10 QUICK MONEYSAVING TIPS

■ Avoid the cost of buying soil improver by making extra compost heaps out of old pallets.

■ Strike overpriced bagged salad off your shopping list and save money by sowing autumn and winter salad leaf mixes now.

■ Don’t splash out on costly turf to fix parched lawns. Instead, overseed with a drought-tolerant lawn seed mix that’ll thrive next summer.

■ Link multiple water butts together to create a huge rainwater harvesting facility over winter, so you won’t have to rely on expensive mains supplies next summer.

■ Collecting bare twigs to use as pea and bean supports means you won’t have to buy canes next season.

■ Collect and store used garden twine for next season as the perennials and edibles they supported are cut down and composted.

■ Review your seed orders and only grow edible varieties that have yielded bumper crops in your garden. It’ll help to cut supermarket bills.

■ Use free apps such as Nextdoor and Gumtree, Facebook Marketplace or local Freecycle groups to snap up bargain secondhand garden tools and kit.

■ Put dates for local seed swaps in your diary, so unwanted packets can be exchanged for varieties you need.

■ Thoroughly clean and oil tools before packing away for winter, so they provide many more years of service.