Friday, May 16, 2008

It's Never Too Late


Ultimately the way to save on groceries is to produce your own. In my dreams I have milk cows, and laying hens and a gigantic abundant garden. In reality, that just ain’t gonna happen. But a garden is a doable thing.

So much money can be saved by planting and canning your own vegetables and fruits and it doesn’t have to be a complicated project.

You really just need a flat plot of land with exposure to lots of sun, some seeds, and a desire to give it a fair try.

Some really great books are Jeff Ball’s 60 Minute Garden, it talks about minimal output of time and maximum output of produce, and Lasagna Gardening, which shares about a no tilling time saving way to garden. We happen to do raised beds and use a square foot gardening method which takes up less space and you can plant much more in it than a normal bed with rows.

I generally don’t do anything that is very complicated or time consuming. These books are a way to get that garden in quick and maintain it without it becoming a full time job.

(Google any of these terms for a plethora of articles on gardening.)

Not enough space?

Live in an apartment?

No yard?

Container gardening might be the solution for you. You don’t even need a yard, just pots to grow your veggies in.





And it’s not too late to get your containers started.

So even if all you plant is one pot of green beans on your back porch in an old 5 gallon bucket, you are still offsetting your grocery budget and can spend your dollars on something else.

4 comments:

Leanne said...

We do front yard gardening. In all of our open space, we plant tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, dill, cilantro. We usually have the most wonderful tomatoes!

Dave has a green thumb!

Leanne

Halfmoon Girl said...

Hi Gayle: I had a huge garden a few years ago but we live on mainly sand and are changing over to raised beds. I didn't get another bed done this year, so I don't have as much space as i would like. Can you give me a little more info on what you called square foot gardening. I have an idea of what you mean, but am hoping for a few more details. I just tucked strawberries and squash in some of my flower beds,so I am trying to get as many veggies as I can in wherever I can fit them! Thanks, Jane
BTW, how is your burn?

Gayle said...

Here's the link for the square foot gardening site and the book.

www.squarefootgardening.com

It's a way of maximizing your planting space as wells as growing some things vertically to get the most out of small gardens. With three 4' x 9' beds I can put up enough veggies to get the six of us through the winter. And there is no digging or tilling involved. Yippee! Go check it out!

Unknown said...

I will have to check out the square foot gardening thing. Thanks for the great ideas!