There are any number of ways that you can save money. Almost every person eats fruits and vegetables; and if you don’t, you should do so for your health. So, your grocery bill is a likely place to looks at trying to save money. Last year in response to the tough economic times our country is experiencing, our Pastor sponsored helping get everyone started with home gardening. Remember, I said “Almost-Free Groceries”. You will have to put some labor into the process of getting these groceries. But, when you consider that you may be able to grow fresh organic produce for pennies, the smart saver should consider the possibility of at least trying a small garden. I mean really! What store can beat the price it would cost you to grow at least some of your produce?
Before you get scared off from the prospect of taking on home gardening, let me encourage you by saying that I am not a gardening expert. Although I grew up in a home with a dad who was a master gardener, my main involvement included shoveling manure, moving heavy objects like tree trunks; you know, grunt work. You see, my dad had a very large garden. But don’t get put off. You can start with a very small garden. You can even grow things in containers. And did I mention that when you garden yourself, what you grow can be totally free from poison pesticides and can taste worlds better than the hormone quick-grow stuff from the supermarket. Then there’s also the added educational benefit for your kids or grandchildren. Often people these days are so unfamiliar as to where produce comes from. My children really got into the garden process with me and where amazed at the whole process of how food grows. And my wife is hooked on the little herb garden I started for her in small pots.
Last year was really my first year as an adult attempting to do home gardening. Following is a brief recollection of the general process I followed to get up and started last spring. I’m just a novice, so how I did things doesn’t necessarily represent gardening perfection. Hopefully this will encourage you novices that you can give gardening a try. And for you experts, or persons otherwise more knowledgeable than I, feel free to comment.
First, my soil is not what you would call good gardening soil. The dirt in my yard is rather like brown clay. When it’s hot, the dirt gets hard, dry and brittle. When it’s rainy, it gets really thick and very heavy, and the water doesn’t seem to drain well.
I initially started by ridding an area (roughly 8ft by 2ft) of most of the rocks, weeds and small roots.
Remember I had bad soil; to improve my soil condition, I bought a couple bags or so of soil amendment. My cost was approximately $2-$3 a bag from the local garden supply store. Using a shovel, I dug all around this little patch of dirt, digging into the earth no more than a foot deep turning the shovels full of dirt over and breaking up the clumps of dirt. I then took the soil amendment and mixed it into the dirt I had dug up in my little patch. Of course, there are ways to bypass this cost that I won’t go into on this initial post.
I also sprinkled a few handfuls of Dr. Earth organic vegetable fertilizer. Following is a link to the Dr. Earth website: http://www.drearth.com/
I planted a variety of small young plants. I planted Bell Peppers/sweet peppers (Golden Bell and another variety I cannot remember right now) – both variety did well as long I protected them during the hotter days of summer. On some of the really hot days I would lose the little flowers that eventually become peppers; the plants did not die from the heat, but I did have to wait for them to flower again. The plants lived for months producing peppers until fall/winter. I understand these peppers are very healthy for you. My family eats the peppers in raw vegetable salads and cooked dishes.
I also planted some Italian Parsley. This is healthy for those of you willing to eat salads with Parsley on them. The lady at the garden supply told me that the parsley might live a couple years. Well, we’ve been eating parsley for months and it continues to replenish itself, so I tend to believe it may last a couple years.
I also had some mint growing in this patch (Apple Mint and Pineapple Mint). We use it to make hot and cold tea beverages.
I had some old wooden polls in the garage. I used two polls to stretch and secure netting over my garden patch to prevent birds or other critters from disturbing my vegetables.
I also had an old planter box that we formerly used for growing flowers on the front porch. I took the varieties of tomato plants that my Pastor had given me (Beefsteak, Roma, Cherry) and planted them in the planter box. We did get tomatoes from these plants. However, the tomatoes for each plant were small for their respective variety. I’m guessing that I may have made a couple mistakes causing the small sized fruit: I may not have added enough good soil and fertilizer into the nutrient starved soil that had been in the planter box for the last few years. And/or, I possibly tried to put too many plants into the box being anxious to get all the free plants I got to fit into the box. We’ll try the same varieties again in this box, but modify the technique and see what happens.
Oh, and let me suggest you don’t have to buy expensive ready-made planter boxes if you want to plant things in boxes and don’t have any flower planter boxes handy. During the summer I bought some cheap redwood fencing material (approx $1.98 per six foot board). Some boxes I made with bottoms. Some I did not put bottoms in the boxes, but set them on the ground and filled them with earth and planted a variety of items. I was able to create 6ft. by 3ft. boxes at around $12 each. I doubt you can find redwood planter boxes this size at the chain home improvement stores anywhere close to this price.
In one of these boxes, I was trying to grow lettuce that I started from seeds. I initially put the lettuce seeds in little Pete moss pellets and put that in the garage which is not as harsh (not as hot or cold) as outside weather. Once the seeds germinated and grew plants tough enough to be put outdoors, I planted the small plants, Pete moss and all, in one of my homemade redwood boxes.
For a long while it appeared that the lettuce plants were not growing, or maybe had died. Disappointed with that particular box. I gave up on it. As Fall turned to Winter a funny thing happened. While I wasn’t watching the box, as I was going outside much less frequently during the cool winter, the lettuce had kicked in and started growing. Needless to say, we enjoyed some nice organic lettuce.
The key learning I got out of this was that I could try this year to grow in such a way (i.e., mixed variety of seasonal plants) to get a year round harvest, especially if the Winter months are not too cold.
Basically, some things grew well and some did not my first year of gardening. Part of my failing was that I didn’t start in earnest until possibly late Spring, and so had missed lots of good potential growing time that we get in Northern California. Given it’s March already and we’ve been getting some very nice warm days, I feel like I’m already late in pulling out the weeds, turning the ground over and starting the planting. So, I plan to get started on at least a couple of my planter boxes this week.
I’ll try to get more posts up as the seasons move along and let you know what I’m doing. By all means, shoot us a comment and let us know what you’re doing.