Hi all! I'm poor. I'm attempting to get my balcony garden started without spending more than 30 dollars. (I'm probably nuts, I know.) It looks like a good chunk of that will be going to a water hose and sink attachment so I don't have to haul a milk jug of water back and forth a hundred times, so I'm hurting a bit on funds for fertilizer. To make matters worse, the landlord says I'm not allowed to compost anywhere in the apartment or on the property. (I would just hide it under my kitchen sink, what she doesn't know won't hurt her etc, but there's other reasons why I can't unfortunately.)
Is there any option for fertilizing my plants with like... five dollars left? If I mix coffee grounds and eggshells into the soil will it do anything other than bother the local slugs? I've seen that stuff about letting plant scraps sit in a bucket to make "tea" but what I read said it can't replace fertilizer - is there a way to make it so that it can?
I have a bag of epsom salts, a strong appetite for veggies, and the willingness to steal the neighbor's lawn clippings if I must.
I'm also willing to accept that I may have to forgo the water hose C:
EDIT: Thank you all for suggestions! Here's what I'm going to try in no particular order:
- Grass clippings and banana peels in water to make tea
- Getting a med-free friend to pee in a jar and letting that sit for two months
- Reach out to local Buy Nothing group and gardening groups to see if someone has leftover fertilizer or compost
- Steal dirt from local megacorp office to save money on dirt and spend that on fertilizer instead
- Ask around to see if anyone keeps fish so I can use the aquarium water
- Reach out to local mushroom farm to see if they'd give me their growing medium
- Skip the faucet hose and spend the money on some decent cheap fertilizer from Costco
$30 is "you need to steal it" territory. Buy a shovel and a bag from a thrift store. Dig up soil near office buildings, ideally mega corps that are assholes.
You can get mulch from the same place. Some munipalities will also drop off free mulch from the tree cleanup they do around power lines. Check your local area to see if they have a program.
You can use this for fertilizer:
https://www.costco.com/p/-/miracle-gro-shake-n-feed-all-purpose-plant-food-8-lb/100411468
Its all purpose and will last years in a balcony garden. Its not tuned to each plants needs, but I can vouch for it working across hundreds of different plants without issue. Shake out the pellets every 3 months of the growing seasons and that's that.
For water, do rain catchment if possible with any old container you have. A large cistern is best, but any container you can seal will do.
Composting is basically not realistic inside. Its rotting food/soil on purpose over sustained periods. Lots of bugs, can be very smelly. Don't recommend.
I think you're onto something. Soil is so damn expensive and I thought about digging it up from the woods but I don't want to risk disturbing any natural ecosystems. But we all know mega corps ain't natural C:
A friend of mine has a Costco membership, I'll see if they can grab me a cheap thing of Miracle Gro. I'm not too concerning about tuning to each plant, I just want to keep them alive until winter XD thank you!!
(Someone else suggested putting a bucket out for rain... I think I can turn my growing milk jug collection into rain catchers by cutting the tops off and pour them out into a larger container for storage. Though I am a little worried about weight limits... not sure how you figure that out)
FWIW, state parks (ie. nature, not playground) often allow transplanting of native plants by locals and are more likely than any corpo fucknuts to not use budget-rate maintenance solutions that'd taint your soil/medium sample (and fuck up your balcony lovelies' roots, etc.), so check your home turf for those rules/laws, and happy scrounging! 🤩