.00 grow lights. From what I understand, the LED shop lights should be plenty good for seed starting and preparing the plants to go outside. I checked the K value and the lumens of the LED shop lights I bought, and they were within the "grow" light range - although on the lower end of the spectrum.

Those LED shop lights should work fine.

I used under the cabinet (for kitchens) fluorescents for years. I liked them because they were made to link together and were cheap. I needed to replace a few old ones this year. When I went shopping all I could get was LEDs. The shop type and under cabinet ones were $20-25 each. They had the grow light type (had more LEDS) for $30. I got 2 and will continue to replace a couple of the other old ones each year. I have a total of 10 2ft fixtures.

If you don't have one get you a timer. I like not having to turn them on and off each day.

 

[Sally PB]

I don't know if I posted it here before, but this is my trick for starting my own garden plants. I make pots out of quart-sized yogurt or cottage cheese containers.
You need the lid too. Poke holes in it for drainage.

Cut the bottom of the container off. It's easier, and safer, to do with them nested in a stack. When you're about half way around, the container gets less stable. Using scissors is safer, but VERY hard on the hands. Or I have dull scissors.

The bottom of the container is now the top of the pot, and the lid is the bottom. Fill with potting soil. Since my pots are out in the green house, my light (the sun) is coming from an angle, not directly above. I fill the pots full, as the rim will cast a shadow over some of the soil. If the light is from grow lights above the plants, this isn't an issue.

Plant seeds. Water. Wait. Water. Wait. waterwaitwaterwait, you know what I mean.

The pots are plenty big, so there isn't any up potting. When it's time to transplant them into the garden, dig the hole, add amendments as you need to. Take the lid off the bottom of the pot (support the dirt with your hand), place the pot in the hole. Wiggle the pot loose from the soil, and carefully lift it off and over the plant. The taper (draft angle, if you like) of the pot makes it lift off easily. Very little root disturbance.

One thing... these are big pots. It takes a lot of potting soil to fill them. That would be very expensive for the number of starts I do, 85 +/- this year. So I make my own potting soil. The compost I get out of my compost pile and chicken run is a BIG part of that.

 

[ChicksnMore]

I don't know if I posted it here before, but this is my trick for starting my own garden plants. I make pots out of quart-sized yogurt or cottage cheese containers.
You need the lid too. Poke holes in it for drainage.
View attachment 3460019
Cut the bottom of the container off. It's easier, and safer, to do with them nested in a stack. When you're about half way around, the container gets less stable. Using scissors is safer, but VERY hard on the hands. Or I have dull scissors.
View attachment 3460020
The bottom of the container is now the top of the pot, and the lid is the bottom. Fill with potting soil. Since my pots are out in the green house, my light (the sun) is coming from an angle, not directly above. I fill the pots full, as the rim will cast a shadow over some of the soil. If the light is from grow lights above the plants, this isn't an issue.
View attachment 3460027
Plant seeds. Water. Wait. Water. Wait. waterwaitwaterwait, you know what I mean.

The pots are plenty big, so there isn't any up potting. When it's time to transplant them into the garden, dig the hole, add amendments as you need to. Take the lid off the bottom of the pot (support the dirt with your hand), place the pot in the hole. Wiggle the pot loose from the soil, and carefully lift it off and over the plant. The taper (draft angle, if you like) of the pot makes it lift off easily. Very little root disturbance.

One thing... these are big pots. It takes a lot of potting soil to fill them. That would be very expensive for the number of starts I do, 85 +/- this year. So I make my own potting soil. The compost I get out of my compost pile and chicken run is a BIG part of that.

Love the planting part of that!

 

[gtaus]

If you don't have one get you a timer. I like not having to turn them on and off each day.

Yep, I got my 4 foot long LED Shop "grow" lights on a timer.