The Saskatoon compost depots opened for the season yesterday, which means free mulch and compost is now available for Saskatoon residents! I only used this program for the first time last summer because every time I planned to go in prior years, it rained and I didn’t want to bring home extra heavy wet compost. But, it’s awesome!
Dig-Your-Own mulch and compost is only available at the West Depot off 11th St, but it’s exactly as it sounds. You show up, they tell you where to go, and you can dig up to a cubic yard each of mulch or compost from big piles, for free!
If you do this a couple times over the course of the summer, you can easily fertilize your tomatoes and other garden plants without spending anything but gas money.
In other free fertilizer news, I also scored both rabbit and chicken manure this summer, at no cost. If you know someone with a barnyardy pet (OF COURSE, I don’t know ANYONE with backyard chickens, that would be ILLEGAL…), they may be happy to give you bags and bags of manure which your garden will love. Rabbit manure does not need to be composted/rotted, but chicken manure does, so if you are getting animal manure to use on your garden, be sure to check whether it needs to be rotted first.
