Try a spot of credit crunch gardening

If I were taking the impending recession as seriously as I should, I wouldn't be spending money on the garden, only on the allotment, but then that would be like asking an alcoholic to restrict her drinking to weekends.

Sane women need flowers. I can't drive, cycle or walk past a nursery or garden centre without popping in for a quick shufti, though at least if I'm on foot there's a limit to the ensuing Can't Live Without damage.

Anyway, a bargain is a bargain. And as with every other form of merchandise at the moment, there are plenty in horticulture.

On 10 per cent off day at a local garden centre I snaffled three white outdoor cyclamen persicum, a Trudi hebe brilliant white flowers with a faint lavender flush and a purple cranesbill, Jolly Bee, all for under £10. Trudi was horribly pot bound, so may not make it to a Freedom pass, but she'll still outlive a bunch of superannuated supermarket alstroemerias any day.

Trudi and the cyclamen now live in two containers in the front garden. The purity of their white flowers lifts my gloom after the interminable bus journey home during the working week surrounded by witless mobile conversations, leaching iPods and retch-inducing McDonald's takeaways.

(Talking of gloom, could someone please hurry up and invent a low-energy light bulb that actually emits some light. Then I can stride confidently from room to room in my house at night instead of feeling my way round the walls and tripping over the cat.)

To recoup the money I've just spent on the garden, I make my own leaf mould. Last week, a couple of hours after it had rained so the leaves were damp but not saturated, I tightly packed four jute sacks with booty from the communal garden of the block of flats at the end of my road (no, I didn't ask first). Mostly horse chestnut, in 12 months' time the leaves will have broken down into lovely nitrogen and mineral-rich mulch.

On Saturday I spread the spoils from last year's plunder round my favourite shrubs. Along with compost made from household waste, there's no better soil improver.

Finally, if you really want to save money, collect your own seed. This weekend I tackled crocosmia, cerinthe and agapanthus. When their seed is sprinkled on top of compost in a small seed tray, with gravel on top, and watered from below, and stuck on a windowledge (or in a greenhouse if you're one of the lucky ones), it may or may not germinate but what have you got to lose? It's fun and it's free.