The Money-Saving Garden

Money is tight for many of us, and the garden can make a real contribution to the household. What crops you grow, how you plant, what inputs you use, your timing, and equipment all make a difference.

What to grow: Consider how much space is available, how much time you have, and what your household would actually pick, cook, and eat. Everyone's choices are different, and there are many good answers. What isn't helpful is to garden haphazardly, planting the same old stuff without considering what you hope to get out of your garden and your labor.

There are three approaches to making your garden contribute economically.

• You can focus on growing as much as you can of your food intake.
• Or you can focus on growing those items that are the most expensive to buy.
• Or you can focus on growing things that have cultural or culinary significance for your family

I seek out varieties at Quail Seeds for all three types of garden.

Culturally significant crops are priceless. They often can’t be bought, or can only be bought at high prices in small amounts. Some of the heirlooms we carry that people seek out for their cultural significance are Zapallo del Tronco summer squash, Mentuccia Romana herb, Epazote herb, Round Valley Beans, Puntarelle, Pineapple Tomato, Green-in-Snow (Xue-le-Hong), Old Timey Blue Collards, Miner’s Lettuce, Floriani Corn, Cajun Jewel Okra, and King City Pink Beans.

Growing the highest-priced items (or most often bought items) in your family’s diet is a good strategy for a small garden. Here are the most common.

• Items that are expensive for farmers to grow because they require a long season, or a lot of labor (especially those that involve picking rather than cutting the whole plant): peas, tomatoes, green beans, okra, peppers, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower. If you're on a very tight budget, either grow these or do without.
  
• Salad crops–lettuce, spinach, mixed greens, baby carrots, green onions, cucumbers. If you use it often, grow it.
• Cut flowers–if you use these, it’s a significant savings to grow them yourself. They are a high-profit item for farmers.
• Items that don’t keep long but are used often. If you find yourself making special trips to the store to grab something, save the gas and grow it at home. Kale and other greens, Broccoli,  and salads, are the most obvious, but for you it might be berries, potatoes, onions, or carrots.
• This strategy uses mainly crops that are eaten fresh, so succession-sowing and careful planning are extra important. Don't overplant zucchini that won't keep and underplant  green beans you could freeze if needed. Or plant winter squash that you could use all winter.

To grow a big part of your food intake, look at what peasant families have grown through the ages. 

• Grains like barley, amaranth, quinoa, wheat, oats, corn, and teff are classic staples. Barley, quinoa, and amaranth can be cooked like rice. Barley oats and wheat can grow during winter.
• In small spaces and cool conditions, root crops like potatoes, beets, rutabagas, yams, and storage carrots can be (and have been historically) a space-saving substitute for grains. 
• Dry legumes are a concentrated, easily-stored source of protein. 
  
• The next need is for fresh vegetables: cabbage, onions,  leeks, carrots, turnips, rutabagas, beets, mustard greens, kale, collards, winter squash, and chard  are nutrient-dense and can be either stored or grown through winter. 
• Canning and freezing both use a lot of equipment and energy. They are best suited to very dense sources of protein (meat, fish) or condiments (salsa, fruit butters). Drying is labor intensive and in moist places it’s power-intensive too. Staple foods for every day should be able to be stored with minimal inputs or else grown through winter.
• Three Sisters crops of flour corn, dry beans, and squash form a balanced diet that can be grown and then stored most places in North America.

Out of all these, the crops that can provide the most meals per unit of space are flour corn, quinoa, potatoes, yams, rutabagas, beets, onions, dry beans, cabbage, mustard, collards, chard, and leeks.

HOW you grow makes a difference too

• Sow a few plants at a time for a continuous supply. Everyone knows this, but actually doing it will make the difference between feasting all year and feasting for a couple of weeks then running to the store again.
• Grow from seed instead of buying starts. A single plant usually costs as much or more than a packet of seed.
• Plants that don’t have room to develop don’t yield enough to be worth growing. Space your plants at least as far apart as the seed packet suggests. Competition from either weeds or other crop plants cuts yields drastically.
• Vining crops that can be trellised give huge yields for their footprint. Peas, Pole beans, indeterminate tomatoes, cucumbers, melons and moschata (butternut) squash give big yields per sq ft when grown upwards.
• Mulch is worthwhile. You save on water, weeding, fertilizer, and soil preparation next year. You can harvest your own mulch by cutting tall grass and weeds with a string trimmer, sickle, or scythe; do it before they start shedding seeds. Wood chips are good on perennials and paths, but avoid them on vegetables. If cold spring soil is a problem, pull mulch aside until it warms up.
• Cardboard is free weed control. Wet it well, and weigh it down.
• Use compost tea and other probiotic sprays or liquid fertilizers to prevent disease. It’s also useful to help control mites, thrips, and other tiny pests. And it's free.
• Use companion planting to attract the good bugs that eat bad bugs.
• No-till or Low-till methods will save you money from equipment you aren’t renting, from fertilizer you can taper off on, and from labor–in the long run. In the short run, plant as best you can, check out the No-till Growers Podcast and start planning for the long run.

Supplies and inputs:

• Make compost! Start now and it can be ready when you plant out your tomatoes. It replaces bags of manure, soil conditioners, and fertilizer. Don’t just use kitchen scraps–harvest weeds, grass clippings, leaves, old potting mix, dead plants, shredded cardboard (with no color printing or plastic) and straw. It’s worth looking around for sources of organic matter. Let your neighbors know you’ll take grass clippings and fallen leaves (unless your neighbors use herbicides–they persist in the compost.)
• If you do need to buy soil amendments, look for bulk dealers. It's often the same price to buy a whole pickup load of worm castings, manure, or compost as to buy half that amount in bags.
• Skip special seed starting mix–it’s not necessary. Plus, it has no nutrients in it, which means you need to provide additional fertilizer for your seedlings. Use a good general potting mix instead. For small seeds, you can screen out any big chunks. Or use well-cured homemade compost with some sand, pumice, or perlite for drainage.  You can recondition old potting soil with compost, a balanced organic fertilizer, or aged chicken manure. (It shouldn’t smell bad–if it does, use it under your corn or squash instead.) Some brands available in the west that are acceptable are Black Gold, EB Stone, Royal Gold, Foxfarm. After 3-4 weeks, feed seedlings with compost tea.
• Don’t buy special grow lights. Standard cool-white fluorescent bulbs or LED lights are fine. Lights need to be very close to the plants–6-8 inches away. If the lights are close enough, you don’t need to buy special extra-bright ones. Either rig the lights so they can be raised as plants grow, or start the plants up on blocks and lower them.
• Learn to make a few basic probiotic sprays and teas to replace store-bought inputs. A bunch of weeds submerged in water for a week will replace expensive organic fertilizers like blood meal or fish extract. Here are some to start
• Consider water use. If you have a wet and a dry season, grow as much as you can during the wet season. Replace standard landscape plants with drought-tolerant ones. If your water is metered, consider investing in simple drip lines for your vegetables and landscaping. Dripworks is the pioneer in the field with a sterling reputation for quality and customer service. (I’m not affiliated in any way.) 
• Buy good-quality tools once, not cheap ones repeatedly. I’ve written a bit about this here https://www.quailseeds.com/how-to/useful-tools-books-and-media