Gardening- best bang for your buck?

[Wabi Sabi]

I've spent way too much money on my garden the last couple of years and really haven't gotten much out of it in the way of food. At this point it's more of an expensive hobby.

 

This year I have a much better idea of how and when to plant the garden for maximum efficiency. For financial reasons I really need to make this year's garden productive.

 

With that in mind, I'm beginning to think about what I want to grow this year. I'll order my seeds next month, start some things in March, set some frost-hardy plants out in April, others in May...so now is the time to start the planning.

 

If you were looking to get the most food value for your dollar, what things would you personally grow in your garden? What things would you decide aren't worth it and skip?

 

I know that I won't bother with zucchini this year. Although that's one of the few things of mine that always does well it takes up a ton of space and since I have to grow in $$$ raised beds space is at a premium. Besides, let's face it, in the summer why bother growing your own zucchini when everyone else you know is desperately trying to give it away? :tongue_smilie:

[Marylou]

Do you like winter squash? It keeps well for months.

[OrganicAnn]

1) Tomatoes - because they just taste so much better homegrown.

2) Beans - they produce a lot and taste good.

3) Peas - taste good

4) Basil/Cilantro/Dill- herbs

5) Specialty veggies that are expensive but easy to grow - shallots, purple carrots, etc

 

and if I can keep going

6) Cucumbers - because we all can eat a lot of cucumbers

7) melons - because a really good ripe melon is unbelievably good.

8) Peppers - red, orange, pablano

Edited January 24, 2012 by OrganicAnn

[rwjx2khsmj]

We eat broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, carrots, lettuce, bush beans and egg plant. I try to limit the garden to the things in my garden that I would normally buy in the store. I use the tomatoes to make salsa, pizza sauce and pasta sauce. I freeze whatever we can't eat in season.

 

ETA: I want to try pumpkins this year. We love pumpkin for carving, cookies and pies.

[GoVanGogh]

What zone are you in? (Ie: what is your growing season like?)

 

I am in zone 8a.

I grow greens over the winter, as they tend to be expensive. You can grow microgreens ($$ at the store) year-round in a sunny window location.

I grow onions, which are cheap at the store, but take up so little space in the garden. I also grow potatoes, simply because I think all children should have the chance to dig new potatoes.

For saving money - herbs, tomatoes and bell peppers are the ones I focus on. I also like the unusual squashes, like delicata, and yard-long beans.

[chrissymama]

So much of it depends on where you are... and luck. That said, definitely tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, bell peppers and other sweet peppers.

[itsheresomewhere]

Tomatoes, broccoli, beans, bell peppers, squash, cucumbers. I plant carrots around the bell peppers. We also do grow buckets and potatoes in five gallon buckets.

[chickenpatty]

Definitely tomatoes. We can a ton & use them all.

 

Asparagus, blueberries, strawberries. These keep coming year after year & none are wasted.

[livetoread]

Swiss chard. Seeds are inexpensive, you can plant it early in the spring, start harvesting it quickly, and keep harvesting it until late fall. It keeps coming back through the summer unlike many other greens. It is good for you and it is expensive in the store. I think it tastes wonderful too although others would disagree. Along with herbs, I think it is by far the best bang for your buck. I'm in zone 5/6 and sometimes I can even get it to winter over with a good straw cover. Even better!

[OrganicAnn]

You can read about one family's adventure growing, tracking and keeping count of the cost and value of their garden. In case you need more inspiration.

 

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2011/11/05/the-grs-garden-project-october-2011-update/

[myfunnybunch]

I grow lots of greens (spinach, chard, lettuce, kale). Very healthy, fast-growing so you get a lot of food for the space, easy to grow.

 

Tomatoes. If you trellis them, they don't take up much space, they are expensive to buy, and homegrown tomatoes are delicious! Cherry tomatoes usually bear a lot.

 

Strawberries. They are very expensive to buy, and fresh-picked strawberries are amazing. I am looking around the yard for a place to put a new strawberry bed so we can get even more.

 

Winter squash takes up a lot of room, but you can get a lot of food. I got 25 delicata squash off of two vines, and they store really well. They take up a lot of space, but you can plant them and train them along the sides of the yard or in flower beds.

 

Carrots. My veggie hater will eat fresh carrots straight from the garden, rinsed, chomp.

 

Leeks are good for very early spring and to plant in the fall for winter gardening.

 

Green beans and cucumbers on the same trellis. The cukes grow up onto the trellis with the beans. I love cucumbers, and fresh green beans are fantastic.

 

ETA: I forgot about fresh herbs. They are insanely expensive in the grocery store, and easy to grow. :)

 

I don't grow corn (doesn't grow well, don't get much from my small space), potatoes (I can get cheap organic potatoes from the farm stand), melons (not quite hot enough), broccoli (I have a black broccoli thumb or something!) or zucchini for the same reason you're giving it up.

 

Cat

[Sara R]

Swiss chard. Seeds are inexpensive, you can plant it early in the spring, start harvesting it quickly, and keep harvesting it until late fall. It keeps coming back through the summer unlike many other greens. It is good for you and it is expensive in the store. I think it tastes wonderful too although others would disagree. Along with herbs, I think it is by far the best bang for your buck. I'm in zone 5/6 and sometimes I can even get it to winter over with a good straw cover. Even better!

 

I agree! Swiss chard tastes like spinach, is healthy like spinach, but is way way easier than spinach to grow. Plus you can use the stalks as cool-colored celery. You don't have to worry about the heat or the cold until late in the season. If you are lazy and let it go to seed (hmmm) in year 2, you'll get tons of volunteers in your garden the following year.

 

I have been doing a lazy garden over the past couple of years, and I pretty much just do tomatoes and chard.

[GoVanGogh]

I would suggest contacting your county extension office or a Master Gardener for a planting guide for your zone, to see what is even realistic to plant. If you live in the southern part of the US, Swiss chard is a winter crop. If you have alkaline soil or a hot, sunny garden, it is best not to waste your money on blueberries. Fresh strawberries are wonderful, but they require so much water to keep going through the summer in this zone that they aren't a financially wise crop.

 

Ex: Here is a vegetable planting guide in my zone, where I veggie garden year-round.

http://nhg.com/pdf/NTexasVegPlantingDates.pdf

I have had kale, chard, lettuce, cilantro, chervil and parsley growing all winter. I will tear them out mid-March to make room for the summer garden.

[alpidarkomama]

At the top of my list is anything that is either too expensive at the grocery store (esp. $2.00+/lb; we don't live in an area w/cheap produce!), or is not readily (or at all) available. Fresh herbs, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, shallots are at the top of the list. Fruits too, which for us include berries, pomegranates, paw paws, figs, quince, lemons, oranges, persimmon, guava, kiwi, and I forget what all else...

 

Then there are the things that are FUN to grow, like melons, corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, garlic, onions, peas, beans... The list could go on and on. I would definitely have detailed conversations with your local extension office. We moved from the Pacific NW to coastal Georgia and were quite flummoxed by the very different gardening rhythms. It's taken us a while to get the hang of it, and the extension office knows us well now. :)

[Ali in OR]

The most profitable plantings for us are our blueberry bushes and raspberry canes. Those are very expensive in the grocery store and grow very easily where we live. Farmer's market prices are about $3 per pint; u-pick is cheaper and there are farms around here that do that. We stock our freezer with blueberries from a u-pick place. But our own bushes/canes provide snacking fruit all summer long. My 11 yo eats more berries than we would be able to fit in the budget if we had to buy them all. Around here you get bare-root canes (raspberries) or bushes (blueberries) in February. You have to be patient because you won't get much fruit this year. But you'll have great raspberries the next year and more and more blueberries as the bushes grow.

[happypamama]

Bell peppers! They are pretty easy to grow and maintain (from the little I've done, anyway), and they are crazy expensive to buy in the stores during the winter. They freeze well.

[Maria from IN]

For the past few years we have had a container garden on our 10x10 concrete porch (with 6 1/2 foot brick wall on 2 sides!), and I've decided this year that my table (2 feet by 6 feet and 3 feet off the ground) will be dedicated to carrots and onions...green beans didn't do well at all and didn't yield nearly what we needed.

 

I'm also buying 3 more 5-gallon buckets and devoting 6 total to tomatoes, probably a beefsteak variety.

 

My husband also took 4 more 5-gallon buckets a few years ago and screwed the lids on tight, then sawed them in half. This gives me 8 smaller buckets for peppers and the dill that someone told me I should plant alongside my tomatoes and peppers to keep the tomato worms (tomato pirhanas!) away.

 

I'm hoping that our yield will be better this year...I feel like I've just been playing out there on the porch for a few years, but I kind of needed to experiment to figure out what not to grow there.

[MSNative]

Never grew swiss chard before, but I have a tough time with spinach. Looking forward to trying it this year. Love the hive.

 

Onions and garlic planted around the perimeter of your garden. Helps keep away pests and you can harvest little bits of the onion greens all growing season. (Cost -$2.50 for onion sets and garlic to start. ROA - I figure I used $1 of green onions a week for at least 20 weeks this year, harvested probably 30 red and yellow onions. Garlic is not ready for harvest yet, so no idea.)

 

These are all easy to start from seeds or directly in the garden. I bought a jiffy seed starter two years ago (glorified take out box for peat pellets.) Holds about 72 pellets. It is selling at Walmart for $5 now. Pellet refills are $5 for 72 now. I think they go on sale closer a little later in the year. Had to buy them off season for botany project.

 

Hot peppers - poblano, jalepeno and cayenne - one plant of each and you can be set for years if you dry or can them.

 

Lettuces - you can put them in the sun in spring and fall, and in light shade in the summer and harvest most of the year.

 

Yellow squash - prolific.

 

Have you looked at intensive gardening? Or just modifying how you plant? We plant basil around our tomatoes and harvest often to keep the plants small and bushy. The basil keeps the weeds down and uses what would be "wasted" space. I also plant outside the garden bed. Japanese eggplant along the walkway, lettuces tucked into a corner in the front bed, grapes in the bed along the driveway. If are at all interested in that, you can search on potager or front yard gardening and get tons of ideas. Great ways to increase yield if you have limited space.

Edited January 24, 2012 by MSNative

[Home_s_Cool]

Aside from what to grow - I'd recommend the square foot gardening technique.

 

I was given an older version of this book some time ago. It is a great way to get more produce from a square plot opposed to rows.

 

Plus the upkeep (weeding, water, etc.) is so much easier.

 

We typically grow:

green beans

tomatoes

peppers

corn

zucchini

and usually something new to try

[lailasmum]

The things we find the most successful are leeks, kale, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, salad leaves and strawberries. Some years squash will grow others not. It is really wet here and we dont have hot summers so ripening tomatoes can be a challenge but even with that we still get enough to make it worth doing.

 

I grew an early tomato last year that was ripe a month earlier than the rest of them.

[ZooRho]

Tomatoes, broccoli, beans, bell peppers, squash, cucumbers. I plant carrots around the bell peppers. We also do grow buckets and potatoes in five gallon buckets.

 

I tried potatoes last year but got some kind of nymph thing. I think they got it all.

[ZooRho]

Can't wait to read more here. But I did grow Corn last year. We didn't get a lot, BUT what we did was delicious. I plan on doing things a bit different with it this year with it. Corn is tricky if you aren't growing rows and rows. You have to pollinate it yourself to make it grow. That was fun.

 

I may try the 3 sisters plan for corn, peas, and squash.

[LostSurprise]

It depends on whether you mean plants which produce the most food in lbs. (such as cabbage, potatoes, and tomatoes) or plants which provide the most cost savings.

 

For cost savings a lot depends on where you live and how you eat (organic, etc.).

 

Usually fruit is expensive. Planting strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, or other specialty fruits can be cost effective. They're even perennial so investment one year means continual output once they mature (2-3 years).

 

Other ideas should come from what your family eats, and how much it costs in your area. Maybe you don't like zucchini that muc but love asparagus or bok choi or melon.

[ScoutTN]

Mostly what my kids love to eat -tomatoes, broccoli, cukes, snap peas, green beans and lots of herbs. We always do something fun and new each year. Last year we did carrots, but they weren't very good, not sweet. Wrong soil maybe?

Hoping to have success with bell peppers this year.

 

We try to balance what we get in our CSA - so we don't do lots of greens except in the winter.

 

Thinking about trying blueberry bushes.

[laughing lioness]

Cabbage was my best crop last year. Here's a pic of one of them :).

Herbs- we make pesto all summer long.

I do a whole list of regulars and then add in a few newbies each season. Last year we planted eggplant- a definite keeper!

Our squash cross-pollinated so we are putting in 2 beds far away from each other just for squash and using black plastic as covering. our friend did that and harvested a couple of hundred.

We always plant potatoes and eat them all summer long.

We are working on an edible landscape. So far: mulberry trees, strawberries, grapes, asperagus, rhubarb, raspberries.

[Lady Marmalade]

Swiss Chard is definitely the biggest bang for the buck. Plant once and harvest all season long. There's nothing else like it! A close second is Pole Beans. Growing beans vertically is a great way to maximize space- AND reap a great crop. Most pole beans will put out successive crops if you can keep the beans harvested.

 

Tomatoes are good- if you look for heirloom and indeterminate tomatoes, you'll get a harvest of tomatoes until frost (or disease) kills the vine. Determinate tomatoes will set a glut of fruit over a short period of time and then be done for the season. If you have the space and resources, learn to start your own seed. A packet of seed costs 2-3 dollars, and usually contains about 25 seeds. That's way more cost efficient than buying plants.

 

With many garden veggies, you can extend your season by planting different varieties. Check the days-to-harvest on the seed packets and pick a few varieties to give you the largest span of time.

[Mommee & Baba]

:bigear:

 

DH and I are committed to starting a small vegetable garden this year. We've attempted the container gardening a couple years ago. $350 later and very little production...we figured it was wise to say it's not a good idea to have a container garden in the humid south! :tongue_smilie:

 

I know we want to have cucumbers, winter squash, tomatoes, tomatillos, okra, peppers, melons of some sort, some herbs, potatoes, and a dwarf apple tree.

Edited January 24, 2012 by mamaofblessings