06/07/2026
I've been gardening at this house since 2014. In all that time, I've probably spent less than $1,500 total & only in the last 2 years.
That's about $125 per year, well below the average.
Until 2025 my average was $0.00 spent annually & that will continue to be the case going forward.
It takes a Village to feed a Community.
My garden (along with the 1,141 new school & community gardens & counting - replication myth busted!!) was built with free wood chips, rescued materials, shared plants, shared seeds, recycled cardboard, compost from local horse farms, reclaimed fencing, decking, salvaged pavers, and knowledge shared freely by gardeners who are great humans.
There's no catch. Everything I ever did in this work started by:
Saying hello. Meeting people where they're at.
Having Zero judgements or expectations.
When someone has extra starts or seeds, they share.
We wanted to simplify and centralize the knowledge for anyone to replicate the process for their own garden.
When someone tears out a garden a fence, a deck someone else rescues the lumber.
When a tree company needs to dump wood chips, gardeners requested them saving countless hours and money on waste management and landfill fees.
When a horse owner has manure, gardeners add it to their growing space reducing storm runoff and stream damage.
When someone has leaves falling from their trees, that's great for soil building, mulch, overwintering your garden, and it's free
That's community gardening.
The funny thing is that I barely spent any money at all until last year.
2025 was my first real "aesthetic" gardening year.
I bought perennials, flowers that come back every year. I intentionally bought plants I can divide and share with others next season and every season after.
And I bought Costco trellises. And solar fairy lights. So many fairy lights & Lots of Costco trellises.
They are really pretty making my garden a magical wonderland to wander in after sunset.
But this isn't just more stuff to manage later and store somewhere, it has a bigger impact that builds community!
I reuse the lights and trellis to build our Halloween corn maze and pumpkin patch for the hundreds of trick or treaters that visit.
That kind of space where whimsy gets to exist brings layers of fulfillment I can't articulate.
The trellis were $20 each, sturdy, simple, require no woodworking skills, just step on the bottom and the stakes go right in.
While I had diy tunnels and trellis I made from old t-stakes, rescued fencing and pvc, paying for zip ties kept those well under $25 for my entire 6000sqft garden. That was a one time cost and did the job for 10 years.
The higher spending numbers make more sense when you look at what drives costs:
• Paying for lawn maintenance, equipment to maintain
• Installing irrigation systems that leak, need constant adjustment or don't offer the deep watering needed, dealing with evaporation and dead plants
• Purchasing raised beds instead of building them from free materials. Wine bottles are perfect and only require a rubber mallet.
• Buying retail compost by the bag, big cost increase. 1 yard of compost at Cedar Grove = $43. 12 bags at 2cuft each will run you around $150+
• Purchasing mature plants instead of growing starts or purchasing local. Keys Nursery is less than 1/2 of all retail prices. They are open 7 days a week and located on 67th Ave just past 108th.
• Watering inefficiently definitely costs you money. Deep watering vs daily watering is the smart choice
• Shopping convenience over community. Big box stores are everywhere but you're spending so much on the worst quality available. Why bother? You're likely to spend more $$$ attempting to fix it, trying to figure out where you went wrong.
I recently saw a tomato start selling for nearly $19.
For a single tomato plant.
Meanwhile, gardeners all over Snohomish County will be giving away tomato volunteers by the dozens because they came up in the compost pile again.
I discovered around 25 black krim tomato volunteers where they were planted last year. While these are my personal favorite I prefer a bit of variety too.
Gardening doesn't have to be expensive.
Money helps make it happen faster is a myth so busted.
Transforming a space takes hours, not months or years because the waste produced isn't going away , it's plentiful & free.
Community helps more than money all.day.every.day.
The best gardens I've ever seen weren't built with the biggest budgets.
They were built with relationships.
