Now that the growing season is upon us, you might want to consider a vegetable garden as part of your money saving plan.? Even if you have minimal space to grow in, or have very little experience in gardening, there are ways that you can use vegetable planting to save your household a good bit of cash. Consider the money saving gardening tips?below:
Use Your Vegetable Garden to Plant What You Love
Are you a big salad eater?? Plant a different variety or two of lettuce (in some pots if you don’t have much garden space) and have lettuce at your fingertips anytime the craving for a great salad hits.? Lettuce is fast-growing and can handle colder weather, so it’s a great choice for a vegetable garden in nearly any climate.
Do you love tomatoes?? Plant enough to have them fresh through the growing season and to can and freeze for later.? Are you limited on space?? Buy a hanging tomato plant or a simple pot with Roma Tomatoes to have in your yard or on your deck.? Roma tomatoes produce in abundance too, so even one plant can give you enough to can or freeze a substantial amount of tomatoes.
Keep it Simple, Sweetie
If you’re in an apartment or condo that doesn’t have a yard, consider starting with herbs.? A nice little pot of your favorite herb, such as Basil or Sage will fit nicely on a small table or window sill and provide you with fresh herbs all year around if properly cared for, saving you cash as the herbs purchased in grocery stores are generally quite expensive.
If you’ve got a small yard or patio, pick your favorite, most-consumed 3-5 plants for your vegetable garden, keeping space to a minimum.? If you have the space for a big garden, make sure that you’re not wasting money by planting certain veggies “just because”.? Plant only what you know you’ll eat.
Grow Up
No, not you: your garden! 🙂 Have pea or green bean vines grow up lattice on the side of the house, or [easyazon_link asin=”B009W8Z6JQ” locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”wisedollar-20″ add_to_cart=”default” cloaking=”default” localization=”default” popups=”yes”]upside-down hanging tomato baskets[/easyazon_link]?to hang on your deck.? Not only will this save you space, it will save your garden from rabbits and other roaming creatures, thereby increasing your bounty and saving money in the process.
Think Long-Term
When planting your vegetable garden, think long-term.? You might not have a lot of freezer space for freezing beans or peas, but maybe you could can salsa instead.? A couple of healthy Roma Tomato plants and a nice Green Pepper or Jalapeno plant or two, along with some onion plants, will give you enough yield? for several jars of salsa or Bruschetta, both of which are fairly easy to can with a hot-water bath canner.
Pick the vegetables you love the most, and plant an abundance of them where you have space, making sure to can or freeze them when they’re ready to go.? Then, instead of buying salsa or pickles, you can grab some healthy and delicious homemade ones out of your pantry.? Your pocket book and your health with thank you.
Growing and preserving your own food from your vegetable garden can seem intimidating when you first start out, but by following the money saving tips above, you can cash in on some serious cash and grow your way to good health all at the same time.
What are your favorite money saving tips for your vegetable garden?? If you had to pick just one veggie to grow, which one would it be?
Photo courtesy of: Jay Bay
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We do have tomatoes, red pepper and some leafy vegetables in our garden. I picked to plant tomatoes because I really do love eating tomatoes even a raw one. My daughter loves to pick fresh vegetables from our garden.
That’s great, Clarisse!! We are big fans of those veggies too. We make lots of salsa here. 🙂
One of our goals over this next year is to get more proficient in gardening. We are starting small now with some peppers and herbs. I love fresh veggies, though, and I would love to stop getting them from the food store one day.
We are doing our first really big garden this year, with the goal of providing veggies for our family for a year. I’m scared, but excited too – the home grown stuff tastes SO much better. You’ll have to update us on your garden adventure, Shannon! 🙂
We just planted our garden this past weekend. We love growing our own produce and we’ve refined our strategy over the years. We’ve definitely been guilty of over-planting and getting too excited about the prospect of growing things that we didn’t focus on what we actually consume. These days, we stick to the essentials: tomatoes, peppers and herbs. I may try lettuce this year since we eat a lot of salads, but my biggest struggle is pest control. Any recommendations for keeping grasshoppers and other insects away?
We are trying lettuce for the first time too this year, Kendal! Check this link out to help with pests for your lettuce. There are lots of different types of control methods, depending on what type of pests you’re dealing with: http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/nutrition_articles.asp?id=1324
Awesome! Thanks so much, Laurie!
Hey Laurie, one of my favorite money saving tips is to start from seed. By starting form seed, we paid for all the plants in our garden for under $30. Considering how much broccoli we’ve got, we would have paid that much just for the broccoli plants. We’re still new to his though, you’re the expert! Thanks for the great tips!
LOL, I don’t know if I’d say expert, but we’re learning, and I totally agree about starting from seed – it’s a terrific money saver! We started 75% of our plants from seed this year, and they’re sprouting up wonderfully. 🙂 Best of luck with your garden, Joshua!
We grow lots of tomatoes and peppers and make enough spaghetti sauce to last the rest of the year. The sauce is amazing and so much less expensive than buying it.
Kristin, you’ll have to share your recipe!! We’ve been considering canning tomato sauce! Thanks for the comment. 🙂
I love to save water when gardening. You can make your own Grow Boxes for cheap using 5 gallon buckets. Compost gives nutrients and conserves moisture. You can make your own compost cheaply and easily. My one plant? Cherry tomatoes! They produce like crazy, are easy to grow & are good eaten as snacks!
They do produce like crazy!! And SO delicious, either in a salad or as you mentioned, as a snack. Yum!! Thanks, Maggie. 🙂
We have a variety of veggies, but our favorite is tomatoes, too. We like to use pine straw, which is in abundance around here, as a mulch and cover. That saves us from buying the plastic sheeting.
Great tip, Lori! Thanks for sharing. 🙂
I do have kale and tomatoes in my garden. I picked kale mainly because it’s a veggie mostly used in my house. Buying was expensive as compared to planting them in my small garden.
We need to eat more kale. Could you share how you prepare it, Jeff?