It is a mission at Shit’s Not The Difficult to constantly remind the masses (aka the few that see our posts) that hobbies do not need to be expensive, all consuming, or scary to be involved in. There are a lot of us out here doing what we love and trying our best. However, having a garden can turn expensive quickly.

Anyways, on to how I amended my garden for cheap. This post comes on the heels of my post last fall, explaining what I was doing in the fall to amend my soil for the spring planting season. This is me adding more info about this process, and me working through and correcting the problems I ran into.

nutrients for a garden

I have my own compost at home; however, that is generally not enough to fill my whole garden with extra nutrients every year. This year I will have 4 different garden beds (stay tuned for my 2025 garden plan), so I needed a way to create beds/add in nutrients to my existing beds.

The basic fundamentals of compost is that you need a ratio of Nitrogen and Carbon for each to break down into their basic nutrients. Generally, nitrogen is added to compost by adding in kitchen scraps and mixing it with a carbon source, like leaves.

You can also add in fertilizers, do crop rotations, add in more nutrient rich soil or compost as options for soil amending.

Soil amending cheaply

My soil amending process cost me approximately $200 total for my 4 large garden beds, which seems like a lot of money still (it is) but relatively small for what it could have been.

Some necessary tools:

• A mower
• A garden sprayer pump
• Liquid fertilizer with a high Nitrogen content
  • I used Alaska Liquid Plant food as an organic option (sorry it smells like fish 🙁 )

This method was 3 birds, one stone. Adding nutrients, picking up leaves in the fall, and creating a mulch layer.

1. In the fall after your garden is complete, spread 6-8 inches of leaves across your garden
2. Run the mower over the leaves (yes it is tedious, but hey, saving money usually is)
3. Wet down the leaves thoroughly
4. Spray the leaves with the Nitrogen fertilizer to encourage them to break down
   • This is simulating a compost bin. Adding nitrogen (kitchen scraps) to a large amount of carbon (leaves) to encourage both to break down into their basic nutrient forms.
5. Let it break down until gardening season the following year
   • you may need to add some chicken wire, or something to hold down the leaves if you live in a windy area
6. In the spring, I added a 2″ layer of new loam/compost on top of my leaves to plant into
   • Optional ways to save money:
     • I ordered 50/50 loam/compost from a local guy I found on Facebook market place who delivers by the cubic yard. I was able to get 6 yards of soil for $200 with delivery. Getting that from a garden store delivered would have been $350 minimum.
     • Buy less loam/compost and only add it where you are planting. That way you are using the decomposing leaves as a mulch in your garden walk-ways

I have a large amount of garden bed space to amend and the previous owners used to use our property as a trash fill and the soil was very barren of nutrients. Sometimes this amount of soil amending isn’t necessary; however, it is for my property while I am establishing my beds more each year.

This year I will be implementing crop rotations, so stay tuned to hear how I will use that to stay on top of amending my soil each year to save more money and time!

TIME IS MONEY.

Potential issues – What I learned

SNTD loves to learn from mistakes and grow. Last fall in my post explaining this process, I chose not to mow my leaves to help them break them down extra. I learned the fall/winter/spring gardening off-season wasn’t enough time for these leaves to fully break down. They did decompose a lot, but not as much as I would have preferred for planting in.

Also, I think it would be best to use 6″ of leaves in the future, instead of 12″. This is because it was harder to mow the larger amount and my mower kept clogging.

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