Follow our family's weekly vegetarian menu, access recipes, and download weekly grocery lists, during my quest to get our weekly grocery bill down to $70 per week, while supporting local agriculture and eating healthy organic foods!

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Project vegetable garden!!

Spent: $50.53


This is the first garden I have planted since I was a teenager. I have always had the impression that the start up cost of a garden was huge. I was expecting $150. I decided not to go with a raised bed, as that would cost more for the lumber and extra soil. I only had to buy 3 bags of compost, and I mixed it with the dirt in the garden spot. It was a lot of work though. I tilled the plots with a hand spade... during a drought! Terrible idea. Although I guess it did save me money on supplies. I have two small beds. One has red and yellow bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, sun gold tomatoes, sweet basil, African blue basil. I have a trail of mint lining the sidewalk and a pot full of cilantro. The other bed has sugar baby water melons, Asian black water melons, and two varieties of  heirloom squash. Hopefully everything will grow well and the soil is not to clay ridden! That is actually my biggest worry. I am going to keep track of the production of the gardens in relation to average  market value of the produce to see how long it take for me to make the money back, and if it actually starts saving us money. 

3 comments:

  1. Yay for gardens. Glad to know I won't be the only budgeter with some plants going. :) Is the $50 just what you spent on garden stuff?

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  2. I bought 2 bell pepper plants, 2 tomato plants, 2 basil plants,1 watermelon plant, 2 packets of squash seeds, and an assortment of pepper and tomato seeds. I also bought 3 bags of compost. Something I have started making on my own since planting the garden. I did not buy any hard ware or tools.

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  3. I have not had luck with melons. If I had my way this whole place would be covered with cantaloupe! I make my own compost, too, but boyfriend wanted to buy 2 bags this year to do an experiment with 2 of the tomatoes (grow them directly in the bags) that he saw his uncle do growing up. It felt weird buying compost. I'm so excited about having fresh basil again I can hardly stand myself.

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