Hello, savvy savers! With Spring but a few short months away, I wanted to start blogging about my upcoming garden! I know that many people are on the lookout for cheap, economical ways to eat organic, fresh produce on a dime, and I am as well. This year, I will be gardening myself, canning, and living off of what I can grow; I hope to accomplish this using simple, time-tested natural gardening methods! In addition to this, I will be keeping a running tally of all my gardening costs and expenses, so that you at home can see what growing yourself might cost, compared to buying in-store produce! So, I thank you all for starting this journey with me!
So, my first post will be about the basics, and my basics, I mean just that, the basics.
Step 1: Plan what you will grow. Sit down and plan what you would like to eat; while doing this consider how much space, time, availability of materials you will have at your disposal, will you have help in gardening, and what you will do with the produce once you have it.
-Check-
I’ve made my list, which I will post later this week.
Step 2: Purchase a Farmer’s Almanac, and look at your growing zone and see when you will need to plant.
-Check-
I purchased my almanac at my local Dollar Tree for $0.50!
Step 3: Seeds. This past week, I spend several hours researching seeds, seed cost, seed quality, and seed availability in my area. I spoke to friends and family who all suggested that heirloom seeds, although expensive, were the way to go. After researching this idea, I decided on another method. I stopped by my local dollar Tree and purchased both my vegetable seeds, as well as my flower seeds; I purchased both the both shade and flower bed mixes as well as packets for my veggies and flowers!
For $15.00, I was able to buy 48 packets of flowers and veggies, all at $0.25 a packet, and then three boxes of seed mixes for flower beds and around trees. As seeds range in price from $1-6.00 a packet at Walmart, this is a steal in my opinion! Add to this, of the 48 packets purchased, I was able to buy ten different herbs including Sage, Oregano, Lavender, Parsley, and Thyme! I am supper excited about this purchase. As well, I would encourage those wanting to plant to buy seeds at the Dollar Tree early as my local manager said that many stores were sold out by March last year!
Keep in mind, I was not able to buy certain starters such as berries, vines, potatoes, garlic, and onion sprouts yet, I am working on a cheap fix for this as well, and will be blogging on this topic in the weeks to come!
In the meanwhile, I am fifteen dollars into my garden, and feeling very satisfied!
Until later, I’ll be tilling around gardening ideas in my head!
We grow potatoes and sweet potatoes from grocery store produce (even better if its marked down as old.) One year I purchased a bag of a variety of several fingerling potatoes and grew at least one plant for each. Just be sure each eye has some potato around it for food for the plant. We sprout the sweet potatoes in water before planting. We found that the sweet potatoes from an ordinary grocery store did better than those from an organic store. We grow garlic by planting a clove from a head of garlic. We buy the green onions when they are cheap (sometimes 3 bunches for $1.00), cut off and use the greens and plant the white part with about an inch of green on top. We are able to harvest more onion greens by cutting from the outside. Some we let grow and they form a seed ball on top. Some grow into a large onion.
Thank you for sharing; this is also how I grow them and I will be posting a more in-depth explanation as such! I produce over a dozen bushels a year and will be blogging about that! Thanks for the tips on the garlic and sweet potatoes, though! Please be sure to subscribe to the blog for updates! Happy Easter!