Starting a new vegetable garden is a great way to save some money on your grocery bill. Purchasing fresh produce at your local grocery store can really add up, especially when you buy organically grown products. So why not cut these expenses from your weekly budget by starting a garden at your home? Not only will you save money on your grocery bill, you will be helping out our environment by growing your own vegetables. Growing your own vegetables at home reduces the amount of emissions produced by transporting these crops.
While growing your own vegetable garden can really cut down on your grocery bill, there are still several upfront costs involved to starting a new vegetable garden. Some of these costs can really add up and turn potential gardeners away from the idea of growing their own vegetables. There are however many ways to limit the initial costs to starting a garden that can put you on track to saving money!
Here are a few money saving tips for starting a new vegetable garden -
- Seeds – If you can start your vegetable plants earlier in the spring by growing them from seed, it is much cheaper than purchasing the plants from the store. If you get the chance, try to use organic vegetable seeds to improve the overall quality and freshness of your veggies.
- Plants – If you forget to start your vegetable seeds in the early spring or don’t have the room to do it, then you will need to purchase plants instead. One money saving tip is to look for smaller plants that are cheaper than purchasing the big ones. It really does not matter if you use small plants in your garden as they will grow just the same, provided you are using nutrient rich soils. You typically can find small plants for around $1 compared to paying well over $3 for larger plants.
- Soil – Instead of going out and buying several yards of rich topsoil, look at amending your existing soil initially to help save some money. Overtime, you can continue to increase the quality of your garden soil with amendments. Every gardener wants to have the best soil available, but it is not always cost effective.
- Raised Bed – If you are interested in building a raised vegetable garden planting bed, try and use recycled materials or items you have around your home. Leftover pieces from a deck, extra landscape stone you have laying around, or even rocks can be used to build a raised garden bed. You can easily spend over $100 on materials to build a new garden bed, so look to save some costs in this area.
- Start Small – When starting a new vegetable garden, one of the biggest mistakes people make is to grow a very big garden that is difficult to maintain. Why not start a small plot instead to make sure you can maintain it properly and not waste a lot of money. You can always add to it later if you want!
- Mulch – Once your vegetables are planted, purchase a bag of mulch for a few dollars and put it down around your plants. Applying mulch in your garden will help your soil and plants retain moisture. This means that you will not be wasting a lot of water and effort on keeping those plants hydrated.
- Pesticide Program – Start an organic garden pest control program to save on costs and help the environment. Organic pest control limits the use of harmful pesticides that are applied to your garden. This type of program promotes the use of several maintenance and preventative tasks, most of which are free! Starting this type of program will help the environment and save you a lot of money!
The cost benefits from starting a new vegetable garden are well worth the effort. You can cut your weekly grocery bill just by growing your own vegetables instead of purchasing them for a premium at your local grocer. The important thing to keep in mind when starting out is to try and limit your overall costs on a new garden to justify the cost savings.
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I built two raised beds this year to start my gardening off. It ended up costing me around $70 for dirt to fill them and 60 to build them. It definitely would have been cheaper to try to just amend the soil but our dirt is solid red clay around here so it is hard.
@Kyle – I completely understand the red clay thing. That is all we have here as well and I hate it! I just got finished building a raised garden bed using recycled flagstone that was going to be thrown in a landfill. I got the materials for free! I decided to mix 1/2 red clay and 1/2 topsoil in the bed to start off this year. I also threw in a bunch of worms I found when digging it to help breakdown the clay even more. Overtime, I am working to get that soil just right but was trying to keep our costs as low as possible.
If you want to improve your soil, there are a few more cost-effective ways to do this.
First, start a compost pile (if your municipality allows it). This won’t help you immediately, but it will help your garden next year. There are plenty of websites out there that offer guidance about how to get the most out of your compost. My wife and I built a compost bin out of 2x4s and pieces of lattice from a fence we had just taken down, ala your raised bed idea.
Also, check to see if your home town has a composting program! Our town has seasonal brush and leaf collection, and they collect all the grass clippings from the weekly town maintenance. The resulting compost is available to township residents for a very small fee, and you can have as much as you want or need for your garden. Definitely worth the small investment.
@Jeff – Great points. I actually submitted the post and realized I forgot to talk about compost. Thanks for adding it to the list.
We already have a vegetable garden at home and some fruit-bearing trees as well, even way before the recession. It’s an investment we’re quite proud of. You’ve got pretty good tips here though
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You can also create your own compost with kitchen scraps, like used coffee grinds and egg shells!
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Ye it’s true we need to save money on every thing. There is a way wher we can a better solution for making mloney. Till that time we need to take care of saving money.
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