Gardening can be a fun hobby. But it can also save you hundreds of dollars instead of buying your fresh produce from the grocery store!
The National Gardening Association estimates that the average backyard garden can produce about 300 pounds of fresh veggies, saving you about $600 per year!
The problem is that it can be tough to know where to start. Especially if you’ve never grown anything before, and your parents never had a garden.
Thankfully, it’s pretty simple! Plants naturally want to grow, if you’re just able to give them the few things they need to thrive.
By the end of this article, you’ll have a good idea of how to set up your first garden to start saving money on veggies for yourself.
There Are Many Benefits of Gardening
Does gardening really save you money?
Absolutely!
But gardening can do so many great things for you besides just saving some money.
It gives stress relief. Gardening is great for getting your mind off of your busy life. You can get your hands in the dirt and forget about everything else for a while. Plus just being in nature has shown to lower stress.
Boosts your immune system. Getting out in the sun and gardening will get you extra Vitamin D, something that most people are deficient in since we spend so much time indoors nowadays. Garden soil also contains beneficial bacteria that can help boost your immunity.
It’s great exercise. You use a bunch of different muscle groups while digging, pulling, and lifting outside in your garden.
You get better quality food. Food is grown by companies to make money, not to make the best possible quality food. By growing vegetables yourself, you’re able to be sure they’re grown organically with non-GMO seeds and free of pesticides.
You can manage your soil to produce food that’s higher in vitamins and minerals than what you can normally buy. There are also unique heirloom varieties of seeds that will produce different versions of vegetables that you’ll never find in a store.
It’s great for kids. Gardening is an awesome way to get your kids in touch with where their food comes from and all the work that goes into growing fruits and vegetables.
Maximizing Your Garden’s Value
In today’s economy, everybody is searching for ways to cut costs.
A garden has a lot of potential to trim your grocery bill. But like most things, what you get out depends on what you put in. As well as knowing the correct strategies to get the most out of your space.
Grow What You Eat
It should be pretty common sense. There’s no point growing brussels sprouts if everyone in your house hates them.
Any food that goes to waste is basically money wasted. Even if it’s food that you grew yourself, it’s still time and energy you could have put into growing something more productive.
So start off by looking at your grocery receipts from the past couple of weeks to see what vegetables you actually eat.
If you eat lots of tomatoes, plant tomatoes.
If there’s a specific herb that you buy every week, grow it instead!
Pick Plants That Thrive in Your Area
What you grow can be limited by where you live.
If you’re in Michigan, don’t bother trying to plant orange trees! They won’t make it through their first winter to ever grow fruit. Your growing season might even be too short for plants with a long growing season like watermelon.
You’d think hotter and sunnier is always better, but some plants don’t like it too hot either. If you live in Nevada, you might struggle to grow lettuce and other crops that like it cooler.
Use Your Space Wisely
Your garden doesn’t need to take up your whole yard to have a benefit on your monthly expenses. Even a couple hundred square feet is a good start.
Instead of following the instructions on your seed packets and planting in rows, consider doing square foot gardening instead.
Square foot gardening is one of the best methods I’ve found for making the most efficient use of your garden space. You can grow 16 onions, carrots, or radishes in just one square foot!
Just Google “square foot gardening plant spacing” and you should get a good idea for how it works.
Go for high-yield crops like lettuce and tomatoes, and avoid less efficient crops like pumpkins if you’re short on space.
Don’t forget to use vertical space too! You can trellis beans, cucumbers, and plenty of other plants to grow upwards instead of out horizontally across your yard.
Keep Notes
Even in your first year, start keeping notes of how things are going in your garden.
Keep track of what areas of your yard get the most sunlight and where crops seemed to grow best. When your last frost was. How much of each plant you harvested.
Keeping track of what does well and what doesn’t will help you plan for next year’s garden.
Think Long-Term
Make sure at least some of your crops can be easily preserved or stored.
Some crops like lettuce need to be eaten soon after they’re picked. But other crops like tomatoes and cucumbers can be canned or pickled and eaten well into winter.
Other crops like potatoes, squash, onions, and carrots can be stored unrefrigerated for months without much trouble.
Most vegetables can be frozen as well. It can be hard to eat all of your fresh produce if it all becomes ripe at once. A chest freezer is a worthwhile investment if you want to enjoy garden fresh veggies all year round.
Start with Seeds
The cheapest way to start your plants is from seeds.
Buying plant starts from a garden center is one way to start your garden. These baby plants have been growing a few weeks and are ready to go straight into the ground, giving you a head-start over planting seeds.
But seeds still tend to be the most cost-effective way to start your own plants.
If you have space, you can start your seeds in trays indoors to plant out later in the spring. It’s the best of both worlds.
Look At Grocery Store Prices
Some items at the grocery store are expensive to buy. Others are really cheap and almost not worth growing yourself.
Herbs and leafy greens like lettuce, spinach, kale, and chard are some of the most highly-priced items in the produce section of your supermarket. That’s because they’re fragile to transport and hard to keep fresh for long. That makes them a great candidate for growing.
Vegetables like potatoes, carrots, and onions can be bought in ten-pound bags for under $5, so they might not be worth your time to grow.
There are plenty of other vegetables in between to consider. Beans, tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, and cucumbers are worth considering if they’re crops you enjoy eating.
Of course, you don’t have to limit yourself. Sometimes I grow certain crops like potatoes that I like for fun, even when I know I won’t get a great return out of it.
Reduce Your Garden’s Inputs
Any way that you can save money in your garden means added savings.
You should start a composter to turn your kitchen scraps and leaves in your yard into rich black soil for next year’s garden, instead of having to buy compost or fertilizer from the store.
Look for natural ways to cut down on pests instead of having to pay for pesticides. Normally healthy plants are quite pest-resistant to begin with.
Find ways to re-use sticks and branches from around your yard to make your own trellises.
You might even want to start collecting rainwater to water your crops, instead of having to pay for it.
Start Small and Practice
Your garden won’t be perfect in year one. Like most things, gardening takes practice to master.
If you try to grow too many different vegetables at once or make your garden too large, it can be overwhelming. You might get discouraged and leave your garden to the weeds.
Start small with just a few types of vegetables in your first year. Then once you’re confident and figure out what works and what doesn’t, you can start expanding in both the size and variety of your garden.
But What About the Time Cost?
If you’re worried about your garden not paying dividends when the cost of your labor is taken into account, you’re probably right.
If I think of my garden like a business, I’m not making a very smart investment at all.
To make a vegetable garden profitable, you really need to take your time out of the equation. Otherwise you’ll probably find that you’re only getting about a $1 per hour return on your time spent in the garden.
But to most people, gardening is more than just a means to an end. It’s enjoyable because of all the added benefits I talked about earlier, and most people who garden do it as a hobby.
When you think of it like a hobby, it’s actually one of the few you can have that actually generate a positive financial return. Plenty of people go to yoga class or the gym for a similar workout to what you can get in your garden!
If you’re gardening purely for the financial savings but you absolutely hate it, then growing your own vegetables probably isn’t for you. In that case, I’d say just work at your job for a couple extra hours per week and you’ll be farther ahead.
If you really love gardening, it will be an investment in your health and happiness as much as a way to help your wallet.
Work With What You’ve Got
Even if you live in an apartment, you can still start gardening in containers. I’ve grown tomatoes, lettuce, and even root vegetables like parsnips out on my balcony when I lived in an apartment.
If you don’t like the idea of getting dirty, you can use a trick to regrow store-bought vegetables with just a glass of water.
For green onions, cut off the white base with the roots and put them in a glass with some water. In just a few days they’ll regrow entirely new green onions that you can cut and use! You can do this a couple of times out of one set of roots.
It works with lettuce, celery, and even pineapples. Although the last two will take significantly longer to re-grow.
What You’ll Need To Start
If you’re just starting your garden, keep it simple.
You can get by in your first year with just a few things:
- A garden spade
- A bow rake
- A watering can or garden hose
- Soil mix
- Some seeds
- A place to start growing
That’s really all you need to get started! Figure out where in your yard you want your new garden to go, and start digging!
Just be careful of underground wires and pipes. You should call and get the utilities in your yard marked out if you intend to dig any significant depth. In most places it’s the law, and there is a free service available to come mark them for you.
Conclusion
Gardening is a hobby that can actually save you money! Not many other hobbies can claim that. Many of them are huge money pits. But a garden can return your investment in the form of fresh and delicious vegetables.
Plus gardening has many other benefits for your health and wellbeing as well.
Now you should know how you can save money by growing your own food. As well as the best vegetables to grow to save the most money.
Just keep the things I mentioned in mind.
Start off small so you don’t get overwhelmed. It’s better to set up a small herb garden than never start at all.
Grow what your family actually enjoys eating. There’s no point growing turnips if no one will eat them!
Pick fruits and vegetables that work well for where you live, and use your space efficiently.
Most of all, don’t forget to have fun and enjoy it!
Do you have a garden to grow your own food? What fruits and vegetables do you grow? Do you have any tips to share with new gardeners?