If you have never gardened before you may suddenly decide it was just a fantasy when you walk into the garden shop and look at the price tags. Don’t get scared. Gardening can still be a fulfilling hobby even if you have a tight gardening budget. In fact, many gardens can be started for only about $100. You may be able to start a garden for less if you can find some of the tools second hand, but still good quality.

A spading fork is your first gardening on a budget tool. It’s a little bit like a pitchfork, but much smaller. It fits in your hand and resembles a three prong fork. This handy little gardening on a budget tool will help to improve the soil you’re working with and aerate it for better garden planting.

You’ll want a hoe for weeding and for cultivating your new garden on a budget. Add a long nozzle watering can to the cart as well as a round ended shovel for larger gardening digging projects. Last on your list of tight budget gardening tools is a pair of garden shears. Make sure the garden shears fit comfortably in your hand, especially if you’ll be wearing gardening gloves.

This pretty much completes the tight budget gardening shopping list, minus of course the plants and flowers, but we’ll get there. Naturally, you will want to pick a piece of land for your tight budget gardening to begin, and then you’ll need to turn the soil. If you’re starting with a grassy area, you will need to remove the layer of grass. The tight budgeted gardening hoe actually works fairly well for this job.

Turning the soil over and over creates a better foundation for starting your tight budget garden. This is primarily what we purchased the spading fork for. As it aerates the soil, you will bring small rocks and other debris to the surface. Because you are gardening on a tight budget, you will have to perform more of the manual labor than those who purchase machinery to get their garden started. You may wish to keep this in mind when you choose the size of your garden.

Before you go out and purchase plants, check with your local organic co-op. Often they have plants the require transplanting, whether you are creating a vegetable garden or a flower garden. People whose plants have outgrown their garden are often willing to give away parts of the plant that will continue to grow for free, as they prefer not to simply throw it away.