Save Money Growing Your Own Food

This question was asked in our Facebook Group: “How can I utilize my garden to save money on groceries? My garden always costs me way more than the amount of food I get from it.”

That is a great question and in this post, I’ll look at ways to keep costs down in the vegetable garden.

Will Growing Food Save You Money?

Before we look at ways to save money, let’s ask a more fundamental question. Will you save money at the grocery store by growing your own food?

“The humorous book, “The $64 Tomato” by William Alexander, discusses one man’s quest for the perfect garden and how it ended up costing him $64 per tomato”

The truthful answer is, probably not. If you are thinking of growing food in your backyard because grocery prices are too high and you want to save money – forget it! You will be better off financially getting a job and buying groceries. Growing food is hard work and takes knowledge to do it well.

However, there are a lot of good reasons to grow your own food.

• It is fresher than anything you can buy.
• Gardening is great exercise so you can cancel your gym membership.
• You can grow food that is hard to find in stores. How many stores have 20 different kinds of tomatoes?
• It’s a great hobby and costs less than most other hobbies.
• There is something magical about working in the soil and growing your own food.

The cost of growing food depends very much on how you do it. The following ideas will help keep the costs down.

Learn How to Grow Food

Here is a link to a free 13-part video course that teaches what you need to know to grow food:

Growing Vegetables for the New Gardener

Start Right

Don’t Use Raised Beds

Raised beds with walls are all the rage. Build a big box from wood or bricks and fill it with expensive soil and organic matter. These will grow food, but so will the soil on the ground. I feel that new gardeners have been convinced food only grows in raised beds.

When I started gardening many years ago we also used raised beds, but they didn’t have walls. Mark your paths, dig up 6″ of soil from the path, and dump it on the growing bed. You have an instant raised bed without walls and it costs nothing. Now add some compost or manure and grow stuff.

Raised beds are great if you have a disability. But if you are getting them because you don’t want to bend over – forget them.

Start Small and Grow What You Like to Eat

New gardeners like to go out and buy 20 different kinds of seeds and then are overwhelmed. Pick three or four favorite vegetables and learn to grow them well. This takes both less effort and knowledge and is more likely to be successful.

Which vegetables should you select? Pick ones that are good tasting, easy to grow, and produce well. I used these criteria to produce this free video: 10 Best Vegetables for Beginning Gardeners.

Also, don’t plant too much of any one item because much of it is ripe at one time and you can’t eat it all. It’s amazing how many squash you get off one plant.

Don’t Buy a Lot of Equipment

A rake, shovel, and trowel are all you really need for making and maintaining a garden bed. Add to this a garden hose and you are set.

Don’t Buy a Lot of Amendments or Fertilizers

The shops are full of materials you can buy to make your plants grow better. Online ads and misguided social media posts suggest all kinds of quick-fix products you can buy. Almost none of it is required. All I buy is straw and a bit of urea fertilizer.

Here is a partial list of things you don’t need.

• Bonemeal
• Mycorrhizal fungi
• Vegetable fertilizer
• Epsom Salt
• Moisture meter
• Weed barrier

Seeds or Transplants?

Should you use seeds or transplants? That depends on your knowledge and time.

Transplants are easier and require less knowledge. Wait until spring and go to a local nursery and buy some. Plant them and you have a garden. This option takes less time but is more expensive than seeds.

Seeds are less expensive than transplants, but you may need to buy more stuff to start the seeds: lights, pots, soil, fertilizer, etc. Growing seedlings also takes more knowledge.

Some vegetables are grown by placing the seed directly in the ground. Examples include peas, beans, cucumbers, radishes, beets, and salad greens. This group of vegetables is the least expensive to grow.

Free seed starting course on YouTube.

Know Your Climate

There is a lot of information online but much of it is for another climate than your own. Know your climate (e.g. hardiness growing zone) and grow vegetables that are suited to your climate. Don’t fight the weather.

Select Vegetables that Produce a Lot of Value

Some vegetables produce more edible food than others and that can be particularly true in the hands of new gardeners. For example, brussel sprouts produce a fair amount over a long period but they are tricky to grow well. Most beginners find they don’t produce very well.

Start with the easy high-yielding vegetables.

• Lettuce
• Tomatoes
• Peas
• Beans
• Cucumbers
• Radish
• Zucchini
• Carrots
• Squash

Stay away from these low-yielding vegetables until you have more experience.

• Peppers
• Cabbage
• Brussel Sprouts
• Corn
• Kale
• Cauliflower

Check the Cost of Food

Some food produces high yields and is inexpensive to grow but it’s also inexpensive to buy. Focus on growing things that are expensive to buy. For example, potatoes and onions are easy to grow and produce well but in fall they are cheap to buy in larger bags. You won’t save much money by growing them.

On the other hand, fresh greens are expensive to buy because they are difficult to ship, making them a good choice for you.

Some Vegetables Store Well

Some gardeners recommend that you grow things that store well and I understand the value of doing this if you have a large garden. In a small garden, it is better to focus on things you can eat fresh. You can’t buy a tomato that was just picked and that makes it special.

Can’t Beat Perennial Crops

It is not what new gardeners think of and it’s probably not a great choice for first-time gardeners because it takes a few years to produce, but long term you can’t beat perennial vegetable crops.

• Chives – extremely easy to grow, can be harvested most of the summer and one planting lasts for years.
• Rhubarb – plant once and harvest annually after the 2 nd year in the ground. Zero maintenance.
• Asparagus – Once in the ground they can be harvested for many years.
• Garlic – this is not a true perennial but since you use a portion of the cloves from this year to grow next year’s crop it is just like a perennial. I bought garlic cloves 20+ years ago and am still planting the same ones.
• Raspberry canes take little work and produce well. They do take up a fair amount of space.
• Strawberries make lots of baby plants that will keep the bed producing for years. Everbearing types produce most of the summer.
• Egyptian walking onions – they grow and replant themselves.

For more information about perennial vegetable crops see: 10 Perennial Vegetables for Colder Climates

Eat Your Perennials

Some of your perennials, such as hostas, make a great meal. You can also eat a lot of flowers in the ornamental garden but they don’t add much nourishment.

Perennial vegetables can also be grown in an ornamental bed to save space. I grow chives, fennel, rhubarb, ferns (fiddleheads), and grapes along with all my flowering perennials. Most herbs can also be grown there.

Advanced Techniques Save Money

Saving Seeds

If you save seeds in fall you don’t have to buy them next year but there is a catch with this. Not all vegetable seeds will come true and produce good quality food from saved seed.

Heirloom seeds can be saved and they will produce similar fruit to last year. However, heirloom plants tend to be less disease-resistant, so they may not be your best choice.

Some vegetables, such as squash, easily cross-pollinate and then the seeds will not breed true.

Here is a good description of the best way to collect and clean tomato seeds.

Canning and Preserving

Some suggest that preserving vegetables saves money, but techniques like canning also have a cost both in time and supplies. If canning is worth the effort for you then it is more cost-effective to buy the vegetables in the fall when they are relatively cheap. Save your garden for eating fresh food.

Collect Fall Leaves

Fall leaves make a great mulch and can be collected for free. They also increase microbe populations and build better soil.

Use Mulch

Keep the surface of the soil covered with plants and mulch. Both are building better soil. I prefer straw for a vegetable garden but fall leaves and grass clippings also work well.

Mulch also reduces the water requirements, further reducing cost.

Grow Vertically

Today’s backyards are quite small and the amount of space that gets full sun is even smaller. That limits how much food can be grown. One solution to this is to grow vines vertically. A cucumber plant sprawled on the ground takes a lot of space but very little when grown on a trellis.

The following all grow well up a trellis.

• Cheery tomatoes
• Pole beans
• Peas
• Cucumber
• Melons
• Squash
• Cucamelons

Use Cover Crops

The latest science makes it clear that you should keep soil planted at all times. The growing roots add large quantities of organic matter into the soil, which is then used by microbes to improve soil structure. The best way to do this is to use cover crops any time you are not growing a main crop.

A cover crop is any plant that is actively growing. Legumes and oats are commonly used.