There’s a persistent myth floating around on social media that gardening is too expensive to be worth the effort when it comes to saving money on groceries. But what if I told you that with the right strategies, your backyard (or balcony!) garden could not only feed your family but actually save you money?
Today on Just Grow Something, we’re busting the myth thatgrowing your own food can’t compete with grocery store prices. We’ll explore how your location, soil type, and choices in the garden can make a huge difference in your return on investment. From essential tools and inputs to skip-the-splurge items and savvy seed saving, we’re diving deep into the real numbers and practical tips that make gardening not just a hobby—but a financially smart one. Let’s dig in!
In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
- Why some crops offer more bang for your buck than others
- What you really need to spend money on in your garden—and what you don’t
- How to track your gardening costs and harvest value to measure your savings
- Budget-friendly strategies like starting from seed, making your own compost, and using free or recycled materials
- How to choose crops and garden methods based on your climate and soil type for maximum return
References and Resources:
Save 20% on your new own-root rose plant atHeirloomRoses.com with code JUSTGROW https://heirloomroses.com
Get 10% off and FREE shipping on my favorite raisedplanters at Planter Box Direct using code JUSTGROW10: https://planterboxdirect.com/?ref=593
USDA Inflation Tracking – Retail Produce Prices: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/fruit-and-vegetable-prices
Just Grow Something: https://justgrowsomething.com
Just Grow Something Merch andDownloads: https://justgrowsomething.com/shop
Just Grow Something Gardening Friends Facebook Group:https://www.facebook.com/share/g/18YgHveF5P/
Check out how you can become a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JustGrowSomething
Bonus content for supporters of the Podcast: https://buymeacoffee.com/justgrowsomething
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00:00:00
I know you've seen the memes, the ones that say something
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like, oh look, after four months of work and $200 in supplies, I
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finally harvested my first $0.50 tomato.
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I mean, it's funny because sometimes it can feel like that.
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But what's not funny is the posts and the videos that I've
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seen going around where folks are actively warning people that
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you won't save money growing a garden and that anyone telling
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you that is lying to you. For someone like me, who started
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gardening to save money as a single parent and who truly
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believes that there is so much power in food, I find this
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absolutely disturbing. Every garden situation and every
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location and every gardener is different.
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Our goals are different, our challenges are different, and
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that warrants each garden to have a different approach.
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So to blanketly say you can't save money because it's
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expensive to garden is actively going to discourage some people.
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And that frankly makes me very upset.
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So today, under score something we're talking about the true
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costs of gardening, what's necessary, what's not, what to
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track to truly understand what you're harvesting versus what
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you're spending. So you know, whether you're
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saving money over what you can buy at the grocery or from the
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farmers market. Plus, we'll talk about the fact
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that maybe it's not always about saving money in terms of what
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you're harvesting. Maybe the quality is more
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important than the quantity. Let's dig in.
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Hey, I'm Karen and what started as a small backyard garden 20
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years ago turned into a lifelong passion for growing food.
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Now as a market farmer and horticulturist, I want to help
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you do the same. On this podcast, I am your
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friend in the garden, teaching evidence based techniques to
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help you grow your favorites and build confidence in your own
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garden space. So grab your garden journal and
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a cup of coffee and get ready to just grow something.
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OK, so some of the things that I'm hearing are, well, gardening
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is too expensive to be worth it. It's cheaper to buy the produce
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at the grocery store. And that is so absolutely not
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true. Gardening can save money over
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store bought produce, especially when it's done with strategy and
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efficiency. OK, gardening, vegetable
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gardening, right? Growing our own produce, whether
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it's veggies or fruits or whatever, can save us money in
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several different ways, right? The first one is, have you seen
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the cost of inflation on produce here lately?
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OK, grocery prices have increased 20 to 30% in recent
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years. This is from the USDA Economic
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Research Service. So we know that the cost of food
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is continuing to go up. And unfortunately, oftentimes it
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seems that it's the cost of the fresh, like Whole Foods that are
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going up faster than the cost of the boxed stuff and the
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processed stuff. And unfortunately, at least here
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in the US, it's because there are a lot more, you know,
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subsidies and crop protections for the commodity crops like
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corn and wheat and soy. And there are a lot more of
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those products or those crops going into those boxed products.
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So a lot of it is just that, I mean, that's kind of like a
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nutritional filler, I guess. And that is a lot less expensive
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to produce than something like, you know, fresh broccoli or
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greens or whatever that have a shelf life and expire after a
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while and can get damaged much more easily in transit and all
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of those things. So there's a lot of things that
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go into that produce cost, but in general, you know, grocery
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prices overall have continued to go up in recent years and I mean
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quite substantially here recently.
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The way that we can save money on that is by growing our own
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high value crops. So things that are much more
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expensive to grow in or to buy in the grocery store can
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absolutely be less expensive for us to grow.
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OK, So things like leafy greens and culinary herbs, tomatoes,
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Peppers, berries, these things all offer us a higher dollar per
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square foot value. So the things that would cost us
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the most in the grocery store are the things that we should
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try to grow in our own garden in order to save the most in our
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garden. And if you think about the
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amount of volume that you can get over time in your garden,
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that is going to save you money. If you take a single $3 packet
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of seeds, you can yield pounds and pounds of food over an
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entire season or even multiple seasons, depending on how many
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seeds you get in that packet and what it is that you're growing.
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You know, so sometimes you're getting the equivalent of $100
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or more in store bought produce from a single $3 packet of
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seeds. And then if you're working with
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perennials, well then you have that pay off as well.
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So rhubarb, asparagus, fruit trees, small Berry bushes, these
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things have an initial investment, but they will yield
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for years if they are taken care of.
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And so that significantly reduces the cost for those
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foods, right? And then, you know, the other
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thing you have to think about is the transportation cost.
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You have 0 transportation cost for what is coming out of your
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garden. You're not paying for gas,
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you're not paying for shipping or storage or shrinkage or any
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of those types of things, right? But I think what it comes down
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to, especially with beginning gardeners, is, you know, what do
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we want to invest in what is essential and what is not
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essential when it comes to our gardening, right?
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So the places where we may want to invest in the garden, places
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where we want to actually spend money would be for like our
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seeds or our starter plants, right?
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If we're really looking to save money, we can look at open
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pollinated varieties. We want quality compost or soil
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amendments, especially if we are working with very poor native
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soil. Maybe a watering system of some
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sort, depending on where you live.
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Remember I said a lot of how we garden is going to depend on
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what our situation is and where we are.
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So you might just need a watering can, OK, or just a
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garden hose. But if you live some place
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that's very arid and you are having to water very frequently,
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a simple drip setup might be something that you have to spend
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money on. Mulch.
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OK. These mulch is always, always
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important. How much you decide to spend on
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it is going to depend on what you have available to you.
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Do you have leaves that are fallen?
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Do you have grass clippings? Or are you going to have to
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spend some money on straw? And then, of course, there are
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basic tools that you kind of have to have.
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I mean, yeah, you can try to do everything with, you know, the
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10 digits of your fingers, but a hand trowel and some pruners
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and, you know, maybe some gloves might be a good idea to invest
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in things that you likely don't need to invest in.
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Are, you know, really fancy raised beds.
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You can do, you know, leftover materials to get yourself
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started. Scrap wood.
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That's how I started, right? We were doing scrap wood and
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found materials that we were creating raised beds out of
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cinder blocks if you have them leftover.
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Gardening in the ground, if you have soil that is conducive to
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that is the cheapest way, as long as you have a way to break
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that soil up, right? You don't necessarily need
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decorative containers or garden art or expensive potting mixes,
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especially if you're guarding, you know, gardening in the
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ground. You don't need smart sensors,
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you don't need digital meters. You don't need app connected
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devices or anything like that or, or high end grow lights for
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crops that don't need them. You know, if you are starting
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seeds indoors and you're going to transplant them outside, you
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don't need really high end grow lights.
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You need a simple LED light. That's it.
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I think part of the problem is people get caught up in all the
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things that we see that are available to us, that are
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supposed to either make our lives easier or make the garden
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more efficient or supposedly make it more productive.
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And we just start to kind of, I don't know, gather all of these
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things or accumulate all of these things for the garden.
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And after a while, we just have so much stuff and not all of it
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is necessary. So what is important to
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remember? Where are you gardening?
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OK, your soil conditions and your climate are going to
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dictate what you have to purchase and what you can do
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without. If you are gardening in sunny
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Southern California and you have beautiful native soil in your
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backyard, you don't have to do anything but dig that ground up
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and start to plant into it. Now, if you are gardening in the
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arid plains of Colorado where you're lucky if the grass or the
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native grasses grow much less anything else, there is very
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little in the way of nutrients and that soil and it dries out
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very, very quickly, especially in the summertime, then yes, you
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are going to have to make some investments into some raised
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garden beds and creating your your own soil that you can
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garden in, right. You know, Speaking of that soil,
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if you are gardening in ground and you have a way to be able to
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break that up and get it planted the first time, you might find
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that you have to add some amendments to that.
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You may have to purchase compost.
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If you are creating raised beds, even if you are using found
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materials and you're not actually purchasing those beds,
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you still are going to have to find a way to fill those beds.
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You know, and and figure out a way that you can do that
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inexpensively if that is a priority for you.
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The seeds or the plants that you buy.
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If you can get away with starting directly from seed in
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the spot where you are gardening, then you are going to
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save yourself over having to go and buy started plants.
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If you can figure out a way to start those seeds yourself
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indoors in order to transplant them out, then that is also a
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ginormous cost savings. Tools that you might need for
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digging or things that you would need for trellising or
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harvesting. Really take a hard look at
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whether it's a need or if it's a nice to have.
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I started with nothing. I got a few packets of seed.
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I had a shovel and a rake that I'd already had.
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And I had, I went and purchased a, a section of that kind of
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garden lattice, the wooden lattice for really cheap at the
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hardware store. And that was it.
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Like I threw this, you know, I broke up the soil.
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I sort of, you know, made it look neat in that corner and I
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threw the seeds out there and made sure that I had access to
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grab the hose to water it. That's it.
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I did nothing in terms of fertilizing.
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I did nothing in terms of amending the soil that
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everything grow. No, absolutely not.
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You know, I wasn't going to get carrots out of that ground no
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matter how hard I tried. But I got cucumbers and I got
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some green beans. And I mean, there was all kinds
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of things that were growing in that corner and I knew
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absolutely nothing. It was total beginner's luck.
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That happens, right? But I could use that as a
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learning year to figure out what I should do better the next
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year, you know, and we did get a harvest out of that crop and it
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and it cost me less than 20 bucks.
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It cost me less than $20. And I know that I got more than
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$20 worth of produce out of that.
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And the thing about it is once you have the infrastructure in
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place, wasn't like I had to go and repurchase that latticework
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again the next year. It was a one and done.
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It was in place and it was doing what it needed to.
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I already had the shovel. I already had the rake.
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Even if I had to go and buy the shovel and the rake, I think I
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may have the next year went and purchased a hand trowel to make
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hand digging easier. You're buying it once and it's
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lasting for years. You're not having to repurchase
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it. So these are things to think
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about in terms of what is it actually costing us to grow this
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garden. It has been raining almost daily
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here for the last several weeks, but I always say I'd rather have
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too much rain than not enough, because I know Mother Nature is
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going to turn the faucet off and crank up the thermostat in no
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time at all. When the summer finally does
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bring long, hot days and the rain is scarce, the flowers in
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our gardens do not have to struggle.
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If we make a few simple adjustments, our roses and our
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perennials can stay healthy and beautiful even through the
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summer dry spells. Heirloom Roses knows this, and
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they have some tips for you. The first thing to remember is
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something we talk about all the time.
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Less frequent, more thorough waterings.
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Skip the light daily watering. Instead give your plants a
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thorough soak a few times a week.
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This builds deeper roots that can access water even when the
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topsoil is dry. Next thing is something I always
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preach and that is mulch. Heirloom Roses thinks it's just
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as important as I do. A 2 to 3 inch layer of mulch
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keeps the soil cool, it slows evaporation, and it helps reduce
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weeds. It's a small step with a big
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payoff, especially during hot stretches.
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And finally, pair some heat tolerant roses with heat loving
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perennials. Many perennials not only hold up
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in heat, they actually thrive in it.
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And when planted with roses, they bring texture, pollinator
00:14:01
appeal and long lasting color to the garden.
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Roses that can handle the heat like Eden Climber, James
00:14:07
Galloway and Joseph's Coat can be paired with drought tolerant
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perennials like Nephopia, Echinacea, Yarrow, Lavender,
00:14:15
Sage and Salvia. With the right care and the
00:14:18
right plant choices, your flower garden can flourish all summer,
00:14:22
no matter the forecast. Get your heat tolerant roses and
00:14:26
heat loving perennials right now at heirloomroses.com and save
00:14:31
20% by using code Just Grow at Checkout.
00:14:35
They have the varieties I mentioned and more ready to ship
00:14:38
on whatever schedule you choose. Heirloom Roses specializes in
00:14:42
own route roses, not grafted ones that stand up to extreme
00:14:46
weather conditions and the test of time.
00:14:49
Visit heirloomroses.com today and use code Just Grow to save
00:14:53
20% on their fabulous selection of roses and perennials for your
00:14:57
garden. The link is in the show notes.
00:15:01
So if our goal is to save money in the grocery store by growing
00:15:10
a lot of our own produce, what do we do to track what it is
00:15:17
that we're spending so that we can actually measure our
00:15:21
savings? And the, the way that I would
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say to treat this is, you know, if your goal is to essentially
00:15:29
make money from your garden in terms of the fact that, you
00:15:32
know, you're not having to buy as much produce, you're
00:15:34
replacing the grocery store, then treat it like a side
00:15:38
hustle, treat it like a budget friendly side hustle.
00:15:41
So in that instance, we're tracking our expenses and we're
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tracking our yields and we're tracking our preservation and
00:15:50
then we're kind of figuring out what our return on investment
00:15:53
is, right? So what are we tracking in terms
00:15:55
of expenses? You have two different
00:15:57
categories here. You've got your initial costs,
00:15:59
OK. These are things like raised
00:16:01
beds or tools or trellises or fencing or whatever.
00:16:06
These are long term things whose costs are going to be divided
00:16:12
out over the lifetime of the item.
00:16:15
You know, when we started our gardens at the Five Acre
00:16:19
homestead, we just used scrap wood that we had laying around
00:16:23
to get us through the first couple of years until we could
00:16:26
buy the beds that we wanted. I mean, we were reusing screws
00:16:30
and nails to put these things together and we actually had
00:16:34
gotten some free things off of Craigslist that we were using to
00:16:37
like break up the soil or to mow down the lawn or whatever.
00:16:40
Now, you know, even when we moved over to the 40 acres, we
00:16:42
were still using scrap wood and things to kind of build our
00:16:46
raised beds. Now most of those have already
00:16:47
fallen apart and they're being replaced, but using found
00:16:52
materials is a really great way to save my planter box.
00:16:56
Direct planters now that I use still only cost me around an
00:17:00
average of 140 dollars and they are going to last me now for
00:17:05
decades. And of course using my code to
00:17:08
just grow not only saves you 10%, but you also get free
00:17:11
shipping. So it really is a really good
00:17:14
deal. If you buy pressure treated
00:17:17
lumber, OK, that's also a longer term wooden solution.
00:17:21
There's still an upfront investment that you'll need to
00:17:23
account for, but that is divided out over the number of years of
00:17:27
life that you get out of that bed.
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OK. So you have those sort of
00:17:33
initial costs and then we have the annual costs, the things
00:17:38
that we are having to repurchase every single year.
00:17:40
So you know, this might be things like seeds and plants
00:17:44
unless you're doing heirlooms and you're holding, you're
00:17:46
saving your own seeds. And you know, unless you are
00:17:49
really starting all of your transplants from seed, if you're
00:17:54
buying these, this is going to be sort of an annual cost for
00:17:57
you, right? Soil amendments, if you have to
00:18:00
purchase anything for that compost, if you can't make your
00:18:03
own, these are all things that you would have to purchase again
00:18:07
year after year. So that needs to be factored in
00:18:09
as a cost. Do those costs go down as you
00:18:14
continue to garden through the years?
00:18:15
Absolutely, because you're not going to have to buy unless
00:18:18
you're continuing to expand your garden year after year, you're
00:18:21
not going to have to continue to buy the same volume of compost
00:18:25
or soil amendments or topsoil or whatever, specifically if
00:18:28
you're, you know, filling up raised beds, but also if you are
00:18:31
amending, you know, in ground beds.
00:18:33
So hopefully those costs will go down year after year.
00:18:36
And if you manage those beds properly, you can use things
00:18:40
like cover crops that are less expensive to be able to help
00:18:43
improve that soil versus, you know, buying compost or soil
00:18:46
amendments. And you can manage that a little
00:18:48
bit more closely yourself. If the goal is to save money,
00:18:52
you got to get scrappy. OK, we were scrappy.
00:18:56
It was a broken shoestring job, shoestring budget.
00:18:59
There was no money to be had. And we were building a business
00:19:03
in this way. It started out just feeding the
00:19:05
family, but we built the farm this way.
00:19:08
And so you absolutely, absolutely can bootstrap your
00:19:12
garden. Easy, okay, but not easy.
00:19:15
It's not really easy, but you should be doing this.
00:19:17
You should be bootstrapping your gardens, okay, If you're
00:19:20
concerned about saving money, the second thing to track now is
00:19:24
your yields. So first we're tracking our
00:19:25
expenses and now we want to make sure that we are tracking our
00:19:28
yields. I, I, I don't like it when I see
00:19:32
people say, oh, well, you know, it costs more to grow the garden
00:19:35
than it does to go buy in the grocery store.
00:19:38
When they admit that they're not actually weighing the produce
00:19:41
that they're bringing in from their own garden and they're not
00:19:43
keeping track of it. Like you should be weighing out
00:19:47
what you're harvesting and keeping note of it.
00:19:50
You know, I love a garden journal.
00:19:52
OK. And one of the things that we
00:19:53
keep track of is our yield. Now obviously this is a little
00:19:57
bit different for me because this is a business.
00:20:00
Business for me, right? And I am making money from these
00:20:03
gardens and so I need to know exactly what it's costing me to
00:20:07
do this and exactly how much I'm harvesting so I know exactly
00:20:10
what my return on investment is. But if your goal is to make
00:20:15
money in terms of you are saving on having to go to the grocery
00:20:19
store, then again, we should be treating this like a business
00:20:22
and tracking these things anyway.
00:20:24
And then when you're figuring out, you know, what that kind of
00:20:28
replacement value would be, you should be looking at your local
00:20:32
grocery store or your CSA's or your farmers market vendors to
00:20:37
price and estimate the value of what it is that you are
00:20:41
harvesting. And make sure that you are
00:20:44
comparing apples to apples. I mean, literally and
00:20:48
figuratively, right? If you are growing organically,
00:20:51
compare what you're growing and what you are harvesting to the
00:20:56
price of organic in the store or the farmers market.
00:21:01
Don't you know, have your really high quality produce that you
00:21:05
were growing yourself using organic methods and then compare
00:21:08
it to the, you know, stuff that you can get in the conventional
00:21:12
section at Walmart. It's not the same product.
00:21:15
So make sure that you're comparing apples to apples when
00:21:19
you're estimating this value, OK?
00:21:21
And then make sure that you are also tracking your preservation.
00:21:24
If you're making salsa or Pickles or you're freezing your
00:21:28
green beans or you're storing up winter squashes or potatoes.
00:21:32
Keep in mind that oftentimes these things are going to be
00:21:36
much more expensive in the grocery store during the time of
00:21:39
year that you would normally be purchasing them.
00:21:42
Because if you were to purchase these things in the winter time,
00:21:45
say you're buying the potatoes in the winter or you're buying
00:21:48
apples in the winter, it's going to be more expensive than when
00:21:51
they were in season. So you might actually be saving
00:21:55
even more money by preserving all of these things yourself and
00:21:59
being able to like shop your pantry or your basement for all
00:22:05
of your goodies during the winter time, right?
00:22:07
So make sure that you're tracking how much it is that you
00:22:09
are saving yourself in terms of the amount of produce that
00:22:14
you're preserving. And then you just calculate your
00:22:17
return on your investment. So whatever you spent and then
00:22:20
the value of the produce that you grew in addition to
00:22:23
everything that you preserved. And then you get your net
00:22:25
savings, right. So if you spent 80 bucks on your
00:22:27
garden and you had $300 worth of value in produce that you saved,
00:22:31
then it's a $220 net savings over what you would have spent
00:22:36
at the grocery store. Track your costs and your yield
00:22:40
so that you understand whether your garden is saving you money
00:22:44
or costing you in terms of expenses.
00:22:49
Our location and soil type are absolutely considerations,
00:22:53
right? So in ground beds, if you have
00:22:58
decent soil, wherever you are gardening, an in ground bed is
00:23:02
going to require very, very minimal investment.
00:23:07
You don't have to own a tiller in order to be able to break
00:23:10
this up. There are a lot of places where
00:23:12
you can either rent one or you can actually hire somebody to
00:23:14
come in and do this for you. But if you don't have the budget
00:23:18
for that, because I did not, you can break up the ground in just
00:23:23
small little bits using, you know, a hand trowel, a a
00:23:29
pitchfork, a potato fork, anything that you can do to sort
00:23:33
of break that ground up and make it to where it's loose enough
00:23:35
for you to be able to plant a seed or to transplant a plant.
00:23:39
Now, might you need to improve it with some compost, maybe.
00:23:44
Could this be done later on down the road with some cover crops?
00:23:46
Absolutely. Even if you are, you know,
00:23:50
trying to garden in a 4 by 4 area that was nothing but turf
00:23:54
and you mow it down really, really low.
00:23:56
And you sort of take a shovel and kind of get the last of that
00:23:59
sod off of the top and then take a broad fork or take a potato
00:24:04
fork or a hand trowel or something and break up the, you
00:24:07
know, that that section into smaller sections.
00:24:11
And then even just get an inexpensive bag of potting soil
00:24:15
and kind of just improve the spots where you're going to
00:24:18
plant. You have a space to plant.
00:24:20
OK. But this again, is only if you
00:24:23
have, you know, a decent soil. If you live some place where you
00:24:26
don't and if you continue to try to plant in that corner and it's
00:24:31
nothing but clay and nothing is going to grow and you really are
00:24:33
just going to be wasting your money, Then we look at container
00:24:35
gardening. OK, It could be just pots on
00:24:38
your deck. You can start with recycled, you
00:24:42
know, nursery containers or recycled flower pots or whatever
00:24:46
you can find. And then you can move your way
00:24:49
up to actual raised planters, right?
00:24:52
This can be a little bit more expensive per square foot
00:24:57
depending on how you are creating the soil within those
00:25:01
containers. So if you're just doing small
00:25:04
pots on the patio and you're using straight potting soil for
00:25:09
this, then that can be manageable depending on what
00:25:12
your budget is. But if you're talking larger
00:25:15
square footage, if you're getting those raised planters
00:25:17
and you need to fill those up, then there's going to be a
00:25:20
little bit of an expense that goes with that.
00:25:24
One of the ways to maximize your return on that investment is
00:25:29
number 1, to grow those really high value crops, the ones that
00:25:34
you are going to pay a high dollar amount for in the grocery
00:25:38
store and to choose compact crops that are going to maximize
00:25:45
what the yield is that you can get out of those beds.
00:25:48
I just did the math on this for our own gardens.
00:25:52
Now I have, wait for it, 34 raised planter beds.
00:25:57
OK, most of them are from Planter box Direct.
00:25:59
Some of them are still the ones that are falling apart from
00:26:00
before. And this is in my kitchen garden
00:26:03
and also in the garden that's behind my greenhouse.
00:26:06
I am actively harvesting from 30 of them right now.
00:26:12
In just the past three weeks, I have harvested over 250 lbs of
00:26:17
produce from those beds and they are still full of things being
00:26:23
harvested. That's not including any of the
00:26:25
really heavy stuff like my carrots and my beets that
00:26:28
haven't, you know, reached maturity yet or any of the herbs
00:26:32
I'm not even counting, right. That's an average of over 8 lbs
00:26:37
per bed over the past three weeks.
00:26:39
And I expect over the next three weeks that I will get an
00:26:43
additional 10 to 12 lbs from each of those beds based on what
00:26:48
is just still in them. OK, So now already at 20 lbs of
00:26:53
produce out of each one of those beds.
00:26:55
And then I will replant them with a summer succession
00:27:00
planting and then a summer succession for a fall harvest.
00:27:05
So on average, I will yield depending on the crops that I'm
00:27:09
growing because obviously some crops weigh more than others.
00:27:12
But those high dollar ones, those leafy greens, right, are
00:27:15
producing abundantly in these beds.
00:27:18
And eventually the tomatoes that I will have in these beds and
00:27:21
the eggplant I will have, that's the heavier stuff, which again,
00:27:25
higher yield because they're compact varieties, but also
00:27:28
because I'm interplanting and I'm companion planting And just
00:27:32
the dollar value of those crops, on average, I will yield
00:27:36
anywhere from around 54 lbs to 120 lbs of produce per bed
00:27:45
across the season, depending on what I plant.
00:27:47
OK, so if we are strategic in what we plant and how we plant
00:27:53
it, container yields can be phenomenal, right?
00:27:58
You cannot tell me that you could buy 75 lbs of high value
00:28:04
produce in the grocery store for less than what you can grow it
00:28:08
in a small space like a raised bed.
00:28:11
Despite needing to make the initial purchase of the bed and
00:28:15
filling it with the soil and amending it each season a
00:28:18
special if you are growing organically and you compare that
00:28:22
with the cost of that same produce organic in the grocery
00:28:26
store, if you can even find it. Ever tried finding organic
00:28:29
collard greens in a grocery store in rural Missouri?
00:28:33
Good luck. OK.
00:28:35
So being strategic with what we grow means that we can save
00:28:40
money, and it also means that you might be able to grow things
00:28:44
organically that you otherwise wouldn't have been able to
00:28:47
afford organically in the grocery store.
00:28:49
That's a whole other thing that we haven't even talked about.
00:28:52
You know, it might be cost prohibitive for you to be able
00:28:55
to go and buy these things normally in the grocery store,
00:28:58
and so you're having to buy them conventionally.
00:29:01
But now because you're growing them yourself, you can opt to
00:29:04
grow them organically and now you get the advantages of that.
00:29:08
OK. Now if we have really clay heavy
00:29:11
soil again, we're probably going to have to amend with some
00:29:14
compost and some other organic matter.
00:29:17
So obviously there is a cost there.
00:29:20
And in this instance, it really is a matter of trial and error
00:29:24
depending on, you know, trying to determine exactly how many of
00:29:27
those inputs you would need every year.
00:29:30
We learned the hard way that we shouldn't be like turning all of
00:29:34
those amendments in under the into our clay soil because it
00:29:39
doesn't ever last. You, you have to almost, you
00:29:42
know, replace that every single year in its entirety.
00:29:45
So instead we just layer it on top now and essentially we have
00:29:49
just sort of built an artificial bed, you know, on top of the
00:29:54
native soil and we have to add just a very little bit of it
00:29:57
every single year. And that has helped to make it
00:30:00
to where those in ground beds are very, very productive with a
00:30:04
lot less amending. Same thing goes if you have
00:30:07
sandy soil, you are going to have to add compost and you
00:30:10
likely are going to have to mulch very heavily and choose
00:30:14
drought crops. So all of these expenses and the
00:30:19
costs that are associated with it again are going to depend on
00:30:22
where it is that you are gardening and what type of soil
00:30:25
you are dealing with. So this is where you kind of run
00:30:28
into like, OK, well then is it, you know, saving me money in
00:30:33
order to be able to grow our own vegetables?
00:30:35
And in some instances, it might not be, depending on where you
00:30:39
are in the availability of produce in your area.
00:30:41
That is a reality, but it's not the predominance of the reality,
00:30:46
right? Not like some of these people
00:30:48
are saying, like, oh, it never, never pays to grow your own.
00:30:51
It's always cheaper in the grocery store.
00:30:53
That is absolutely not the case. OK.
00:30:54
So you have to be very strategic and figuring out what it is that
00:30:58
you're planting. What does your family use the
00:31:01
most, you know, so that you can get the most out of it.
00:31:03
What are you paying the most for in the grocery store at the
00:31:06
moment? Is that something that you can
00:31:07
grow on your own? OK.
00:31:10
There's also the idea of quality over quantity.
00:31:15
Your goal may not necessarily be about getting the volume of
00:31:21
produce out of your garden that you might buy at the store.
00:31:25
You're going to get a higher nutritive value out of the
00:31:31
things that you are growing in your own garden, especially if
00:31:34
you're using, you know, you're not using any type of synthetic
00:31:37
inputs. You are actually focusing on the
00:31:39
soil health, which is an in turn making a healthier plant that is
00:31:43
giving you a, a healthier, you know, yield, right?
00:31:49
You also are getting a higher level of nutrition in these
00:31:52
things because there is a lot shorter time between when it's
00:31:56
harvested and when you're actually consuming it.
00:31:58
It's not sitting on a truck. It's not sitting on a store
00:32:01
shelf and degrading over those days or weeks before it gets to
00:32:05
your plate. You're harvesting it and you're
00:32:07
either eating it or you are preserving it for later.
00:32:11
A higher nutritive value means you actually are need to consume
00:32:18
less of those things to get the same amount of nutrition.
00:32:23
It's almost like store produce can sometimes be like empty
00:32:28
calories. You know, I always like to refer
00:32:31
back to broccoli in terms of #1 the studies that they did that
00:32:35
showed the decrease in the nutrition in a head of broccoli
00:32:41
nowadays versus what we were getting 70 years ago.
00:32:45
It's astonishing how much less nutrients or how fewer nutrients
00:32:51
there are in a head of broccoli now.
00:32:53
And then you combine that with the fact that broccoli has a
00:32:57
half life of 24 hours on a lot of its elements, on a lot of
00:33:02
it's, you know, nutritional content.
00:33:05
And so the vitamins and stuff in there begin to degrade and they
00:33:08
have degraded by 50% within the 1st 24 hours after being picked
00:33:12
if they are not being held at as close to freezing as possible,
00:33:16
you know. And So what happens when it's,
00:33:19
it's been 3 days before it, you know, has left the field and
00:33:23
gotten into the warehouse and gotten to the grocery store and
00:33:26
then it sits on the shelves for another 3 days and it's a day
00:33:28
before you buy it and you bring it home.
00:33:29
OK, so great. It's been sitting there for a
00:33:31
week now. You're getting a few little
00:33:33
calories out of it. You might be getting some fiber,
00:33:35
but who knows what you're getting in the way of nutrition
00:33:37
versus that head of broccoli that you managed to grow in your
00:33:40
garden and you picked it and you brought it in and you serve it
00:33:43
to your family for dinner, right?
00:33:45
You actually have to eat less of that broccoli than the store
00:33:49
bought broccoli in order to get the same amount of nutrition.
00:33:53
That is something that is very difficult to quantify because
00:33:57
you don't know, you don't know how much better those vegetables
00:34:02
are for you because there's not a lot of studies being done
00:34:04
because nobody wants to admit what's going on, at least in
00:34:07
industry. They don't, right?
00:34:08
They don't want to admit that what we're doing to the soils
00:34:11
and, and how we're growing things and how we're harvesting
00:34:14
things isn't feeding us properly anymore.
00:34:18
So, you know, with that little tangent aside, we just, we want
00:34:22
to understand why we are gardening and what is important
00:34:25
to us and then use those metrics to decide whether or not we are
00:34:31
successful in the garden or not. OK, so money saving tips.
00:34:37
All right, first thing, obviously we're going to start
00:34:39
with seeds. They are much cheaper than
00:34:41
starts. One packet equals a whole bunch
00:34:44
of plants. If you can manage to start your
00:34:47
own seeds indoors, fantastic. Do what you can with that.
00:34:51
Use recycled containers, yogurt cups, milk jugs, takeout trays.
00:34:55
Use all of these things for your seeds starting rather than
00:34:57
having to go and buy fancy trays.
00:34:59
Or go to your local nursery and see if they have extra plastic
00:35:04
laying around. I almost guarantee you they do
00:35:07
and they are very happy to get rid of it rather than having to
00:35:10
pay to dispose of it or have it recycled.
00:35:13
OK, so if you can, you know, go big, borrow and steal.
00:35:16
No steal, but just beg and borrow recycled containers of
00:35:19
some sort to be able to start your seeds, that's a great way
00:35:21
to save some money. OK?
00:35:22
If you can grow open pollinated crops, your tomatoes, your
00:35:26
Peppers, your beans, whatever, prevent them from cross
00:35:31
pollinating and save those seeds.
00:35:33
Well, boom, now you don't even have to buy seeds anymore,
00:35:35
you're creating your own. So that's just one more way to
00:35:37
save money in the garden. OK, you can DIY your compost.
00:35:42
Go back and search for any of the compost episodes that I have
00:35:45
done. This is going to reduce the need
00:35:47
for buying those soil amendments, not to mention
00:35:50
you're going to save landfill space.
00:35:52
But you don't even have to do anything other than the lazy
00:35:56
compost method. If you think I have time to be
00:35:59
out there turning my soil multiple times during the season
00:36:02
and making sure it's getting the right air in the water.
00:36:04
No, no, no, no, I don't. I don't have time to do that.
00:36:07
I am a lazy composter. But what I do do is I take that
00:36:11
compost that compiles all during the season and at the end of the
00:36:15
gardening season, I am taking that compost whether it is
00:36:18
finished or not, and I am adding it to those garden beds.
00:36:22
It's going to continue to break down over the winter time.
00:36:24
I'm mulching over the top and I'm letting it sit and it is
00:36:28
breaking down beautifully over the winter and is ready for me
00:36:33
to plant into in the spring. If there's anything that's still
00:36:36
kind of big and chunky, it gets pulled out and tossed back in
00:36:38
the compost pile. OK, it doesn't have to be
00:36:41
complicated to make your own compost.
00:36:44
Now, obviously if you are in a homeowners association or
00:36:46
something like that, then you got to be careful about how
00:36:48
you're doing this. But you can compost for free and
00:36:51
that is going to reduce the need for you to have to go and
00:36:53
purchase a bunch of soil amendments.
00:36:56
And Speaking of that mulch, I know that I'm a proponent of
00:36:59
straw. Often times you have to go and
00:37:01
buy that straw. You can find mulch for free.
00:37:04
You can get a chip drop done. There's a a website that you can
00:37:07
go to where you can put in your address and let them know, hey,
00:37:09
I want a chip drop. And local tree trimmers, you
00:37:12
know, may drop off a whole load of wood chips for free just
00:37:17
right in your yard. OK.
00:37:18
Make sure that you have the place for them to dump it.
00:37:20
And he doesn't always work. We're in a very rural area.
00:37:22
I was on the chip drop list for three years and never got a
00:37:25
single one. But if you see local tree
00:37:27
trimming companies in your neighborhood cutting down
00:37:31
neighbors trees, ask them if they'll drop those wood chips in
00:37:34
your yard. You can use leaves from your
00:37:37
yard. You can use leaves from your
00:37:39
neighbor's yard if you know that they're not spraying for
00:37:41
anything or grass clippings that have not been sprayed with any
00:37:44
pesticides. Whatever you can use to retain
00:37:47
the moisture in your soil and suppress those weeds is going to
00:37:52
maintain the soil better. The soil health as means that
00:37:56
you are going to have to amend less.
00:37:59
So it's just one more way. Not only are you saving money on
00:38:01
the mulch, but now you're also saving money on soil amendments
00:38:04
even further because you're maintaining the health of that
00:38:07
soil, right? Skip the synthetic fertilizers.
00:38:10
They're going to cost you money. Use compost tea, use warm
00:38:14
castings. You see if you can find some
00:38:16
aged manure, OK, A lot of times you can get this stuff for free.
00:38:20
And the problem with the synthetic fertilizers is they
00:38:22
are not feeding your soil. They are only feeding the plant
00:38:25
that happens to be in that soil at the time.
00:38:28
So you're not doing anything to maintain that soil, which again,
00:38:32
just means you're going to have to continually feed and continue
00:38:35
to amend. When it comes to tools, you may
00:38:39
not necessarily need to buy tools outright initially.
00:38:43
There are local organizations in a lot of different areas that
00:38:46
will do like a tool library, like a lending library for
00:38:51
garden tools. So, you know, see if you can
00:38:54
find one of those organizations, your area and go check out the
00:38:57
tools that you need. And sometimes they've got like
00:38:59
good tools like not just the hand trails and other things
00:39:02
that you might need to use, but like tillers and walk behind
00:39:06
Cedars and all kinds of different things.
00:39:08
Find out if your neighbors have any of these tools.
00:39:11
If you're doing a small garden to start with, you're not going
00:39:13
to need those tools for the long term.
00:39:15
You might be able to borrow them from a weekend and then give
00:39:17
them back. And then of course, we're
00:39:19
looking at like, what are we going to grow?
00:39:21
Grow what you eat the most. Don't grow kohlrabi if your
00:39:25
household doesn't like it, right?
00:39:27
Don't grow turnips just because they're going to be easy for you
00:39:29
to grow. It's a waste if nobody's
00:39:30
actually going to eat them. Okay, I mean, for the record, I
00:39:32
love kohlrabi and I love salad turnips, but whatever.
00:39:36
But, you know, focus on those high yield, high cost crops,
00:39:42
leafy greens, culinary herbs, cherry tomatoes, Peppers,
00:39:46
zucchini, if you can get away with it in your area, berries if
00:39:50
space allows. All those things generally can
00:39:52
be very, very pricey, again, especially if you're doing them
00:39:55
organically. And so these are all things that
00:39:58
are going to yield a lot in a very small space and also cost
00:40:02
you a lot if you go to buy them. I absolutely.
00:40:07
I am a proponent of succession planting and interplanting or
00:40:12
companion planting, OK, You should be growing more than one
00:40:16
crop per space each season, and you should be maximizing that
00:40:23
space at the same time that you're reducing the pests and
00:40:26
the weed pressure. OK?
00:40:27
How do you think I am getting all of those pounds of food out
00:40:32
of those raised beds? It's interplanting and
00:40:35
succession planting and I have continued to work and experiment
00:40:41
with all of my different combinations and pairings and
00:40:44
continued to increase my yield over the past few years.
00:40:49
It just takes you keeping track of what it is that you're doing
00:40:53
and how you're doing it, what you're growing with, what what
00:40:57
your yield is, and then tweaking it again the next year.
00:41:00
So again, if this is really your goal to save money over buying
00:41:07
in the grocery store, then you kind of have to take it
00:41:09
seriously and again, treat it like a side hustle, like a
00:41:12
little job and keep track of everything that is going on so
00:41:18
that you can compare notes from year to year to be able to
00:41:20
figure it out. Use that garden planner, use the
00:41:24
journal, track your timing. You know, it reduce the kind of
00:41:28
like craziness of like, oh, well, I'm not sure what's going
00:41:31
to go in that spot. And then you get something in
00:41:33
and it's too late and it doesn't produce.
00:41:34
The more you have it on a calendar, the more you figure it
00:41:36
out ahead of time, the easier it's going to be for you to be
00:41:40
able to increase that yield. And then, of course, preserve
00:41:44
your harvest as much as you can. I know if you are growing a lot
00:41:46
of stuff and you're pulling a lot of stuff out of your beds,
00:41:49
freezing, drying, canning, fermenting, all of these things,
00:41:52
it's less waste, which means more savings for you.
00:41:55
And it means less stuff that you actually have to go to the
00:41:58
grocery store and buy when it's not the gardening season.
00:42:04
And you know what? None of this applies to you if
00:42:08
you garden as a hobby and a form of exercise and fresh air and
00:42:13
the yield that you get from your garden is just a happy bonus.
00:42:17
Seriously, hobbies cost money and gardening can be no
00:42:20
different. So if you want the prettiest
00:42:23
raised planters and the coolest looking trellises and a fancy
00:42:26
pants Arbor over an even fancier gate entering your garden, then
00:42:31
go for it. And don't let anybody discourage
00:42:33
you from doing that if it's within your means.
00:42:35
Trust me, when I get into something that looks a little
00:42:38
bit more like retirement than a nine to five job in my gardens,
00:42:42
then things will start to look a little different.
00:42:44
But until then, I'm actually making money from those gardens.
00:42:48
So nobody can convince me that you can't grow your own food,
00:42:53
real food, for cheaper than you can buy in the store, unless
00:42:57
your circumstances are very extreme or you are at the very
00:43:01
beginning of your journey. All right, I'm off my soapbox
00:43:06
now. Until next time, my gardening
00:43:07
friends, keep on cultivating that dream garden, and we'll
00:43:10
talk again soon.