Author Topic: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money  (Read 24777 times)

MsSindy

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #50 on: January 29, 2014, 11:46:47 AM »
I've never really did a true cost-comparison, but I would like to think that my garden is finally paying for itself after the 4th year, as we now have it established.  For my house (2 adults), we grow a wide variety of fruits and veggies, include as many perennials, herbs, and fruit trees as possible.  Save the easy seeds like soybeans, dry beans, garlic, and tomatoes (all non-hybrid of course).  I also invested in a pressure canner so that I can things like stews, soups, and various tomato-based sauces - things that you may not be able to do with the water-bath process.  Because I make all our favorites, it's so easy to just pull something from the shelf and have a homemade weekday meal on the table after work.  A lot less likely to "go out", which in turn saves us money.

In addition to being an enjoyable pursuit, I find that we eat a lot healthier because I meal plan around what we have growing...which are healthy vegetables. 

We also started beekeeping, which has proven to be expensive, but an enjoyable and beneficial hobby.

giggles

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #51 on: January 29, 2014, 12:23:18 PM »
Any tips on keeping deer out?  This will be our first summer with a yard, nut the deer have eaten everything in sight!  I am looking for tips to keep them out of the garden I am hoping to plant this year.

Miamoo

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #52 on: February 12, 2014, 10:54:33 AM »
Giggles I don't have a deer problem here but once read about hanging out dryer sheets or cheap bars of soap around the garden to deter them.

Sort of kept a journal this year to see if monetarily the garden was worth it.  Amount spent on seeds, plants, new soil and amenities was $ 210.00.  Yield of produce eaten, canned & frozen was well over $400.00.  So, not much savings this past year.  Tho I should have been more diligent in calculating the cost of the yield.  Next year will be better.  There will be no money spent on new soil or amenities such as peat moss & manure.  Seeds are saved.  Left some tomatoes to drop and re-seed themselves. (It works!)

Invested in (2) 55 gallon rain barrels barrels this past year as well ($100).  Water is expensive here.  Not sure if this should be added to the $210.00 cost for last year.

Perennials . . . most herbs of course.  Asparagus (we supplement the yield from our little patch by harvesting wild asparagus that grows all over the place around here).  Fruit trees.  Grape vines.

I can and freeze tho as well.   

Never heard of canning potatoes but a frugal friend turned me on to it and when russets went on sale here for .12/# I tried it. DH & I canned 24 quarts.  Good stuff.  Yes, potatoes are cheap.  Yes, if conditions are right you can cold store them over winter.

DH & I stopped at a You Pick place in September and made off with a ton of tomatoes, butternut and acorn squash, eggplant for $16/bushel.  Not organic as would be preferred - squash doesn't have to be - but very cheap.  Consider squash at $1.19/# versus 30#'s for $16?  About 1/2 price yes?

Any suggestions to me for Zone 5a??????




Miamoo

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #53 on: February 12, 2014, 10:57:54 AM »
A PS - do check out the "Prudent Homemaker".  Lots of new ideas for some and she just plain sounds like a nice lady.  Let's support her.  Why not?

phred

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #54 on: February 12, 2014, 11:48:01 AM »
I plant a six-cell pak  of grape tomatoes on income tax day, and another six-cell pak on Mother's day.  By July 4th we get a small bowl of grape tomatoes every day.  Original cost maybe $2.99 (big box pit run) for each cell pak.  That and a gallon of skim milk about does it for dollar expenditure.  Slicing tomatoes are same cost & are planted on Mother's Day.  Every time tomatoes go to a dollar a pound in the supermarkets I laugh and laugh.  Saves going to the store so is much better use of time

MayDay

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #55 on: February 12, 2014, 12:32:54 PM »
Any tips on keeping deer out?  This will be our first summer with a yard, nut the deer have eaten everything in sight!  I am looking for tips to keep them out of the garden I am hoping to plant this year.

A giant fence.  seriously.

We live in a very deer-heavy area.  Like, the city pays sharpshooters to kill deer, and anyone with enough land (5 acres I think) can shoot as many as they want to with no license.  A farmer friend of mine shoots deer daily all spring, summer, and fall long.  This year he is fencing his whole farm.

I have 6 ft. deer netting, and plant hot peppers and herbs outside the fence.  Anything else, the deer will eat if they are hungry enough.  If you make a narrow garden that they don't have room to jump into, you can probably get away with 4-5 foot fencing.  If you are serious, you need 8 foot fencing. 

MayDay

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #56 on: February 12, 2014, 12:38:01 PM »

Any suggestions to me for Zone 5a??????

I have lived on the 4/5 border and now in 6.  What do you want suggestions on? 

6 is nice because we have a longer season, but on the other hand, the pests are much worse (guess they couldn't survive MN winters?) and I can no longer grow cool weather crops all summer.  I used to be able to plant broccoli in the spring, and eat side shoots from the same plant until October. 

Raspberries in 4/5 were completely invasive (which I kind of loved since I could buy one plant and get 500 new ones for free), but they don't seem to love to spread here in 6. 




phred

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #57 on: February 12, 2014, 12:55:46 PM »
You may still be able to grow your favorite cool weather crops if you use shadecloth.  Rig the shadecloth to shade the plants during the hottest part of the day (anywhere from noon to 2).  Keep the plants watered per recommendations

LynnM

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #58 on: February 12, 2014, 02:13:47 PM »
I know we've saved money over the last few years using our very limited backyard as we haven't had to buy rosemary, thyme, oregano, chives, etc. for quite a while.  We dry a lot of it and put it in old spice containers and use it all winter as well.  I grow yellow pear tomatoes from seed, and usually get 2-3 nice big plants that keep us full of them all season.  We love peppers, but stores rarely have organic and if they do, they're expensive.  We had a bunch of thai chiles, jalepenos, and habaneros last summer (gave my son that plant and he's cared for it over the winter and it has blooms on it), and I've still got dried chiles I haven't used yet.  Our bell peppers did not grow well this year, but last year we had enough that we didn't need to buy any at the market.  We usually buy one of the live basil plants Whole Foods sells at the beginning of spring, use it indoors for a while, then plant it outside and have basil to last us the summer, and we use a lot of basil.  They are usually in better shape and cost less than local gardening centers sell them for, and we've found it's cheaper than trying to start your own.   We also take advantage of the neighborhood -- we ask a neighbor if we can have the figs in his yard as he's not harvesting them (we love grilled figs).  My brother-in-law has loquats, persimmons, and paw paws, so many that he usually shares with us.     

Hedge_87

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #59 on: February 12, 2014, 02:55:23 PM »
One thing that I think really helps is starting everything from seed. If you buy tomato and pepper plants every year it adds up. Also a fun project for them days when snow is on the ground

Joshin

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #60 on: February 12, 2014, 06:43:52 PM »
I have 160 square feet, along with an herb bed and strawberries in hanging pots on the patio. We grow about 90% of our vegetables. The only thing we buy is stuff like avocados that will not grow in the frozen PacNW.

I start everything from seed, with the exception of seed potatoes which are cheap here anyway. I save a lot of seed, and seed is cheap, so I spend around $10/yr on new seed. I've never noticed a spike in my electricity cost using the fluorescent grow lights. Water is cheap here and we get decent rainfall for all but about a month in summer, so our water bill only goes up about 40 monthly from our winter average. It would probably go up that amount watering the lawn if we had it, anyway.

As for building beds. I used warped non-treated cedar timbers from Habitat store. All 10 of our raised beds clocked in at $35 when we built them in 2009, and they are still going strong. We make our own compost now, but our starter compost was harvested from around town for free. Check craigslist. Here, people are always giving away their compost piles, sometimes they even include the fancy drum composter, when they realize gardening isn't for them. Our city also makes and sells cheap compost.

I don't know how time consuming gardening is. We lay down newspaper as mulch so weeds are much of a problem. We also let the ducks free range the beds each winter, which keeps them pretty weed-free. Other than planting and harvesting, I probably spend less than 10 minutes a day puttering in the garden. Slugs are our biggest issues, but between ducks and homemade beer traps we keep them in check.

Our short summers and overcast weather makes tomatoes a hard crop. I mainly grow cherry tomatoes because they produce a lot and ripen quickly. I freeze them by the gallon. In winter, a quick simmer thaws them out, then I attack them with the immersion blender to make sauce or tomato soup. I also do a bit of canning to preserve some of the bounty. Grow what you like and what grows well in your area to produce the most. I can grow kale almost year-round some years, so kale is a big part of our diet (mmmm, kale pesto).

Not counting water, I'd have to stretch to spend $50 a year on gardening and preserving. We spend $200 a month on groceries for a family of 4, which includes one teenage boy. We also have ducks, which supply most of our egg needs. I have to buy a couple of dozen in December/January when the short days force them to stop laying, but they lay enough to hold us over their molts at least. They aren't that expensive either. About $120 a year on feed cost, but that's because they get a lot of free-ranging in to supplement the feed.



soccerluvof4

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #61 on: February 13, 2014, 05:47:25 AM »
anybody in the upper midwest WI,MN,MI have a suggestion on best things to plant and seeds source? I want to build 4 raised planters as soon as the snow goes away and get a jump on this. But i would really like some opinions for our climate best seed choices and plants. Not corn but love any other veggie! I figure I could probably plant 2 items per planter so 8 items. Tomato's for sure

Thanks

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #62 on: February 13, 2014, 09:29:08 AM »
I didn't read this whole thread, but I saw near the top that someone mentioned the book "The $64 Tomato." I read about 60% of that book before donating it to the library. The guy paid someone thousands of dollars to redesign, regrade, and install perfect raised beds for his garden. If memory serves, he put in an expensive irrigation system as well.

Like most things, gardening can be $$$$ or nearly free. You can do like the average person and pay $3/tomato plant at Lowe's, put it in expensive, single bags of Miracle-Gro soil, never add your own organic matter to cover or enrich the soil, then use city water to irrigate. Or you can read up on greywater systems, rainwater harvesting, composting, and permaculture. I recommend the Permies forums, or any book on permaculture. I like Sepp Holzer, Ruth Stout, Masanobu Fukuoka, etc for "no work gardening" principles. Google in-ground composting and hugelkultur. You can get manure for free sometimes if you check craigslist, some people let you have as much as you can take as long as you haul it. It would be worth the Uhaul flatbed truck rental of $15 to do this. You can get mulch dropped on your property from local tree-trimmers as well. If you want to get really frugal, learn how to save seeds and preserve the leftover harvest. I'll be setting up hugelkultur beds on our property by burying non-pressure-treated 2x4 lumber scraps scavenged from new construction sites. Ask permission if someone's around, they'll be happy to let you have them. It saves them on dumping fees.

Even container gardening can be cheap: I harvested icing buckets from the bakery at my grocery store and filled half of them with leaves and homemade compost before topping off with potting soil. There's a great YT video by Larry Hall about self-watering gutter bucket systems; the number one issue I had with container gardening was lack of consistent watering (I live in Zone 8b; drought is the name of the game) and that system seems like the answer.

ichangedmyname

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #63 on: February 13, 2014, 09:37:47 AM »
Nothing to add. Just making sure I don't lose this thread. Looks like a lot of good reading for me :)

Miamoo

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #64 on: February 13, 2014, 10:28:46 AM »
MayDay  -  guess I should have phrased it differently or in more detail.

Does anyone out there live in Zone 5 and if so, what does best in the garden?  I'm looking for the highest yield on what's most expensive in the store for one, keeping with organic as much as possible for two.  As well as the flavor of home preserved everything.

I have had good luck with many things but had absolutely no luck with cabbage (we make our own saeurkraut, cabbage rolls, cabbage soup, sauteed cabbage - so we use a lot), brussels sprouts.  Minimal success with green peppers.  Right now I'm craving some stuffed peppers but refuse to pay .69 each for the wax covered puny ones at the store.  Grrrrr.  Need more peppers!

Bethersonton

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #65 on: February 13, 2014, 10:41:25 AM »
Quote
Does anyone out there live in Zone 5 and if so, what does best in the garden?  I'm looking for the highest yield on what's most expensive in the store for one, keeping with organic as much as possible for two.  As well as the flavor of home preserved everything.

I live in Zone 8b, far, far away from Zone 5, but I highly recommend reading "Paradise Lot" by Eric Toensmeier. It's an easy primer on permaculture from a guy living Connecticut (I think). Permaculture is all about figuring out what will work in your microclimates. A microclimate can be an entire backyard, or simply the side of your house reflecting more sun and acting as a heat sink, which means that you might be able to grow a vegetable or fruit there that otherwise "doesn't" grow in your hardiness zone. Eric manages to grow non-edible bananas-in his front yard. In New England! It's the perfect example of a microclimate.

Miamoo

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #66 on: February 13, 2014, 11:04:02 AM »
Wow!  Thank you Bethersonton, I've not heard of that one.  Will check it out. 

What does "nonedible" bananas mean?  Guess I'll find out.

Thanks again!

Bethersonton

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #67 on: February 13, 2014, 12:05:07 PM »
Quote
What does "nonedible" bananas mean?

Just like any other plant that fruits but isn't fit for human consumption. Most everything in his yard is edible, he wanted the banana tree as a novelty to show people what could be done. One hardiness zone south, I think he said, and he could have had edible bananas.

I love permaculture but most of my knowledge at this point is through hundreds of hours of research and not (yet) practical application. If anyone has any other questions, let me know! Oh, and Eric Toensmeier also has an encyclopedia of perennial plants by zone (it's called "Perennial Vegetables: From Artichokes to Zuiki Taro"). My library has it; it's a great resource. I'd never before realized that there were perennial edible plants. It changes up the idea that all of your food in your garden has to be replanted year after year.

Miamoo

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #68 on: February 13, 2014, 12:28:14 PM »
Quote
What does "nonedible" bananas mean?

Just like any other plant that fruits but isn't fit for human consumption. Most everything in his yard is edible, he wanted the banana tree as a novelty to show people what could be done. One hardiness zone south, I think he said, and he could have had edible bananas.

That's what I thought it meant.  Boy we could use a real banana tree here with what my husband consumes in a week.

Yes, many perennials!  Also many self seeders and what we look at as just plain weeds.  Looking more and more into foraging still.   There's a thread here somewhere about that.  Also looking into 'gleaning'. 

phred

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #69 on: February 13, 2014, 12:41:04 PM »
Soccerluvof4
The upper Midwest is too vast an area to tell you what veg to grow.  Two adjacent counties may have widely differing soil conditions.  Plus, a blanket statement such as grow radish or cabbage or sunflowers is not good enough.  You need to know which variety of the radish, cabbage, etc will do best where you live.  Best answer is to go to your county's agricultural extension office; ask to speak to either the agricultural educator or to a Master Gardener

Others:
Be careful of that free manure.  New herbicides are long-lived.  They can pass right through the livestock digestive system into the manure and remain active.  Use it in your garden and everything will die.
  In any case, manure should age about a year before being used.  English gardeners would then call this well-rotted muck

Bethersonton

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #70 on: February 18, 2014, 09:14:30 AM »

Others:
Be careful of that free manure.  New herbicides are long-lived.  They can pass right through the livestock digestive system into the manure and remain active.  Use it in your garden and everything will die.

Thanks for the herbicide and manure tip! Even just read that composting won't kill the herbicide. It has a half-life of like four years?!?!

Joshin

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #71 on: February 18, 2014, 10:43:44 AM »
I'm in a zone 5/zone 6 area, depending on the weather patterns each year off the coast. Gypsy peppers are the way to go. They're a sweet pepper and they don't get very large, but man, the plants are productive and they can withstand cooler temperatures and short growing season well. I've had no luck with hot peppers so I depend on family in New Mexico to ship me green chile every year. Even if they grow, we just don't have the summer temps for them to get hot.

Kale, most early tomatoes, most cherry and plum tomatoes, broccoli raab (never had luck with regular broccoli), garlic, beans and peas of all types, brussels sprouts, and spinach all do well. Root crops do excellent -- potatoes, carrots, onions, radish, shallots. Note on onions -- make sure you grow the right type! I'm in the north, so long day onions perform best because of our short summer nights. If your summer days are less than 14 hours long, plant short-day varieties. Melons do okay if I plant baby varieties, we don't have a long enough summer for a 20 pound watermelon. Cucumbers and squash go insane, but they do just about everywhere. Small fruits, including strawberries, blackberries and blueberries do well. We also grow hops for home-brewing, but be cautious if you have a dog (highly toxic to dogs), plus we are in west coast hops central.

I grow a few things year-round in a coldframe -- carrots, lettuce, kale, radishes and some of the less hardy herbs like rosemary. My cold frame is simply a raised garden bed with with a discarded glass door on top and plenty of straw mulch.

If you have a short summer, starting seeds indoors is the way to go. I rig up a bookshelf with those under-cabinet fluorescent lights, nothing fancy. The rest of the year I take the lights down and the shelf holds books. I make newspaper pots from my neighbor's recycle bin contents. They're free and I can transplant without disturbing the plant roots. To further save both money and a trip to the garden center, I plant seedlings in my homegrown compost, after sterilizing it in the oven.

MayDay

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #72 on: February 18, 2014, 11:00:56 AM »
anybody in the upper midwest WI,MN,MI have a suggestion on best things to plant and seeds source? I want to build 4 raised planters as soon as the snow goes away and get a jump on this. But i would really like some opinions for our climate best seed choices and plants. Not corn but love any other veggie! I figure I could probably plant 2 items per planter so 8 items. Tomato's for sure

Thanks

I used to love in MN, now in Oh.  I get my seeds from Fedco.  They are based in Maine and focus in cold weather seeds. 

My experiences in the twin cities:

Raspberries do awesome, but they do so awesome that they are invasive.  Don't put them near the rest of your garden, put them somewhere that you can mow at least 4-6 feet in all directions to keep them under control. 

Strawberries do well. 

I had a touch time with peppers.  Some years ok, but never great.  It just doesn't get quite hot enough, for long enough.

Lettuce and other greens and green beans always did well for us.

I didn't realize how good I had it with broccoli.  In MN it never got so hot the my broccoli bolted.  I could harvest from the are broccoli plant from spring until fall.  All other brassicas also did well (cabbage, kale, cauliflower can be a bit more tough).

Carrots can be hard to get to germinate, but do dwell once you get the seed going. 

Onions (buy sets) do well.

Zucchini does well but melons and fall squash can be tricky depending on the weather.  We always got tons of butternut squash for example, but half would be immature at the end of the season.  Melons are notoriously tricky. 

MayDay

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #73 on: February 18, 2014, 11:12:37 AM »
MayDay  -  guess I should have phrased it differently or in more detail.

Does anyone out there live in Zone 5 and if so, what does best in the garden?  I'm looking for the highest yield on what's most expensive in the store for one, keeping with organic as much as possible for two.  As well as the flavor of home preserved everything.

I have had good luck with many things but had absolutely no luck with cabbage (we make our own saeurkraut, cabbage rolls, cabbage soup, sauteed cabbage - so we use a lot), brussels sprouts.  Minimal success with green peppers.  Right now I'm craving some stuffed peppers but refuse to pay .69 each for the wax covered puny ones at the store.  Grrrrr.  Need more peppers!

I try to do a combo of stuff that is easy to grow (instant gratification), things that are expensive to buy organically (sure asparagus is always in sale for 2$ a lb, but organic asparagus is 6-8$ a lb,) or things that make my kids happy even though they are cheap to buy (rainbow colored carrots, anyone?).

I haven't had luck with cabbage in my current zone.  The bugs just love it too much.  Further north, I couldn't get it to grow very big but I suspect that was a personal failure as the farmers market had plenty of large local cabbages.  No luck with Brussels sprouts either, they are tough to grow.  It's not you! 

I think if you eat a lot of greens you get a ton of bang for your buck.  A few kale or Swiss chard plants will give you greens for the whole summer.  Problem is, I don't really want to eat cooked greens daily.  Blech.  I choke them down because they are good for me, not because I like them!  I have had super good luck with beets, too.  I harvest twice- in the spring I pull half the baby beets and eat them whole, beet and greens.  Then the ones I left in the ground I harvest to eat just the roots.  I know I could eat all the greens too, but again, ugh, I don't want anymore greens!

I like to plant a lot of berries because they are so expensive to buy.   Blueberries are finicky, though.  They want acid soil.  Skip them unless you want to mess with amendments and soil testing. 

Lettuce is easy and quick, arugula even more so. Spring peas always do well for me but not fall.  Tomatoes always do well, especially Cherry tomatoes. 

Hopefully that gave you some ideas.  The best thing for me has been trying a bunch of different things (I go in with other people in a seed order so we can all try a bunch of varieties, and see what works best) and then to KEEP TRACK OF WHAT WORKED!  When I am harvesting in august I am always use I will remember what did well and what sucked.  Shockingly, come May, I can't remember a dang thing.  So write down what you do!

Miamoo

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #74 on: February 18, 2014, 11:49:45 AM »
Thanks MayDay much appreciated.

Not for everyday but this is really good . . .

1# Trader Joe's Southern Greens Blend (Kale, collards, mustard, spinach bla, bla bla - make your own combo)
1 clove garlic minced (more like 4, 5, 6 . . . )
1/2 cup chopped green onion
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup vegetable broth (homemade from the freezer)
1 cup tomato juice

Saute garlic & onion in olive oil in a pot large enough to hold greens.  Add vegetable broth & tomato juice.  Bring to a boil.  Add greens.  Heat for 35 minutes or until tender.  Sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

I just saute the garlic & onions, throw them into the slow cooker, throw in sliced kielbasa or whatever sausage with the greens, tomato juice & veggie broth.  Cook on low for ? hours and serve the whole mess in a bowl over corn bread.  Great winter food.

mahina

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #75 on: February 18, 2014, 02:46:43 PM »
re non-edible bananas
though the fruits are not tasty, the leaves can be used to line baskets for serving food, to wrap stuffings for steamed rice dishes, to line or wrap a flower vase, and so on. very handy lining the serving tray for canapes, too.

frompa

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #76 on: February 20, 2014, 02:57:04 PM »
On the non edible bananas:  Go for edible! I say this because a few years ago I planted two paw paw trees in my urban front yard. These are a native (to pennsylvania) member of the banana family and wow!!  The fruits are delicious and plentiful and I highly recommend it as a show off tree. They took maybe three years to get established.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #77 on: February 26, 2014, 11:38:43 AM »
Lots of good suggestions in this thread.  It is easy to be organic in your own vegetable garden, since you are there to spot problems as they first start and take care of them early.

Suggestions: only grow what you really like - obvious, I know, but some people get carried away.

Buy seeds from a catalogue (the good ones  have a lot of information about the varieties, the bad ones should not be ordered from) and pay attention to the descriptions - you want ones meant for home gardeners, not market gardeners - you don't necessarily want a huge batch of something all ripening at once and needing processing.  And you need to concentrate on flavour, not how strong it is for transport.

Ask local gardeners about problems - if you have a plant disease common to your area, make sure your plants are resistant.  There is a big discussion about heirloom versus modern plants - if you look, one of the big differences is disease resistance.  And no-one should smoke around tomatoes or peppers, they share diseases with tobacco.

Get to know other gardeners - join your local garden club/horticultural society.  You will learn a lot from the talks.  Go to bigger meetings as you get more involved - I have learned so much from going to Canada Blooms.

Seed saving - make sure you are not saving seeds from F1 hybrids, they will not be true to the parents.  They have advantages though, so you may want them anyway.  Seeds keep for years if stored properly, so read up on that.  I started tomatoes last year from 5 year old seeds with no problem.

Grow more than one type of each plant - weather may make one happier, and the next year the change in weather may make the other variety happier.  Hedge your bets.

Perennials - concentrate on these first, so that they have time to mature - i.e. it takes three years before you can get any good harvest from asparagus. 

Fruit trees - try to get dwarf or semi-dwarf if possible,  Do you really want to be on a ladder 20' up to pick your apples?

Pay attention to hardiness zones.  I hate seeing a nice apple tree at a chain store, checking it's hardiness zone, and realizing that it will probably do badly in my area.  I hate it because they should not be selling it at that location, and someone will buy it and be disappointed.

Check your soil and drainage - are you sand, silt, clay or loam?  It makes a huge difference in your approach.

I am in zone 5a - feel free to PM me, I have been gardening for about 40 years now, and am very involved in my local horticultural society. I am still learning, don't pretend to have all the answers  ;-)

phred

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #78 on: February 26, 2014, 12:29:55 PM »
apple trees: you can't plant just one or you'll never get any apples.  You'll need to plant two different varieties that blossom the same time to get pollination.

pear trees: ditto

peaches & plums: can be onesies

Rollin

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #79 on: February 26, 2014, 12:56:46 PM »
I have a similar sized vege patch with which I have had some, but not a great deal of, success with over the last two years.

Mine has two issues that affect productivity that I have to contend with. The first is shading, caused by it being located on the south side of a fence and being near a huge tree in the neighbour's yard, meaning it only gets patchy sunlight during summer and more than half of it is fully shaded in winter. The second is that we get sub-zero temperatures in the morning for the three months over winter, meaning a much more limited set of crops that can be grown in the winter.

As a result, I've only had great success with one crop in producing more than I can consume, namely cherry tomatoes. Everything else has either been too sporadic in its production to not have to supplement with shopping or have been total failures and never producing a crop.

The funny thing about the cherry tomatoes is that I bought four original seedlings from a local school fete and they were quite prolific themselves that first year. I just let them die in place at the end of summer and just as I was getting ready to plant something else in their place in early spring, there were cherry tomato seedlings covering about half the vege garden.

Ever the mustachian I am, I thought not to look a gift horse in the mouth and just left them to fight it out amongst themselves. Fast forward to now and we get about a breakfast bowl full of ripe cherry tomatoes every day!

In short, no my small vege garden has not been the food bowl that I originally envisaged, but it hasn't been a total failure and it has been fun and satisfying with what it has produced.

My neighborhood peacocks would make short order of your tomatoes.  We see on pop up in the morning and plan on picking later that day and when we come back it is gone.  We've seen the birds pecking away at anything that is not green (flowers, tomatoes, etc.).  They even eat our cat's food.

Jamesqf

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #80 on: February 26, 2014, 02:07:33 PM »
apple trees: you can't plant just one or you'll never get any apples.  You'll need to plant two different varieties that blossom the same time to get pollination.

pear trees: ditto

Only true if you are gardening in isolation.  Most places, it's almost a dead certainty that neighbors will have apple & pear trees that will pollinate yours.  Something to be aware of, though, if you're growing uncommon fruits & nuts.

My neighborhood peacocks would make short order of your tomatoes.

Easily solved.  See e.g. http://www.gourmet.com/recipes/1950s/1951/12/peacock

RetiredAt63

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #81 on: February 26, 2014, 07:01:34 PM »
apple trees: you can't plant just one or you'll never get any apples.  You'll need to plant two different varieties that blossom the same time to get pollination.

pear trees: ditto

Only true if you are gardening in isolation.  Most places, it's almost a dead certainty that neighbors will have apple & pear trees that will pollinate yours.  Something to be aware of, though, if you're growing uncommon fruits & nuts.
If you are truly isolated with little space, buy a grafted tree that has more than one variety on it.  You get pollination, and more than one type of apple. Win/win.

clarkfan1979

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #82 on: February 28, 2014, 06:55:37 AM »
I'm still in the experimental phase of my garden in Southwest Florida. I have learned that tomatoes grow really well in the winter and peanuts very good in the summer. I would like to grow other things but I decided to listen to mother nature and take advantage of what she had to offer. When I don't have tomatoes I probably spend $6 week at the grocery store. I get tomatoes in my garden Jan - May. Some weeks we can't keep up with eating them all so we puree them in the blender and freeze bags of the puree. Probably about 10-15 bags. For pasta dinner's I add one bag of tomato puree to one can of store bought tomato sauce. I bought some seeds at Dollar Tree for $.25 cents a bag, my uncle gave me some seeds and I use some seeds from store bought vegetables. Wash the seeds, let them dry for 2-3 days and then put them in the refrigerator for 2 weeks. This summer we are going to try to make our own peanut butter. I got 1/2 of a 5 gallon bucket of peanuts last summer. I'm going to try to double it this summer. Peanuts require no maintenance were I live. I also grow some herbs.  Garlic chive is my favorite. I buy one bag of potting soil each year to start the seeds in small containers. Once they are 4-6 inches tall they go in the garden.   

eagmadelyn

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #83 on: April 06, 2014, 07:13:06 PM »
Great thread!  We've just moved into a new apartment in Chicago and are just starting to think about balcony vegetable gardening.  We're in the city, but get plenty of sun on our SE facing 60 sq. ft. space.   Any recommendations for a great beginner's balcony/terrace gardening blog or tips on container gardening in general?
« Last Edit: April 06, 2014, 08:11:27 PM by eagmadelyn »

iris lily

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #84 on: April 06, 2014, 07:44:58 PM »
...  Similarly, you can't grow carrots that'll taste any better than the ones at the grocery store, so they're not worth the effort. 
Do you know that no one else I've ever read online has EVER expressed this idea? I hate homegrown carrots, they taste like soap and they are woody. People look at me like I have two heads when I say this.

I still remember the time, years ago, when I liberated myself from DH's endless stream of soapy tasting carrots from our garden. We were in the grocery store and I told him: I am buying these carrots, You can't stop me. I am DONE with homegrown carrots.

...and I've never looked back, still buy them at the store.

what a great thing to have someone verify my experience, thanks so much! All of the people who look at me like I have two heads have not, of course, grown carrots in our soil. They have greenie ideas about "organic" and they ask "well doesn't your DH grow them organically"  and etc. Sigh. Organic doesn't prevent soapy tasting woody carrots.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #85 on: April 07, 2014, 05:51:21 AM »
I love gardening , which includes vegetables, but I have always put my effort into the things that do taste better from the garden (at least my from garden), and/or are super expensive at the store.  So tomatoes, peppers, sugar snap peas, snap beans, herbs, yes. Onions, carrots, turnips, no. 

My "vegetable" garden also usually has baby ornamentals that need to get a bit bigger before they go in the flower beds, or flowers that are for cutting.  Over the years that has included daffodils, gladioli, geraniums, day-lilies from seed, peonies from seed, baby trees, etc.  Babies need TLC.

If your carrots always tasted bad (and I am hoping your husband tried more than one variety), then here's to great tasting carrots from the store!

happy

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #86 on: April 07, 2014, 05:59:03 AM »
...  Similarly, you can't grow carrots that'll taste any better than the ones at the grocery store, so they're not worth the effort. 
Do you know that no one else I've ever read online has EVER expressed this idea? I hate homegrown carrots, they taste like soap and they are woody. People look at me like I have two heads when I say this.

I still remember the time, years ago, when I liberated myself from DH's endless stream of soapy tasting carrots from our garden. We were in the grocery store and I told him: I am buying these carrots, You can't stop me. I am DONE with homegrown carrots.

...and I've never looked back, still buy them at the store.

what a great thing to have someone verify my experience, thanks so much! All of the people who look at me like I have two heads have not, of course, grown carrots in our soil. They have greenie ideas about "organic" and they ask "well doesn't your DH grow them organically"  and etc. Sigh. Organic doesn't prevent soapy tasting woody carrots.

This gave me a chuckle. Our very first carrots were small and thin and solid wood like a lead pencil! Seed sowing failed, so i bought some starts, but it was very time consuming to plant our and nurture and the end product was pretty awful. The guinea pigs ate them. Still try carrots every now and then since I have some free seed, but not much luck. But hey they are cheap to buy, so I'm not trying too hard and not wasting hours over them either.

OldDogNewTrick

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #87 on: April 07, 2014, 06:29:18 AM »
I have a similar sized vege patch with which I have had some, but not a great deal of, success with over the last two years.

Mine has two issues that affect productivity that I have to contend with. The first is shading, caused by it being located on the south side of a fence and being near a huge tree in the neighbour's yard, meaning it only gets patchy sunlight during summer and more than half of it is fully shaded in winter. The second is that we get sub-zero temperatures in the morning for the three months over winter, meaning a much more limited set of crops that can be grown in the winter.

As a result, I've only had great success with one crop in producing more than I can consume, namely cherry tomatoes. Everything else has either been too sporadic in its production to not have to supplement with shopping or have been total failures and never producing a crop.

The funny thing about the cherry tomatoes is that I bought four original seedlings from a local school fete and they were quite prolific themselves that first year. I just let them die in place at the end of summer and just as I was getting ready to plant something else in their place in early spring, there were cherry tomato seedlings covering about half the vege garden.

Ever the mustachian I am, I thought not to look a gift horse in the mouth and just left them to fight it out amongst themselves. Fast forward to now and we get about a breakfast bowl full of ripe cherry tomatoes every day!

In short, no my small vege garden has not been the food bowl that I originally envisaged, but it hasn't been a total failure and it has been fun and satisfying with what it has produced.

My neighborhood peacocks would make short order of your tomatoes.  We see on pop up in the morning and plan on picking later that day and when we come back it is gone.  We've seen the birds pecking away at anything that is not green (flowers, tomatoes, etc.).  They even eat our cat's food.

LOL, that reminds me of the little desert squirrels that would sit on the lowest rung of my parent's fence, patiently eyeing the strawberries, waiting until one turned just the right shade of pink/red. We never harvested many strawberries but had a lot of fun feeding the squirrels.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #88 on: April 07, 2014, 06:33:39 AM »
We used to feed the robins and chipmunks with ours - I got more strawberries once I put netting over them, but every day I had to check that there were no birds or chipmunks trapped under it  ;-)

LOL, that reminds me of the little desert squirrels that would sit on the lowest rung of my parent's fence, patiently eyeing the strawberries, waiting until one turned just the right shade of pink/red. We never harvested many strawberries but had a lot of fun feeding the squirrels.

Gin1984

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #89 on: April 07, 2014, 06:34:08 AM »
The only way I saved money was I looked for deals.  I asked on freecycle if anyone had plants they were culling, and joined a gardening website to get a discount of some plants for my first purchase.  Also, if you buy a lot of herbs (we go through a ton of cilantro and basil) it can be worth it.

zhelud

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #90 on: April 07, 2014, 08:09:37 AM »
Our garden saves us a ton of money, just by virtue of it being an almost-free hobby. It's hard to spend much when you're weeding every weekend.

Zombie Burger

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #91 on: April 08, 2014, 07:52:42 PM »
I just did a little math on some brand-new garden beds I built last spring. I didn't measure yield on most of them, but I have numbers on the tomatoes.

That bed was 12x3 feet, and 12" high. New lumber cost was $38, new soil (1 yard) was $42, and the landscape fabric underneath was $10. So, $90 in total. There was really no irrigation to speak of - I maybe sprayed it a few times with the hose right after planting.

About 3/4 of the bed was tomatoes; the rest had been herbs like mint, oregano, basil, etc... but I'll forget about that. The total yield was 60 lbs of tomatoes. We are in Minnesota; and we had a cold growing season late in the summer. The fruit wasn't ripe until December, after being stored in our basement. By the way, processing all of these veggies is a lot of work. Expect to spend a few evenings cleaning and freezing stuff.

The current price for standard tomatoes in the store is $3.59 per lb. But those are April prices; I'm going to take a wild guesstimate and say that tomatoes were less than half that in December - maybe $1.50 per lb. That's still $90 worth of tomatoes, which is at least break even on the brand-new bed, not counting the other stuff growing in it, and considering my time to be worth nothing.

Amazingly, we also got 120 lbs of butternut squash from a single plant. It didn't take much of a bed because it was mostly growing into the lawn. I'd say the plant was 40 feet long, end to end. That's $155 worth of squash at current prices, but we've only eaten about half of it by now.

Your mileage may vary.


deborah

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Re: Growing veggies in small backyard-does it really save money
« Reply #92 on: April 09, 2014, 02:06:24 AM »
Zone 6 in Australia. We get loads of frost, but only one day a year of snow. We have a small back yard, and most people are astonished by the amount that we grow.

We get as much as we can eat from our peach and apricot (including a lot we preserve - I think the US calls it "can" - I aim for one bottle per fortnight of each) and blackberry (one bottle per month - this year was so hot I didn't get that). We get a lot of grapefruit, lemons and bitter oranges grown in the thin slice of land between our house and the next, which gets sun all day (no frost and a much warmer microclimate).

We have as much lettuce as we can eat. One year I planted oakleaf lettuce, and a couple went to seed. We have feral lettuces popping up everywhere (paths, flower beds, cactus pot...) each year at this time, so we can eat lettuce every day from mid autumn to the middle of summer when they all go to seed. Similar thing happens with Jerusalem artichoke. Planning to do the same thing with garlic and onions (read on the internet that you can leave these there and just pick bulbs, from your patch every so often.

Apples, cherries and plums are not producing much yet (we got about 1kg (2 pounds) plums this year which was a dreadful season - late frost followed by a drought with record high temperatures.

Actual vegetable patch - beetroot, carrots, spinach,  tomatoes (preserved - aim for 52 bottles of tomato paste - not going to get that this year) all produce well. We get as much green beans, zucchini and silverbeet as we can eat. We have about the same amount of raised bed as you. Carrots taste woody when they are going to seed. They taste much better if they are in the ground over winter, and they take a while to grow. This year we put in some raised beds and they definitely improved our output. The tomatoes were less productive than they usually are but my neighbours (who usually get an ENORMOUS number of tomatoes) got almost none. Tried rockmelon this year, but they were unsatisfactory. Also tried pak choy which were fantastic.

Didn't finish putting in the raised beds, and one (non-raised) bed was left unplanted. This was because the raised beds were on special, and I only got as much as the car could carry. Green peppers (mini) and spring onions are doing very well in the other. Thyme and other herbs are in the path I use least below the raised beds.

Don't have enough asparagus plants - but the one we do have grows under the lemon and produces each year. Rhubarb is under the peach. Tried growing strawberries under the apples, but they didn't get enough water, so I have got rid of them.

Next spring I will put in the remaining raised beds. These didn't cost much, as I had been collecting an enormous pile of mulch in preparation for the raised beds, as well as getting manure on sale when it became available. Actually, I had just the right amount of material for the three raised beds I made. It helps that the gardening store has sales at the beginning of each season, so I know to wait for them.

We doubled the height of the raised beds to make them 60cm high (2 feet?). This was to ensure that tomatoes and carrots ... have enough room for their roots.

We seldom water the fruit trees (only in real drought conditions - trees were dying everywhere this year), and the raised beds have been made as rain gardens, so they are self watering for a lot of the time. Seeds cost very little (I raise all my plants from seed). So I think that veggies in a small backyard really do save me money. The other advantage is that I my eating is aligned to the seasons, and having vegetables (that I have put the effort into growing and harvesting) encourages me to eat more vegetables. This has to save money on meat and take-aways!

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!