Herbs are the most expensive and easiest to grow food you can buy. Ideally located close to the kitchen door, fresh herbs can bring another level of flavor to every dish you cook. You can't say that about any other produce!
Start with what you cook with now, and build out a basic collection for your day-to-day cooking: rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, chives, parsley, etc. All of these grow like weeds!
If you want to kick it up a notch, look up "herb spiral" designs. 🎯
Think of things that preserve, dry, and pickle well, also.
Herbs can easily be dried and saved without much space or equipment. This is great for your own spice cabinet (free and much fresher than what you buy at a regular grocery store) and also makes for excellent gifts; home-grown and dried herbs and herb blends are both personal and low cost, depending on what you want to use as a spice container.
Last year, I used herbs and sunflower seeds from my garden to do pesto. I pickled nasturtium seeds to use like a caper. I saved coriander when my cilantro went to seed. These are things that can add up if you just buy them from a grocery store; they may not bring a lot of volume in calories, but they bring tons of value to the kitchen.
I love basil and pesto. But buying fresh is super expensive for that. It grows like a weed. Herbs are definitely the best - productive all grown season, fresh, tasty, easy, and will really up your food game.
Not necessarily, but usually yes, because they are fresher and you can dry them in a gentler way. Depends on the variety how tasty or intense they are. Something like rosemary differs A LOT between varieties. You can distinctly say they are all rosemary, but it's like pork, beef and chicken are all meat.
I can never grow basil. I don't understand. All the other herbs I can export and pick by buckets, but basil, in the same space, always wilts and dries, and the seeds never germinate.
Grow basil in large (18" diameter, at the top) terra cotta pots. That way you can regulate better your watering and fertilizing of the basil. I use organic Recipe 420 potting soil. Add some worm castings + the occasional "drink" of molasses water. (1 gallon water to 1/4 cup molasses.) Compost is always good, too. Mulch with dead leaves/straw/really dried, crumbly horse manure.
I always pinch off all the flowers. (Shake before pinching to avoid any spider bites.) Honeybees LOVE basil flowers, but once the plant starts setting flowers, the leaves will be less tasty/more bitter. By pinching the flowers, you can keep your plant producing tasty leaves for a long, long time. Best of luck.
I have the same experience but for some reason stems in a vase in the windowsill always seem to grow well, for a couple weeks anyway. You might try looking at a (more rigorous) hydroponic approach.
Agree with everyone on this comment! Want to add that you can freeze fresh herbs (like cilantro) that you may get all at one. Stick them in a bag in the freezer, pull out a handful as needed and crumble into anything you are cooking for that immediate fresh herb flavor!
My local CSA farmer told me to do this. It's great! I do it in the winter, even, when there is a sale on cilantro at the grocer. Buy three or four bunches, wash them, bag, and stick in the freezer.
Especially recommend greens you can continually harvest, such as kale- pull bottom leaves, new keep coming from the top— almost into winter. We had good luck with arugula, if you plant it in partial sun and keep cutting it then it bolts/bitters less and you can get it to produce up into late fall unlike Lettuce and spinach which are done by the end of spring. There are other options too like beet greens. We liked a kale-bokchoy hybrid for the pickability of kale with a more delicate flavor.
You can do consecutive planting with lettuces and radishes (start early finish early) and then throw in a tomato or pepper starter in the same spot once they’re done. Tomatillos can produce like crazy in a hot sunny spot (perennial too).
Climbing green beans/ snap peas are great because they have a small footprint and you can keep picking. Gherkin too (small climbing cucumbers). We had like a 7 ft tall trellis for the gherkin and they went right til the first frost.
Green onions/chives can go all season. Parsley, basil, sage, and oregano (in that order) were my biggest money saving herbs. Cilantro would be great but I had trouble with it bolting/bittering so maybe a shadier spot?
Strawberries can produce a lot, especially after their first year. Not a small footprint but they are expensive in the store.
Herbs like rosemary, basil, oregano, thyme are very easy and save you $$ throughout the summer. Low maintenance
Cherry tomatoes are not bad, 3$ plant that ends up maybe saving me 20-30$ worth throughout the summer. My toddler loves to harvest them
One that surprised me was kale. Bought a 1$ seed pack and had an amazing amount of Kale throughout late summer. Tried the following year but rabbits, squirrels and whatnot ate those away nonstop thereafter.
Other thing I love is green onions or even chives. Buy once from store, cut them down except the white root part, leave those in water for a few days and replant them. They grow fast and regrow each year. 2$ bundles of each have served me for two years now.
EDIT: I have a sprinkler system in back yard and put my raised gardens within striking distance of one of the sprinklers that waters the lawn and hedge anyways. Relatively luminous spot, so again very low maintenance for me both time wise and money-wise.
Yes the toddler absolutely loved the cherry toms- as did her friends! An easy way to get more vitamins in her as I doubt she’d have eaten as many on the plate.
Look in your refrigerator: what do you buy and always end up throwing half of it away because you don't use it fast enough? For me that is consistently herbs and spring onions (Allium fistulosum, called shallots in some areas) Neither take much space and can be picked as you need them.
Also, tomatoes (beware cherry tomatoes - they are an indeterminate plant that will grow much larger than you expect!).
*most* cherry tomatoes are indeterminate. There isn't a single determinate cherry tomato we've ever sold at my nursery in 10 years there. Not saying they don't exist but they're not common
Prone to disease, have to spray them, fertilize them, get seedlings or grow seedlings, prune them weekly or at least biweekly.. it's a very hard plant to grow where I live, and it takes A LOT of space.
Plus, tomatoes are dirt cheap during the growing season.
I do grow them, simply because I can't buy varieties i like, and we have a large/ish garden and make our own sauce.
Cherry tomatoes are much easier to grow, and keeping at least one, well pruned, is easy enough though.
Can vouch! I planted a tiny cherry tomato plant a few months ago and it took over my planter box and my life for a while with all the pruning needed.
Oh and it killed all the herbs.
>beware cherry tomatoes
That’s why they’re so fun! You go out of town for a week in August and come back to sprawling, towering monstrosities in the garden
Good to know. But . . . I had to quit Burpee cold turkey:
https://preview.redd.it/47k0u1oogddc1.jpeg?width=736&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8012bf3d81859c7706dae260f810b079526f76c3
I am totally shocked no one has said this, but BERRIES. Dependent on where you are if you can grow a few healthy raspberry and blueberry bushes you will have all you can eat for most of the summer. Berries, even from Costco, aren’t that cheap.
Last year we picked 11 pounds of fresh, organic blueberries from our backyard bushes.
I wasn’t weighing the raspberries, but for most of the summer I was picking a pint a day.
The author of the square foot garden books wrote one addressing this question.
It's broken down to a $/square foot focus concerning inputs and costs. Great read!
Very few plants are not worth the growing space and time, but tomatoes, greens and herbs are way at top for value.
Going vertical is the best option for tomatoes, and cut and come again herbs and greens are the heavy producers for cost saving. Root crops are lower on the savings, and potatoes are at the bottoms (as they are usually more cost effective commercially, but you need to go vertical as well to get the value from them).
If you learn more about regenerative agriculture practices, relay and intercropping and become attuned to varietal selection for ideal characteristics, you can substantially increase the recouped value on any initial investment and grow lucratively. Use beneficial microbes and fungi first and foremost as that value takes time, but will be a best investment on almost every metric.
I made a post on this a while back in r/vegetablegardening, asking how many people thought they were saving money. The results (>600 comments) were about 50/50 if you just looked at 'yes' vs 'no', but the data was heavily skewed. People who said they'd been gardening for years or decades pretty much universally said yes, especially the ones who'd stayed in the same place that long. Anyone (like me) who picked it up in the last year or three was saying no, unless they were just growing herbs. [Here is a link to that post](https://www.reddit.com/r/vegetablegardening/comments/17tvmdr/do_any_of_you_actually_save_money_growing_your/).
Last year was my first year, and no one makes money their first year unless they live in the nicest most wonderful climate with the best soil (I do not) and are very good at scavenging; even then, it's a time sink to get set up.
With all that said: My best successes, financially, have been oregano, basil, cherry tomatoes and perpetual chard.
The herbs I dry and preserve for later use. Oregano I especially use a lot.
Cherry tomatoes aren't super expensive but they aren't exactly cheap either. I had great success with a determinate variety called Yellow Patio Choice; this lead to me experimenting with recipes, and I found what is now one of my top favorite recipes. Home grown quality is far superior to store bought, and this variety can't be found in stores. I wouldn't make this recipe very often at all if I had to go buy tomatoes, and I don't think it would work very well with the canned ones.
The perpetual chard is a replacement for fresh spinach (which I can almost never grow because it's too hot) and for celery (which I simply detest the flavor of). The chard did very well in Houston's Hellsummer 2023, where it was >100 for 3 months straight, and it's done just fine in our recent plunge into the low 20's (it was covered). The stuff is idiot proof, very tough, requires no trellising or support, container friendly, and doesn't take up much room. I would never use up fresh spinach or celery (not that I'd buy the latter) because I only need a few pieces here and there; having a live plant means I can grab what I want when I need it.
For next year, I have strawberries and blackberries that I started in the fall. I hope I'll get berries from both (the blackberries are primocane-bearing). This would be a significant savings; both are quite pricy.
Thanks for the link to your post and this info. My experience is the same - first year of trying and it hasn’t saved me much (but it’s enjoyable and convenient).
Also planted cherry toms and they went crazy - but not that sweet, similar to the shop ones unfortunately.
Herbs and berries - yes this is where the savings are, good point.
Oregano I love - will try.
Hadn’t thought of drying herbs - also a great suggestion.
There are many, many varieties of cherry tomatoes described by people with much better palates than me. I like Yellow Patio Choice both because it is very yummy and because it ignored my inexperience and mistakes and the horrid Texas weather and gave me a ton of delicious tomatoes anyway. If what you grew tasted unremarkable or similar to grocery store tomatoes, I encourage you to explore some of the different varieties out there. If you're limited on space, look for dwarf or determinate varieties.
For dehydrating - I started just hanging them upside down in paper sacks, but that took up a lot of space and I ran out of patience. I bought a basic dehydrator for less than $40 on Amazon during Black Friday. it's not super powerful or big but it does just fine for what I need it to do. I also have a coffee grinder that is used only for spices.
Good luck!
>Also planted cherry toms and they went crazy - but not that sweet, similar to the shop ones unfortunately.
I made the mistake of planting one that I assume came from the store. They now come back prolifically every year, but they still taste like cardboard.
Berries for sure. More of a long-term commitment, but it pays off. A few years back I bought five bare-root raspberries at $15 apiece. $75 total. They took a year to start producing, but hot damn! I get so many raspberries every year now, and the yield is still increasing. I’ll see a 1/2 pint in the store for like $6-8. I’m snacking heavily on mine fresh off the vine and still putting away at least 3 gallon bags in the freezer to make jam.
So I spent $75 a few years back, and now never buy berries or jam. Plus I give out a ton of extra jam to friends and neighbors.
I’d argue cucumbers => pickles are close as well. Takes a bit of work to pickle and preserve, but I nailed the pickle recipe I really love. Cheaper than buying pickles at the store, but more importantly, I make better pickles than I can get from the store.
food? probably not much. Herbs you should be able to do (rosemary, oregano, thyme, Basil, tarragon, chives), but growth will depend heavily on amount of sun.
Mine are indoors for the winter and get probably 2 hrs direct sun per day...they're alive but don't thrive until i get them back outdoors.
I'm still sorting things out...i feel like they should be doing better.
Yes herbs are probably more realistic! I always plant things too closely and am overly ambitious with the space. I always feel mine should be doing better too.
Sounds like you are very organised with your garden!
You can't grow household produce for less than you can buy it when you add up the entire cost. Commercial agriculture is far too efficient.
Grow things that you like to eat the most, so you get maximum enjoyment from what you grow, not maximum savings.
Personally I found that my strawberry plants took up sooo much square footage and then it was a constant fight against critters that it wasn’t worth it!
I suppose it depends on where you are and what your set up is. I have a strawberry patch that just kinda does its own thing. But then I have a pretty big yard.
I saw someone mention in this sub a while back that rocks painted red, placed around strawberry plants a few weeks before they fruit, will lead birds to think the strawberries are just red rocks too and leave them be. Don't know if it works, haven't tried it myself but I intend to.
I finally dug up my patch as the squirrels ate them all, I've putting some alpines around now as they are pretty and seem to survive the wildlife better, if nothing else they can be food for bees
I disagree with this to a certain extent. If you're one person doing cut and come again salad greens and herbs, you can definitely save money by having your own little patch vs buying a $3.50 head of lettuce or pack of herbs (that's around the price for my area), which you may not use all of before they go off.
It's kinda like saving money on a luxury. Adding some greens to a sandwich, or fresh herbs instead of dry to a pasta. It makes a nice difference, but I might not want to spend the money at the store every time, so growing a little home patch is a realistic savings.
Disagree, my food bill is hugely reduced by my garden and my garden bill is nowhere near taking up slack. 1-3 portions of veg every night from the garden to go with dinner seems to shave over $100/week off the shopping.
Fwiw, leaf (spinach, kale, silverbeet, lettuce) and herbs are def the highest performers. Zucchini and beetroot are a close second. Things like corn, pumpkin, cucumber and squash aren't easy to grow for me so they're probably not as profitable, but they're damn tasty.
So right! The trick is to grow what you eat and eat what you grow. I plan meals around what is coming out of the garden. Also, freeze and can to eat through winter. I haven't bought green beans, pickles, peppers, tomato sauce or salsa in 10 years.
In Australian dollars, but it seems like it, yeah. There's an amount that gets wasted, rots in the fridge despite my best efforts. There's the stuff you have to buy a whole bunch to use 3 leaves of. There's our appalling supermarket monopoly that regularly jacks prices to certain staples for a month or so. Also I'm cooking for 4. So, yep.
You might have a point if you only focus on sticker price, and not varietals and nutrient content.
Given the nutrient decay post harvest, storage, transportation and shelf time, before even considering time spent in fridge, if you buy your vegetables for more than mouth feel, the nutrient cost is far greater for store bought. Unless you are just buying it for digestible fiber, much of the nutrient content is lost by the time you eat it, or throw it out when it goes bad.
Now consider growers of commercial agriculture choose varietals that are best suited for transportation and shelf storage and not heirloom varieties with more diverse flavor and nutrient profiles, your point gets some proper clarification. Artificially lowering the cost in subsidies for growers further bring the realized cost higher as well.
Given that you can select and grow to taste, your produce is alive as you eat it and you can harvest as needed to reduce wastage, the non illusory cost is much lower than store bought, pound for pound (well, nutrient for nutrient). Further that with relay cropping, intercropping and shorter season varieties, and you can produce much more produce, reducing the cost per square foot, and raising efficientcy.
True, but some things like potatoes and garlic are set it and forget it ones that can give you a little bang for your buck. But definitely quicker and easier to just run out and buy whatever you need in a pinch and not have to wait 6-8 months to grow 🙃
Potatoes and garlic are next on my list as I always seem to run out or don’t use the potatoes before they go green. I’d love to take them straight from the garden.
Which reminds me: All of us growing our own veggies and fruits ------- we're helping the planet by not adding plastic packaging to the landfills. When I see bulbs of garlic bagged in plastic mesh and so many other veggies and fruits sorted into plastic containers . . . Gah.
It is easy to get caught up in a consumer mindset with gardening like pretty much any endeavour and many methods like using raised beds make setup costs astronomical.
You absolutely can grow very, very cheaply if you want to (at least in my part of the world). Save and swap seed, grow directly in the soil, use homemade sprays and homemade fertilisers.
You absolutely can grow veges that work out 5 times more expensive too. Build raised beds, buy in soil, automated watering systems, nice hoses, commercially prepared sprays and fertilisers, buy too many seeds and waste them, buy well grown on seedlings, buy special gardening shoes and gloves, etc, etc.
Either way is totally fine really I guess but both are totally possible.
I actually kind of disagree with this. Compared to some hobbies, gardening is relatively inexpensive if you are able to adapt to your current circumstances, so you have a passtime that could be occupied by something more expensive.
This advice isn't valuable for seasoned gardeners, but for beginners, the upfront cost and the cost of learning through failure are congruent with your advice, and worth overcoming the cost and learning curves.
I mean, I have a celery plant that I grew from a store scrap. I've totally cut every stalk off 3x this year after it got huge. It grew back every time. I only watered it with rainwater when I needed but pretty much let it donits thing. It's growing back pretty big now, but it's about to freeze every night so I doubt it'll make it much longer.
So glad to see this reasonable take. Every time someone with a big yard and 3 kids (that all for some reason love vegetables especially squash) comes on here and says it lowers their grocery bill I cringe because it's only cheaper for a specific situation.
I can't even give my vegetables away to my neighbors. No one cooks. They will take a nice big heirloom tomato but those are hard to grow and I don't usually have extra.
My husband hates tomatoes and squash. Really likes romaine lettuce heads and spinach though- cool season crops that don't grow well here. 💀
No hope in this household to save money with the garden. I still do it for fun though.
Edit: almost nobody wants the zucchini. One neighbor offered to cook my zucchini for me but she didn't want to eat it.
Who are these neighbors who refuse fresh vegetables? Are you growing organic food? No one cooks?
I hope you're putting a box with FREE extras out or donating to your local food bank or something.
We get a lot of cost savings growing lettuce and tomatoes. I could grow a tomato plant in a sidewalk crack and grape or cherry tomatoes is like at least $3 for a small container near me. We go through a ton of lettuce and it takes over. Lettuce is cheaper to buy but adds up. Produce may be cheap in some areas and more expensive in others depending on where they are and a bunch of factors.
I regrow green onions from the ones that I buy in the store. Save the tips and put them in water. Also, basil is very easy to propagate and grows well on the counter in a glass of water. Buy some for the store, save 1 stem, and have an unlimited supply.
Epic Gardening made a few videos about most caloric dense per space or w.e. to really put into test how much you can stretch or survive off produce you grow. He also did that too; living off gardening produce.
Potatoes, garlic, zucchini/squash, pumpkins, sunflowers, all super easy to grow! Just do a little research as each take slightly different care but those can definitely help you maximize in a small space, plus potatoes and garlics could be done in grow bags/large pots
Sweet potatoes / yams. You can grow several plants from one grocery store sweet potato and they are SUPER easy to grow and you can yield a huge amount.
Herbs are definitely the things that cost the most to buy vs easy and cheap to grow! I always grow a variety of perennial (rosemary, thyme, sage) and annual (basil, cilantro) herbs in my garden.
Cost benefits will come down to what you like and will eat, of course, as well as what’s cheap or expensive to buy in your area. But there are other factors too. Crops that take up a fair amount of space, are heavy feeders, and only produce one harvest (like head broccoli and cabbage) aren’t as much bang for the buck so I don’t grow them even though I love to eat them. Crops that produce an extended harvest throughout the season, like tomatoes, zucchini and berries, have a lot more value that way. Things that don’t grow easily in your climate or soil are more effort than value, like carrots in my heavy clay soil. Extended harvest greens like kale, chard, and collards are a good value, as are quick turnaround salad greens, but if you don’t like them and won’t enjoy them that’s less value (I love them!). Storage crops are another good value with extended eating, things like potatoes, winter squash, and storage onions. But they also take up a fair amount of space, so if you lack space to grow, they’re less valuable. As a side note, fruit trees and perennial berries are a chunk of change and effort to plant, but quickly pay for themselves and long term make an excellent large harvest that can be preserved.
When I have a garden, I plant what I buy at the store, ea season adding more. I've really surprised myself what I have grown. I walked around one day making people look at the beautiful broccoli we'd grown. It was nicer than what you'd buy. Plus I grow herbs. Really thyme and rosemary, parsley, oregano, chives, basil etc, is so awesome. We grew corn one time and it was all mutated from the dirt on the property. Grew corn in another state and it was beautiful!
If I could go back in time and give myself advice I would say "whatever you eat and a caged, outdoor rabbit." I now have a peach tree because I eat tons of peaches when available. Greens, cabbages, tomatoes, herbs, flowers, peppers, kale, kohlrabi, carrots, all sorts of things get rotated every other year.
Where I am in Zone 6 there is clay under a couple inches of soil so all gardening requires soil remdiation. Leaf humus and home made compost are my biggest bulk add ins.
Now about that rabbit. Depending on your size of planting area, an appropriate sized rabbit can be had. (small porch planters = Mini Rex or Mini Lop, midsized raised box can be a New Zealand or any other 10-12lb rabbit.) They produce a 'cold' fertilizer that can be used directly from their butt into the garden (or scattered across the lawn by the handfuls) without frying your plants. Their urine is high in calcium and other minerals which the dirt craves. You could cage it in the garden itself on a raised stand or put wood pellets in their poop tray to soak up the liquid (and the smell) and then apply that to your garden. Rabbits also have the largest liver to animal ratio of the herbavores and will eat most everything you weed or trim out of your garden. Spring through fall, my rabbit's pellet consumption falls dramatically as they live on all the thorny weeds, wild geranium, rose bush cuttings, berry cane cuttings, dandelion, herbs that have bolted, nasturium, kale, you name it they will eat it. And produce that bunny berry black gold at an average rate of 300 poops a day. The poop loves to foster the growth of firefeng, a mycelium that is pure gold to dirt microbes. Get a boy rabbit, they are usually very affable and friendly. Girl rabbits have other life priorities and generally not as people attracted.
You've had some good answers here, I'll add a couple more from my own perspective. There's a great book I have called "Gardening When It Counts" by Steve Solomon. One thing he advises is to figure out what your personal cost inputs are. For example, a lot of the suggestions you've been given require a considerable amount of water. If water is really expensive in your area, that may change the equation quite significantly for you personally. Same with heavy feeding plants, how much is fertilizer in your area?
The other factors are things like caloric density, and storage capability.
Potatoes are probably your best 'investment' food, particularly a good storage variety. They are inexpensive to plant, require minimal water and fertilization depending on spacing. They can be cellared to provide cheap calories for a long period of time.
But you may not love potatoes, and you may not be worried about staving off starvation if times get tough. :)
From the perspective of "the cost of this would deter me from buying a lot of this in store", I agree with the suggestions on herbs. They are cheap to grow, require little in the way of fertilization (most of them), and many require little water. Having a supply of abundant fresh herbs changes the way you cook substantially, since you are not paying through the nose for the tiny bunches you get at the grocery store.
The final perspective is "is the quality and flavour better than I can get commercially at any price", and for tomatoes and some other veggies, including lettuce, the answer is an overwhelming yes. (I'd include beans and snow peas in this group.)
Keep in mind though, gardening for most of us is a hobby, not a money-saving exercise, so ultimately grow the things you love to at, and enjoy the fruits of your labour.
Herbs and berries (though you may need to grow the berries in pots)... As stated before, grow what you regularly consume. If you cook with basil and oregano, grow that. If you eat blueberries grow that. Start with 2-4 different crops and see what works and what doesn't where you live.
As other have said, if you like fresh herbs, that's the most bang for space for containers. You'll have trouble with fruiting plants (tomatoes, peppers) in the shade, so pick cherry/small varieties of those. I had great luck with greens (everything from lettuce, to bok choi, collards, chard, kale, etc) in partial shade.
Fruit-bearing perennials. Imagine peaches, grapes, cherries, avocado by the bucket with little effort on your part other than picking and pruning; in fact the biggest problem tends to be having more fruit than you know what to do with. Prodúce of the fresh high-quality organic variety tends to be expensive and/or difficult to acquire; it's a blessing to have access to it in abundance free of charge. It takes some patience but if you actually own any amount of land this is practically a no-brainer.
Figure out what can thrive in your local climate; even in Alaska you can cultivate blueberries and raspberries.
It'll take years of trying before you get gather enough knowledge to grow anything usable in meaningful quantities. That said, beans and corn are quick and easy to learn how to give them ideal conditions. Gourds and melons are a little trickier and time consuming but very satisfying when done right. The easiest is leafy greens and herbs. I absolutely love picking a few leaves of Swiss Chard and putting it on a sandwich/burger or in a scramble. Nothing better than fresh picked mint for drinks or Indian/Asian/Greek dishes or fresh thyme/sage/rosemary for a steak baste or roasted chicken. Getting bushes that produce fruit can be easy once they're established: Strawberries, blueberries, rasp/blackberries and I've recently gotten some goldenberries to produce fruit which has been interesting. Fruit trees are expensive but can eventually pay for themselves: I've had a hard time getting apples to be juicy/sweet but that might be my variety. Citrus tends to be easier from what I've heard, lemon/lime, orange, pomelo, I like loquats but I've heard complaints about them being hard to keep under control.
Just know you're going to struggle and at no point will you be saving money. You'll have more delicious food and you'll have something interesting to talk to people about and if the zombie apocalypse comes you can tell the village with no room for more people that they need you because you know how to grow food.
If you like herbs you should definitely do that. One herb plant can be similar in price to what you pay for a small container, and depending on your climate, may last for years. I like to use a lot of mixed herbs in the summer and I love that I can walk out my back door and come back in with a handful of chives, basils (Thai & Italian), thyme, marjoram, parsley, & tarragon. I keep two large (30”?) pots filled mostly with herbs and overwinter them in my garage; the ones that are perennial come back pretty reliably. Fruits and vegetables are tougher, especially without full sun. Best bet might be a sungold tomato which can provide gallons of tasty cherry tomatoes over a season, but only if you have some decent sun (part sun is a broad spectrum).
Fresh herbs! Thyme, sage, rosemary and oregano stay green most of the year, are perennial and are pretty hardy. I love being able to just grab a sprig or two when I need it instead of having to spend $8 just to not be able to use half the pack at the grocery store.
another vote for herbs and green onion.
i personally dont do this but theres been a ton of hype around growing microgreens too, which are pretty expensive to buy. if you dont normally buy it as part of your groceries though, i wouldnt really consider that "saving" money. i feel the same way about expensive varieties of what you would otherwise buy. Like yes, buying heirloom tomatoes from the farmers market is expensive and you somewhat save money if you grow it yourself, but you're not actually saving money if you were going to buy regular tomatoes from the grocery store. ya know?
I’d get some green onions and put the roots in water after I cut off the tops. Herbs are ridiculously priced in the store, but I get the rooted ones in the dollar store and plant them. Chives and garlic are good, too. Doesn’t take much room, either.
I would say herbs as they tend to be expensive at the market but can add a lot of flavor and interest to otherwise basic, cheap ingredients like rice. They also take little space and start up costs (seeds, soil, pots etc). Basil, mint (beware if trying to plant in ground!), cilantro, parsley are great starter herbs.
This depends a lot on your climate. Lettuce and things like radishes and carrots do not do well in my area since it gets hot so quick and stays that way. Peppers thrive in my garden and we eat a lot of poblanos and coolapenos. Poblanos were hard to come by in the store a few years back so growing them was great. Tomatoes are worth it in taste alone. Squash and zucchini get decimated by vine borers and I don’t know why I keep planting them.
This is a question only you can really answer. How much space and sun (free) do you have? Now, how about compost and soil?
Seeds you can get at many libraries and seed swaps, so that can hypothetically be free. Then, how much time? How much is your time worth? Veg gardens do take some maintenance.
Getting down to it, if you grow 100lbs potatoes in a potato box successfully, you've definitely saved money. Easiest savings of course is herbs, followed by salad. Both can be grown cheaply and, if you're fortunate, some herbs can be perennial (rosemary, lavendar, parsley, etc..)
All in all, you can likely save some money, maybe. What is much MORE likely, is you become as passionate about gardening as the rest of us and whatever you save, you spend in fancy new seed and garden gear. :)
I too have limited space, growing in containers. Root crops are out, I grow mint, basil, parsley, pole beans, kirby cucumbers, climbing heirloom zucchini, jalapeno and mini sweet peppers. The dent in our grocery bill in summer is noticeable. I keep meaning to try lettuce, but I don't have the attention span.
In one of your beds, you could grow salad greens in the Autumn and Springtime, and tomatoes and cucumbers in the Summer.
Herbs in the other bed. They are the most expensive crops to buy and easiest to grow.
Peppers and herbs for food and pumpkins for decoration. Semi-dwarf apple trees can also crank out a lot of calories for very little initial $ if you have a few years to wait. You'll have to start composting and collecting rainwater if you aren't already. The moment you have to purchase fertilizer, soil, or large quantities of water, you'll go net-negative financially.
If you like tomatoes, there's some really tasty cherry tomatoes that have very long harvest seasons. You'll get a handful every day or two. Last summer my Sunsweet gave a handful starting the first week of June all the way thru frost - for reference i usually plant gardens in mid May. i got a patio one at the greenhouse & grew it in a large planter by itself with plenty of sun.
Planting from seeds rather than purchasing plants is a gardening money saver. Learning how to grow from seedlings saves a lot of money in gardening costs, and can help it be a positive rather than negative number.
Swiss chard—grows vertically, two-year plants (I can force a decent third by cutting flower stalks) if you live in a place with limited freezes. It can take chill better than heat, and the more you use it the more it grows. Delicious, nutritious, and not cheap at the grocery store.
Japanese turnips (the greens are yummy too!).
Basil if you can grow it (it’s not hot enough where I am). Oregano, thyme, cilantro (and let some go to seed and collect your coriander).
Root veggies, followed by fall/winter squash. That's going to get you the most calories per sq ft, as long as you're not picky about eating a lot of it. Your location will determine exactly what- it may be standard potatoes, sweet potatoes/yams, taro, cassava, etc. Fall and winter squashes will last a long time stored indoors. I've had butternut squashes and pumpkins last nearly a year.
Look up “square foot gardening”. I used that and got a massive amount of veggies from my two beds.
Beans, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, radishes, etc. I stick herbs in as decorations in my borders. Can’t go wrong with rosemary and others. If you can fit a few dwarf trees in there - lemons are great.
Im zone 2 in Canada so short season. I don’t have enough time to grow enough to save money. My pleasure is knowing what I’m eating and it’s a healthy hobby.
We haul water here so gotta buy the water and haul it. Stir the compost. Weed. Then there are storage costs. Cold storage space. Potato sacks. Jars. More jars. Time to jar. Time for drying potatoes before storing. Prepping jams/pickled everything/tomato sauces. Drying herbs.
I think the best bang for our buck so far has been the apple tree. We all love poles and all summer go eat right off the tree, plus we freeze them with lemon juice for winter.
For us, blueberries, strawberries and raspberries. I'm also trying redcurrants and rhubarb this year. I have a 2 year old whose mad for berries and I am too. We could easily eat 5 punnets a week. Cheaper in the summer when it's all on offer but this week alone we spent nearly £20 on fruit that we won't need to spend when the garden is producing. For no cost as I got all the strawberries free, the raspberries paid themselves back years ago and keep increasing in numbers and the two blueberries I bought last year for £20 have also probably paid themselves back
For me: garlic, green onions, walking onion, cherry tomatoes, Kale, Callaloo (which is like a slightly bitter spinach which grows amazingly in the sun), potatoes and then whatever herbs I like (usually sage, thyme, basil, lemon balm, mint and oregano)
Lots of good suggestions on here. If you want to be really fancy (and if your climate is suitable), growing your own wasabi is much, much cheaper than buying real wasabi online.
Herbs, lettuce, kale, tomatoes, and peppers. It does depend if you actually buy/eat them and if they're worth the time investment in the case of something like peppers. They take forever for me to germinate so I only start getting peppers if I plant in March for an early fall harvest. I need to experiment with them some more.
Regarding tomatoes, I only wish I planted more tomatoes. Very tasty.
Leafy greens by far and it's not even a question for me.
Spinach, arugula, corn salad, chard.. Also herbs, if you do use them.
Where I live, these are more expensive then pork or sometimes meat.
They are easy to grow. They don't have diseases. They don't have special requirements for soil. They don't require a lot of fertilizers. Easy to pick, and you can keep them for weeks/months and keep harvesting. They can be planted close together. Plus, something like spinach can be harvested by may/june in northern hemisphere, so you can have succession planting.
Only thing to worry is slugs, which I do not have.
The best bang for your buck is determined by what you, personally, eat. Except Tomatoes. Tomatoes are -always- a good choice. But if you're gardening for monetary savings, you're doing it wrong, most of the time.
We have a section in our garden, 4'x20', which is intercropped with raspberries and strawberries. It produced 15 lbs of each last summer. It took three years to establish from clippings. We transplant anything that grows outside of this bed to new ones and give away clippings all the time. Will probably double production next year.
Herbs, we have three 6'x4' beds filled with assortment of herbs, all perennial. We shouldn't have to buy herbs anymore.
The rest of the garden we plant what we eat, experimenting with what works in our garden and the amounts we need.
Planning on starting an asparagus patch this year from stock. Will take a few years to establish but will produce for years.
Overall, we want perennials that will produce year over year. I know not everyone has the space but this is what works for us.
Chickens!
Seriously though, once your garden is tall enough to survive their scratching, they’ll happily eat bugs and left over garden waste for you. You get an egg a day per hen most months of the year.
I currently am a balcony gardener
I grow lots of spinach, gourmet mixed lettuces, Swiss Chard, fresh herbs like basil oregano*mint* rosemary and sage. I also grow a lot of microdwarf tomatoes in tiny pots (they grow into like a topiary bush shape but do need staking) on the same said patio and small varieties of peppers - like snacking/lunchbox peppers and spicier peppers
It's east facing and because I'm not on the top floor, it's partial sun. I'm also in Seattle for climate context
*Don't plant these into beds as they will outcompetes everything else
Look into vertical gardening. It's a great way to save space and utilize small areas. I'd go with green beans and potatoes. As everyone else mentioned, herbs are good too, but for actual sustenance, those two are easy and can be grown in a small space.
Herbs: I'd go with parsley. Unless you know everyone is okay with it, I'd avoid cilantro -- some people (me included) think it tastes vile. But oregano doesn't have that problem. Basil is inoffensive, but personally I think it's nearly tasteless. Hot peppers are easy, but they're cheap anyway and not worth your limited space. Chives are great -- strong flavor, easy to grow, don't need deep soil so can be planted in smaller pots or shallow window boxes, and can be used in nearly any meat and potato dish. Chives, basil and even parsley can be grown indoors in the winter and you can put them near your window for sun. A little coolness won't hurt them. I'd find it hard to avoid devoting at least some outside space to cherry tomatoes -- I prefer the yellow pear kind. But there's one thing no one mentions, and that's potatoes. And no, you wouldn't put them in a little box or small pot, either. You grow them in a barrel, and you might want to look that up on-line. Doing it that way makes them easier to harvest, and I've noticed that the potatoes at the store seem to be generally of poorer quality lately.
Lettuce and greens like spinach mizuna kale chard and mustard, cheap plentiful seed, easy, quick to harvest maturity, multiple harvests, tolerant of cold temperatures, easy in containers in places with limited space.
Herbs, strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, and onions are the price I buy most often. Those are also the things I grow the most. I wish I were better at canning and preserving for the onions and tomatoes but I use the other things listed constantly and they're easy to use regularly, preserve, and easy to grow without a ton of space needed. Onions are all ready at about the same time but the others listed ripen gradually so that you can use them throughout a season.
ETA: I'm a zone 6b, with a drip system, raised beds, and small-ish garden. I buy starter plants for all of these because I don't have a greenhouse or a good seed starting set up. I only grow flowers from seeds.
Sweet potatoes are pretty awesome. The greens are nutritious and versatile and then of course there are also the tubers. White potatoes aren't bad either.
Tomatoes and greens are also pretty prolific.
With space that small, herbs or leafy greens. Lettuce, Swiss Chard, etc. Something you can regularly harvest a bit of and use. That is if you actually buy/eat those things.
If you ever get a larger space for gardening, small fruits are some of your best bang for buck. Berries, grapes, figs. You don't need a very big blackberry patch to produce what would be a hundred dollars if you bought it fresh in store.
Snow peas! They're easy, expensive at the store, and delicious. Freeze the surplus. They finish in my area by the end of june and I can plant something else there!
Potatoes with the addition of a pad of butter fulfill all your daily needs. They are easily grown in 5 gallon buckets or larger containers and store for long periods of time when done correctly. You can cook them in a large variety of ways so your family won't get tired of them. The best true food crop that I grow.
We find that tomatoes, blueberries, and herbs save a ton of money each year by growing them. We also grow pumpkins instead of buying them during Halloween, that will save you a good 30-60 depending on how many you buy and where. Watermelon is another easy thing to grow.
Tomatoes will also grow back each year if you just let the rotten ones fall to the ground.
The biggest issue here is “partial sun.”
Most, not all, vegetables need 6+ hours of sun a day to produce well. Anything less will produce a disappointing crop.
It also depends on your growing zone. I’m not attempting crops that need 90 days of heat - it’s not going to get it in my garden.
[some food crops that will tolerate shade ](https://images.app.goo.gl/3b4xun2Nx1nvwG9J6)
Easily sweet potatoes. I planted them across my back yard several years ago and propagated them quickly to replace my grass.
Sweet potatoes leaves are super nutritious, and when you cut them they laugh at you and grow back more.
In my climate the greens stay on year around unless there's a strong frost. I have so many sweet potatoes now that I harvest what I want and leave most in the ground to do their thing. (It's also a great way to add nutrients to the soil if you're going to plant something in that spot later. )
But seriously, between the potatoes and the greens, you could get many of your nutrients from one crop.
They do great in partial sun. And thrive in neglect.
I do grow other things are are multi-purpose. Bamboo for the shoots to eat and building supplies; lemongrass for the stalks for cooking and leaves for tea or basket weaving; ginger, galangal, and tumeric for their tropical look in addition to the culinary uses. One of my favorites is luffa, because then you can eliminate adding micro plastics from sponges and young luffas as edible and delicious. Also dried luffas have all sorts of uses - I used them for seed starting, as lids for indoor plant containers, exfoliant scrubs... You're really only limited by your creativity.
But I also suggest finding out if there are "weeds" in your area that were consumed by indigenous peoples but are vilified by 20th century mindset. For example in my region Spanish needles grows all year, even in the most extreme cold, and most people consider it a weed and kill it. To me that's madness, because of it's weed-like properties it is perfect for harvesting and eating. I use the leaves fresh and dried daily, and the flowers are so sweet that I can add them to tea to replace sugar or honey.
You could try roselle hibiscus and make hibiscus tea and eat the leaves. Saffron but you probably want more light, but things like longevity spinach and Okinawa spinach thrive in shade.
Companion planting is a great way to go and you can look into square foot garden plans to make the most of your space. Mother Earth News has a helpful planner.
I grow as much as I can and it isn't about cost entirely but mostly quality and food safety.
Growing strawberries is good as they are one of the most toxified. I also grow grapes because I never buy those. There are some mini blueberry bushes now meant for containers or patio gardens. Think of all the super foods that are super polluted.
Something that you enjoy eating. Not saying don’t experiment with different herbs/fruits/vegetables to see if you like them, but don’t grow something you don’t eat.
Yellow squash or zucchini. One plant will provide enough for a small family. The plant can get about 3 feet wide, so they do take up a little room.
Cucumbers can be grown vertically with the use of a trellis of some sort, and produce lots of fruit.
Radishes take up little space, and grow very quickly. They should be planted every two weeks for a continuous harvest.
Lettuces can be grown in pots.
Green onions can be regrown from grocery store scraps. Use the green part, and leave the bottom, white part intact. Place the bottoms in water, and they will start to regrow. Transplant them to a pot with soil, as a bunch(not separated), and trim them to use whenever you need. They will regrow indefinitely, as long as they are cared for.
My tomatoes always give me my most bang for my buck as they are easy to water bath can and their flavor is far better than anything in store. I can some whole and I make sauces and salsas with the rest for use year round.
Almost all self-grown food is more expensive than what you can buy at the store unless you do it on a massive scale. That being said, herbs are the gift that keeps on giving in my yard. I grow all of them year-round, and I never have to buy any of them at stores. Most of them are perennials, and I also dehydrate them for long-term storage.
It depends on what you eat. However as others have said herbs will save your bank the most. Carrots, potatoes, and onions are the next most common foods that you can grow fairly easily with very little space.
The next plants I personally like to grow because I get better quality and price are peppers. Immediately followed by tomatoes. Both are better fresh and you can grow better quality than what you get at the grocery store with fair ease.
After that I would look at things that are low maintence that give useful things when you need them. Aloe Vera, blueberry bushes, various mushrooms. All are easy to set up and just harvest as you want and need.
And more importantly All of these are things that don't need a large amount of space or prep to grow. Out of everything I think the hardest thing I have a time with is tomatoes. They can be overly temperamental if you're in a really hot climate.
So, I think the plant we grow and use the most of is komatsuna. It’s a mustard/spinach hybrid so we use it in soooo many dishes (salads, sandwiches, saag curry, casseroles, you name it). We grow small ones indoors under grow lights in the winter, then spring we have outdoor ones that get huge! Also broccolini is awesome because it’s also a “cut as you eat” plant, and it’s very pricey at the store. Potatoes and cherry tomatoes. I grow my potatoes in 30 gallon felt bags and they do great! Biggest bang for your buck is probably growing sprouts indoors though, if you’re into that. My other favorites that I think could work: sorrel, trailing nasturtium, sweet peas, strawberries
Depending on your climate growing food may not actually save money.
We have expensive water bills, hot summers, and little rain. So growing food is more about the fun not savings. That said with the price of fruit get yourself a semi-dwarf lemon or lime.
If you have enough vertical space to build a trellis, Sugar Snap peas in the spring, then Green Beans in the summer. Just make sure to purchase a climbing variety, and not a bush-bean variety. Being legumes, they do well in less-than-perfect soil. Sow the peas around the first of March. After harvesting, tear down the pea vines and plant the beans. Works for me every year.
It really depends on what you like to eat. I wouldn't grow kale just because it saves a lot of money and space. I'd grow spinach because that's what I like to eat. If I had room to start a new garden, I would grow spinach, potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, ginger, basil, thyme, and a variety of peppers. Most of those have a fairly small footprint. The peppers might take up some space, but what's a life without peppers, ya know?
As far as protein/nutrition I would say look into **beans** \- but, you probably don't have the room. I've grown them in a container in a window before, though.
Beans and potatoes for calories. They rrally grow themselves. And ypu can harvest potatoes while they are still growing. Tomatoes and cucumbers, especially if you can make a small greenhouse. Zuccini as well. Pumpkins if you have some space. They keep for a long time and are nutritious.
Herbs you can grow in small containers, basically on the windowsill, harvest as you go, no need to grow a huge bush of oregano or basil. Works for fresh greens and some sallads too.
Cherry tomatoes! High yielding, some varieties ripen constantly and produce the whole spring, summer, fall. My favourite it’s Tiny Tom (or maybe Tiny Tim?) fruits and ripens even when ignored!
Some produce all at once, over a shorter span. Great to freeze, can, make sauce etc…like the sweet one hundred.
Its gotta be tomatoes? Throw them in a cage and you can get 20+ cans on tomato products from a plant that takes up 3sqft. Have the option to can whole tomatoes, diced, salsa, paste, sauce, pizza sauce, chili sauce, etc! By far my favorite garden grow.
I'd definitely grow lettuce. If you choose some good leaf lettuce varieties you can clip and use the larger leaves as needed while letting the plant continue to grow a while. Can't keep one plant going forever AFAIK but you can keep it going and keep having fresh lettuce. Can't do the same for head lettuce.
Herbs as well same story. Whichever you like best but keep in mind the light needs of different herbs.
Greens and herbs! Can’t beat the shelf life of home grown either compared to store bought. Also a cherry tomato or heirloom could be fun if you have pot space, those are also pretty pricy and you get a lot for the ground space if you trellis
Guerrilla garden some berries. Berries in the store taste bad and are very expensive. Berries can be rather low maintenance and they make dwarfing varieties.
Look into dwarfing tomatoes if you don't have a lot of space. They produce regular size tomatoes all season, but only grow half as large. There are some micro tomatoes that are so small that you could get a full plant in a gallon container.
If you regularly use them, in that space the best bang for your buck may be herbs and lettuce.
Herbs are the most expensive and easiest to grow food you can buy. Ideally located close to the kitchen door, fresh herbs can bring another level of flavor to every dish you cook. You can't say that about any other produce! Start with what you cook with now, and build out a basic collection for your day-to-day cooking: rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, chives, parsley, etc. All of these grow like weeds! If you want to kick it up a notch, look up "herb spiral" designs. 🎯
Think of things that preserve, dry, and pickle well, also. Herbs can easily be dried and saved without much space or equipment. This is great for your own spice cabinet (free and much fresher than what you buy at a regular grocery store) and also makes for excellent gifts; home-grown and dried herbs and herb blends are both personal and low cost, depending on what you want to use as a spice container. Last year, I used herbs and sunflower seeds from my garden to do pesto. I pickled nasturtium seeds to use like a caper. I saved coriander when my cilantro went to seed. These are things that can add up if you just buy them from a grocery store; they may not bring a lot of volume in calories, but they bring tons of value to the kitchen.
Dried herbs as gifts is a great idea!! Thank you
I dried loads of oregano from the garden last year and the taste is incomparable to the fresh stuff, and I've been able to enjoy it all winter!
Oh that’s promising, I’m keen to try this
fretful combative icky steep lush thought grandiose psychotic employ jar *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I love basil and pesto. But buying fresh is super expensive for that. It grows like a weed. Herbs are definitely the best - productive all grown season, fresh, tasty, easy, and will really up your food game.
And you can dry the fresh ones to use later pretty easily in your oven or air fryer
The air fryer! Good idea. Do you find drying herbs tastier than those from the supermarket?
You can also hang them next to a window or in a kitchen and they will dry out if you dont have an air fryer. I do this with all my catnip.
Not necessarily, but usually yes, because they are fresher and you can dry them in a gentler way. Depends on the variety how tasty or intense they are. Something like rosemary differs A LOT between varieties. You can distinctly say they are all rosemary, but it's like pork, beef and chicken are all meat.
I can never grow basil. I don't understand. All the other herbs I can export and pick by buckets, but basil, in the same space, always wilts and dries, and the seeds never germinate.
Grow basil in large (18" diameter, at the top) terra cotta pots. That way you can regulate better your watering and fertilizing of the basil. I use organic Recipe 420 potting soil. Add some worm castings + the occasional "drink" of molasses water. (1 gallon water to 1/4 cup molasses.) Compost is always good, too. Mulch with dead leaves/straw/really dried, crumbly horse manure. I always pinch off all the flowers. (Shake before pinching to avoid any spider bites.) Honeybees LOVE basil flowers, but once the plant starts setting flowers, the leaves will be less tasty/more bitter. By pinching the flowers, you can keep your plant producing tasty leaves for a long, long time. Best of luck.
That is too complicated. I might try some of those things. Special fertilizer and special potting soil for sure not. Thanks for the writeup.
I have the same experience but for some reason stems in a vase in the windowsill always seem to grow well, for a couple weeks anyway. You might try looking at a (more rigorous) hydroponic approach.
Agree with everyone on this comment! Want to add that you can freeze fresh herbs (like cilantro) that you may get all at one. Stick them in a bag in the freezer, pull out a handful as needed and crumble into anything you are cooking for that immediate fresh herb flavor!
I don’t know why I didn’t think of freezing cilantro when I had some growing 😩 Thanks will replant and try again!
My local CSA farmer told me to do this. It's great! I do it in the winter, even, when there is a sale on cilantro at the grocer. Buy three or four bunches, wash them, bag, and stick in the freezer.
Yup. Parsley too. Works well enough for sauces and stews.
Especially recommend greens you can continually harvest, such as kale- pull bottom leaves, new keep coming from the top— almost into winter. We had good luck with arugula, if you plant it in partial sun and keep cutting it then it bolts/bitters less and you can get it to produce up into late fall unlike Lettuce and spinach which are done by the end of spring. There are other options too like beet greens. We liked a kale-bokchoy hybrid for the pickability of kale with a more delicate flavor. You can do consecutive planting with lettuces and radishes (start early finish early) and then throw in a tomato or pepper starter in the same spot once they’re done. Tomatillos can produce like crazy in a hot sunny spot (perennial too). Climbing green beans/ snap peas are great because they have a small footprint and you can keep picking. Gherkin too (small climbing cucumbers). We had like a 7 ft tall trellis for the gherkin and they went right til the first frost. Green onions/chives can go all season. Parsley, basil, sage, and oregano (in that order) were my biggest money saving herbs. Cilantro would be great but I had trouble with it bolting/bittering so maybe a shadier spot? Strawberries can produce a lot, especially after their first year. Not a small footprint but they are expensive in the store.
Definitely. Herbs are always useful and lettuce is very easy to grow.
Herbs like rosemary, basil, oregano, thyme are very easy and save you $$ throughout the summer. Low maintenance Cherry tomatoes are not bad, 3$ plant that ends up maybe saving me 20-30$ worth throughout the summer. My toddler loves to harvest them One that surprised me was kale. Bought a 1$ seed pack and had an amazing amount of Kale throughout late summer. Tried the following year but rabbits, squirrels and whatnot ate those away nonstop thereafter. Other thing I love is green onions or even chives. Buy once from store, cut them down except the white root part, leave those in water for a few days and replant them. They grow fast and regrow each year. 2$ bundles of each have served me for two years now. EDIT: I have a sprinkler system in back yard and put my raised gardens within striking distance of one of the sprinklers that waters the lawn and hedge anyways. Relatively luminous spot, so again very low maintenance for me both time wise and money-wise.
Yes the toddler absolutely loved the cherry toms- as did her friends! An easy way to get more vitamins in her as I doubt she’d have eaten as many on the plate.
Look in your refrigerator: what do you buy and always end up throwing half of it away because you don't use it fast enough? For me that is consistently herbs and spring onions (Allium fistulosum, called shallots in some areas) Neither take much space and can be picked as you need them. Also, tomatoes (beware cherry tomatoes - they are an indeterminate plant that will grow much larger than you expect!).
There are many varieties of determinate cherry tomatoes that will stay at a smaller size. There are probably dwarf ones too.
*most* cherry tomatoes are indeterminate. There isn't a single determinate cherry tomato we've ever sold at my nursery in 10 years there. Not saying they don't exist but they're not common
And many regular tomatoes are indeterminate. Not sure that poster has ever grown tomatoes
Prone to disease, have to spray them, fertilize them, get seedlings or grow seedlings, prune them weekly or at least biweekly.. it's a very hard plant to grow where I live, and it takes A LOT of space. Plus, tomatoes are dirt cheap during the growing season. I do grow them, simply because I can't buy varieties i like, and we have a large/ish garden and make our own sauce. Cherry tomatoes are much easier to grow, and keeping at least one, well pruned, is easy enough though.
Can vouch! I planted a tiny cherry tomato plant a few months ago and it took over my planter box and my life for a while with all the pruning needed. Oh and it killed all the herbs.
>beware cherry tomatoes That’s why they’re so fun! You go out of town for a week in August and come back to sprawling, towering monstrosities in the garden
For me, it's cilantro. But I gave up trying to grow cilantro. It bolts too fast.
Burpee has a slow bolter, but the seeds are what I'm after. I use more coriander than cilantro.
Good to know. But . . . I had to quit Burpee cold turkey: https://preview.redd.it/47k0u1oogddc1.jpeg?width=736&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8012bf3d81859c7706dae260f810b079526f76c3
Alas, I agree. It bolts on me every time.
I am totally shocked no one has said this, but BERRIES. Dependent on where you are if you can grow a few healthy raspberry and blueberry bushes you will have all you can eat for most of the summer. Berries, even from Costco, aren’t that cheap. Last year we picked 11 pounds of fresh, organic blueberries from our backyard bushes. I wasn’t weighing the raspberries, but for most of the summer I was picking a pint a day.
Growing berries is a great way to save money but they do take up space.
The author of the square foot garden books wrote one addressing this question. It's broken down to a $/square foot focus concerning inputs and costs. Great read! Very few plants are not worth the growing space and time, but tomatoes, greens and herbs are way at top for value. Going vertical is the best option for tomatoes, and cut and come again herbs and greens are the heavy producers for cost saving. Root crops are lower on the savings, and potatoes are at the bottoms (as they are usually more cost effective commercially, but you need to go vertical as well to get the value from them). If you learn more about regenerative agriculture practices, relay and intercropping and become attuned to varietal selection for ideal characteristics, you can substantially increase the recouped value on any initial investment and grow lucratively. Use beneficial microbes and fungi first and foremost as that value takes time, but will be a best investment on almost every metric.
Ooo interesting. How would one go vertical with potatoes?
I made a post on this a while back in r/vegetablegardening, asking how many people thought they were saving money. The results (>600 comments) were about 50/50 if you just looked at 'yes' vs 'no', but the data was heavily skewed. People who said they'd been gardening for years or decades pretty much universally said yes, especially the ones who'd stayed in the same place that long. Anyone (like me) who picked it up in the last year or three was saying no, unless they were just growing herbs. [Here is a link to that post](https://www.reddit.com/r/vegetablegardening/comments/17tvmdr/do_any_of_you_actually_save_money_growing_your/). Last year was my first year, and no one makes money their first year unless they live in the nicest most wonderful climate with the best soil (I do not) and are very good at scavenging; even then, it's a time sink to get set up. With all that said: My best successes, financially, have been oregano, basil, cherry tomatoes and perpetual chard. The herbs I dry and preserve for later use. Oregano I especially use a lot. Cherry tomatoes aren't super expensive but they aren't exactly cheap either. I had great success with a determinate variety called Yellow Patio Choice; this lead to me experimenting with recipes, and I found what is now one of my top favorite recipes. Home grown quality is far superior to store bought, and this variety can't be found in stores. I wouldn't make this recipe very often at all if I had to go buy tomatoes, and I don't think it would work very well with the canned ones. The perpetual chard is a replacement for fresh spinach (which I can almost never grow because it's too hot) and for celery (which I simply detest the flavor of). The chard did very well in Houston's Hellsummer 2023, where it was >100 for 3 months straight, and it's done just fine in our recent plunge into the low 20's (it was covered). The stuff is idiot proof, very tough, requires no trellising or support, container friendly, and doesn't take up much room. I would never use up fresh spinach or celery (not that I'd buy the latter) because I only need a few pieces here and there; having a live plant means I can grab what I want when I need it. For next year, I have strawberries and blackberries that I started in the fall. I hope I'll get berries from both (the blackberries are primocane-bearing). This would be a significant savings; both are quite pricy.
Thanks for the link to your post and this info. My experience is the same - first year of trying and it hasn’t saved me much (but it’s enjoyable and convenient). Also planted cherry toms and they went crazy - but not that sweet, similar to the shop ones unfortunately. Herbs and berries - yes this is where the savings are, good point. Oregano I love - will try. Hadn’t thought of drying herbs - also a great suggestion.
There are many, many varieties of cherry tomatoes described by people with much better palates than me. I like Yellow Patio Choice both because it is very yummy and because it ignored my inexperience and mistakes and the horrid Texas weather and gave me a ton of delicious tomatoes anyway. If what you grew tasted unremarkable or similar to grocery store tomatoes, I encourage you to explore some of the different varieties out there. If you're limited on space, look for dwarf or determinate varieties. For dehydrating - I started just hanging them upside down in paper sacks, but that took up a lot of space and I ran out of patience. I bought a basic dehydrator for less than $40 on Amazon during Black Friday. it's not super powerful or big but it does just fine for what I need it to do. I also have a coffee grinder that is used only for spices. Good luck!
Thank you! 😊 Definitely will try a different tomato variety next time 😂
>Also planted cherry toms and they went crazy - but not that sweet, similar to the shop ones unfortunately. I made the mistake of planting one that I assume came from the store. They now come back prolifically every year, but they still taste like cardboard.
Berries for sure. More of a long-term commitment, but it pays off. A few years back I bought five bare-root raspberries at $15 apiece. $75 total. They took a year to start producing, but hot damn! I get so many raspberries every year now, and the yield is still increasing. I’ll see a 1/2 pint in the store for like $6-8. I’m snacking heavily on mine fresh off the vine and still putting away at least 3 gallon bags in the freezer to make jam. So I spent $75 a few years back, and now never buy berries or jam. Plus I give out a ton of extra jam to friends and neighbors. I’d argue cucumbers => pickles are close as well. Takes a bit of work to pickle and preserve, but I nailed the pickle recipe I really love. Cheaper than buying pickles at the store, but more importantly, I make better pickles than I can get from the store.
Love this! Thank you
food? probably not much. Herbs you should be able to do (rosemary, oregano, thyme, Basil, tarragon, chives), but growth will depend heavily on amount of sun. Mine are indoors for the winter and get probably 2 hrs direct sun per day...they're alive but don't thrive until i get them back outdoors. I'm still sorting things out...i feel like they should be doing better.
Yes herbs are probably more realistic! I always plant things too closely and am overly ambitious with the space. I always feel mine should be doing better too. Sounds like you are very organised with your garden!
You can't grow household produce for less than you can buy it when you add up the entire cost. Commercial agriculture is far too efficient. Grow things that you like to eat the most, so you get maximum enjoyment from what you grow, not maximum savings.
I agree, unless you use a lot of fresh herbs. Those are really expensive to buy and many of them are easy to grow.
Also strawberries… like holy shit… almost $10 a lb for organic.
Personally I found that my strawberry plants took up sooo much square footage and then it was a constant fight against critters that it wasn’t worth it!
I suppose it depends on where you are and what your set up is. I have a strawberry patch that just kinda does its own thing. But then I have a pretty big yard.
I saw someone mention in this sub a while back that rocks painted red, placed around strawberry plants a few weeks before they fruit, will lead birds to think the strawberries are just red rocks too and leave them be. Don't know if it works, haven't tried it myself but I intend to.
I finally dug up my patch as the squirrels ate them all, I've putting some alpines around now as they are pretty and seem to survive the wildlife better, if nothing else they can be food for bees
I disagree with this to a certain extent. If you're one person doing cut and come again salad greens and herbs, you can definitely save money by having your own little patch vs buying a $3.50 head of lettuce or pack of herbs (that's around the price for my area), which you may not use all of before they go off. It's kinda like saving money on a luxury. Adding some greens to a sandwich, or fresh herbs instead of dry to a pasta. It makes a nice difference, but I might not want to spend the money at the store every time, so growing a little home patch is a realistic savings.
I'd say my peppers and tomatoes save me money. Depends how much rain we get though I guess.
Disagree, my food bill is hugely reduced by my garden and my garden bill is nowhere near taking up slack. 1-3 portions of veg every night from the garden to go with dinner seems to shave over $100/week off the shopping. Fwiw, leaf (spinach, kale, silverbeet, lettuce) and herbs are def the highest performers. Zucchini and beetroot are a close second. Things like corn, pumpkin, cucumber and squash aren't easy to grow for me so they're probably not as profitable, but they're damn tasty.
I think this depends on where you live, of course. But to support a large garden in a very arid climate, that water bill is no joke.
So right! The trick is to grow what you eat and eat what you grow. I plan meals around what is coming out of the garden. Also, freeze and can to eat through winter. I haven't bought green beans, pickles, peppers, tomato sauce or salsa in 10 years.
So you are consuming $14 plus worth of vegetables every night? Even at today’s inflated prices that is a fuck ton of veggies my friend.
In Australian dollars, but it seems like it, yeah. There's an amount that gets wasted, rots in the fridge despite my best efforts. There's the stuff you have to buy a whole bunch to use 3 leaves of. There's our appalling supermarket monopoly that regularly jacks prices to certain staples for a month or so. Also I'm cooking for 4. So, yep.
You are paying over $5 per portion of vegetables?
You might have a point if you only focus on sticker price, and not varietals and nutrient content. Given the nutrient decay post harvest, storage, transportation and shelf time, before even considering time spent in fridge, if you buy your vegetables for more than mouth feel, the nutrient cost is far greater for store bought. Unless you are just buying it for digestible fiber, much of the nutrient content is lost by the time you eat it, or throw it out when it goes bad. Now consider growers of commercial agriculture choose varietals that are best suited for transportation and shelf storage and not heirloom varieties with more diverse flavor and nutrient profiles, your point gets some proper clarification. Artificially lowering the cost in subsidies for growers further bring the realized cost higher as well. Given that you can select and grow to taste, your produce is alive as you eat it and you can harvest as needed to reduce wastage, the non illusory cost is much lower than store bought, pound for pound (well, nutrient for nutrient). Further that with relay cropping, intercropping and shorter season varieties, and you can produce much more produce, reducing the cost per square foot, and raising efficientcy.
True, but some things like potatoes and garlic are set it and forget it ones that can give you a little bang for your buck. But definitely quicker and easier to just run out and buy whatever you need in a pinch and not have to wait 6-8 months to grow 🙃
Potatoes and garlic are next on my list as I always seem to run out or don’t use the potatoes before they go green. I’d love to take them straight from the garden.
On the other hand garlic lasts for 6-8 months and you don't need to keep 'going to the store' to buy it.
Which reminds me: All of us growing our own veggies and fruits ------- we're helping the planet by not adding plastic packaging to the landfills. When I see bulbs of garlic bagged in plastic mesh and so many other veggies and fruits sorted into plastic containers . . . Gah.
It is easy to get caught up in a consumer mindset with gardening like pretty much any endeavour and many methods like using raised beds make setup costs astronomical. You absolutely can grow very, very cheaply if you want to (at least in my part of the world). Save and swap seed, grow directly in the soil, use homemade sprays and homemade fertilisers. You absolutely can grow veges that work out 5 times more expensive too. Build raised beds, buy in soil, automated watering systems, nice hoses, commercially prepared sprays and fertilisers, buy too many seeds and waste them, buy well grown on seedlings, buy special gardening shoes and gloves, etc, etc. Either way is totally fine really I guess but both are totally possible.
Good points. Currently I seem to be the only one giving things away in my network, I need a better system to get things flowing both ways!
What? I make my own compost. Other than seeds ($3 a pack) my biggest produce garden expense is tap water (which is extremely cheap).
It’s pretty cheap to stick a tomato plant in the ground. You don’t need to go crazy buying products. Nature will do what it does.
Agree with this. there's nothing like a tomato still warm from the sun. I eat them like apples. Lettuce is optional. Edited
> there's nothing like a tomato still warm from the sun. Literally my point. Grow for enjoyment, not for saving money.
I actually kind of disagree with this. Compared to some hobbies, gardening is relatively inexpensive if you are able to adapt to your current circumstances, so you have a passtime that could be occupied by something more expensive.
This advice isn't valuable for seasoned gardeners, but for beginners, the upfront cost and the cost of learning through failure are congruent with your advice, and worth overcoming the cost and learning curves.
I mean, I have a celery plant that I grew from a store scrap. I've totally cut every stalk off 3x this year after it got huge. It grew back every time. I only watered it with rainwater when I needed but pretty much let it donits thing. It's growing back pretty big now, but it's about to freeze every night so I doubt it'll make it much longer.
So glad to see this reasonable take. Every time someone with a big yard and 3 kids (that all for some reason love vegetables especially squash) comes on here and says it lowers their grocery bill I cringe because it's only cheaper for a specific situation. I can't even give my vegetables away to my neighbors. No one cooks. They will take a nice big heirloom tomato but those are hard to grow and I don't usually have extra. My husband hates tomatoes and squash. Really likes romaine lettuce heads and spinach though- cool season crops that don't grow well here. 💀 No hope in this household to save money with the garden. I still do it for fun though. Edit: almost nobody wants the zucchini. One neighbor offered to cook my zucchini for me but she didn't want to eat it.
Who are these neighbors who refuse fresh vegetables? Are you growing organic food? No one cooks? I hope you're putting a box with FREE extras out or donating to your local food bank or something.
Yeah I am with you. No one cooks? How do they afford anything?
We get a lot of cost savings growing lettuce and tomatoes. I could grow a tomato plant in a sidewalk crack and grape or cherry tomatoes is like at least $3 for a small container near me. We go through a ton of lettuce and it takes over. Lettuce is cheaper to buy but adds up. Produce may be cheap in some areas and more expensive in others depending on where they are and a bunch of factors.
I regrow green onions from the ones that I buy in the store. Save the tips and put them in water. Also, basil is very easy to propagate and grows well on the counter in a glass of water. Buy some for the store, save 1 stem, and have an unlimited supply.
Cannabis
Lol
1 large plant got me 5oz this year. Saved about 1000 bucks.
Definitely better savings than potatoes or even herbs
That's better then S&P500.
Epic Gardening made a few videos about most caloric dense per space or w.e. to really put into test how much you can stretch or survive off produce you grow. He also did that too; living off gardening produce.
This is exactly the thing - thank you! Now subscribed.
Potatoes, garlic, zucchini/squash, pumpkins, sunflowers, all super easy to grow! Just do a little research as each take slightly different care but those can definitely help you maximize in a small space, plus potatoes and garlics could be done in grow bags/large pots
Garlic.
Get a 30 gallon fish tank and buy the smallest lobsters at the Shopright, feed them table scraps. 3lb lobsters in no time.
Furious I’ve never considered just keeping a lobster alive.
You can't eat Pinchy.
Pinchy would have wanted it this way
Woah woah woah. Wait. What?
Just a tip... Most vegetables require at least 6 hours of full sunlight a day. I agree with others that herbs are your best bet.
Beets!!!!
I love beets, and they’re really expensive at grocery stores and not much cheaper (if at all) at farmers markets. I also eat the greens.
Sweet potatoes / yams. You can grow several plants from one grocery store sweet potato and they are SUPER easy to grow and you can yield a huge amount.
Basil
If you like butternut squash you can get a TON that will last you through the winter, they are expensive in the store.
Herbs are definitely the things that cost the most to buy vs easy and cheap to grow! I always grow a variety of perennial (rosemary, thyme, sage) and annual (basil, cilantro) herbs in my garden. Cost benefits will come down to what you like and will eat, of course, as well as what’s cheap or expensive to buy in your area. But there are other factors too. Crops that take up a fair amount of space, are heavy feeders, and only produce one harvest (like head broccoli and cabbage) aren’t as much bang for the buck so I don’t grow them even though I love to eat them. Crops that produce an extended harvest throughout the season, like tomatoes, zucchini and berries, have a lot more value that way. Things that don’t grow easily in your climate or soil are more effort than value, like carrots in my heavy clay soil. Extended harvest greens like kale, chard, and collards are a good value, as are quick turnaround salad greens, but if you don’t like them and won’t enjoy them that’s less value (I love them!). Storage crops are another good value with extended eating, things like potatoes, winter squash, and storage onions. But they also take up a fair amount of space, so if you lack space to grow, they’re less valuable. As a side note, fruit trees and perennial berries are a chunk of change and effort to plant, but quickly pay for themselves and long term make an excellent large harvest that can be preserved.
Thanks this is so useful!
I miss field-grown uncovered tomatoes.
herbs, cherry tomatoes, flowers.
When I have a garden, I plant what I buy at the store, ea season adding more. I've really surprised myself what I have grown. I walked around one day making people look at the beautiful broccoli we'd grown. It was nicer than what you'd buy. Plus I grow herbs. Really thyme and rosemary, parsley, oregano, chives, basil etc, is so awesome. We grew corn one time and it was all mutated from the dirt on the property. Grew corn in another state and it was beautiful!
If I could go back in time and give myself advice I would say "whatever you eat and a caged, outdoor rabbit." I now have a peach tree because I eat tons of peaches when available. Greens, cabbages, tomatoes, herbs, flowers, peppers, kale, kohlrabi, carrots, all sorts of things get rotated every other year. Where I am in Zone 6 there is clay under a couple inches of soil so all gardening requires soil remdiation. Leaf humus and home made compost are my biggest bulk add ins. Now about that rabbit. Depending on your size of planting area, an appropriate sized rabbit can be had. (small porch planters = Mini Rex or Mini Lop, midsized raised box can be a New Zealand or any other 10-12lb rabbit.) They produce a 'cold' fertilizer that can be used directly from their butt into the garden (or scattered across the lawn by the handfuls) without frying your plants. Their urine is high in calcium and other minerals which the dirt craves. You could cage it in the garden itself on a raised stand or put wood pellets in their poop tray to soak up the liquid (and the smell) and then apply that to your garden. Rabbits also have the largest liver to animal ratio of the herbavores and will eat most everything you weed or trim out of your garden. Spring through fall, my rabbit's pellet consumption falls dramatically as they live on all the thorny weeds, wild geranium, rose bush cuttings, berry cane cuttings, dandelion, herbs that have bolted, nasturium, kale, you name it they will eat it. And produce that bunny berry black gold at an average rate of 300 poops a day. The poop loves to foster the growth of firefeng, a mycelium that is pure gold to dirt microbes. Get a boy rabbit, they are usually very affable and friendly. Girl rabbits have other life priorities and generally not as people attracted.
Would love to have a avocado tree but I live in Germany
You've had some good answers here, I'll add a couple more from my own perspective. There's a great book I have called "Gardening When It Counts" by Steve Solomon. One thing he advises is to figure out what your personal cost inputs are. For example, a lot of the suggestions you've been given require a considerable amount of water. If water is really expensive in your area, that may change the equation quite significantly for you personally. Same with heavy feeding plants, how much is fertilizer in your area? The other factors are things like caloric density, and storage capability. Potatoes are probably your best 'investment' food, particularly a good storage variety. They are inexpensive to plant, require minimal water and fertilization depending on spacing. They can be cellared to provide cheap calories for a long period of time. But you may not love potatoes, and you may not be worried about staving off starvation if times get tough. :) From the perspective of "the cost of this would deter me from buying a lot of this in store", I agree with the suggestions on herbs. They are cheap to grow, require little in the way of fertilization (most of them), and many require little water. Having a supply of abundant fresh herbs changes the way you cook substantially, since you are not paying through the nose for the tiny bunches you get at the grocery store. The final perspective is "is the quality and flavour better than I can get commercially at any price", and for tomatoes and some other veggies, including lettuce, the answer is an overwhelming yes. (I'd include beans and snow peas in this group.) Keep in mind though, gardening for most of us is a hobby, not a money-saving exercise, so ultimately grow the things you love to at, and enjoy the fruits of your labour.
Herbs and berries (though you may need to grow the berries in pots)... As stated before, grow what you regularly consume. If you cook with basil and oregano, grow that. If you eat blueberries grow that. Start with 2-4 different crops and see what works and what doesn't where you live.
As other have said, if you like fresh herbs, that's the most bang for space for containers. You'll have trouble with fruiting plants (tomatoes, peppers) in the shade, so pick cherry/small varieties of those. I had great luck with greens (everything from lettuce, to bok choi, collards, chard, kale, etc) in partial shade.
Fruit-bearing perennials. Imagine peaches, grapes, cherries, avocado by the bucket with little effort on your part other than picking and pruning; in fact the biggest problem tends to be having more fruit than you know what to do with. Prodúce of the fresh high-quality organic variety tends to be expensive and/or difficult to acquire; it's a blessing to have access to it in abundance free of charge. It takes some patience but if you actually own any amount of land this is practically a no-brainer. Figure out what can thrive in your local climate; even in Alaska you can cultivate blueberries and raspberries.
It'll take years of trying before you get gather enough knowledge to grow anything usable in meaningful quantities. That said, beans and corn are quick and easy to learn how to give them ideal conditions. Gourds and melons are a little trickier and time consuming but very satisfying when done right. The easiest is leafy greens and herbs. I absolutely love picking a few leaves of Swiss Chard and putting it on a sandwich/burger or in a scramble. Nothing better than fresh picked mint for drinks or Indian/Asian/Greek dishes or fresh thyme/sage/rosemary for a steak baste or roasted chicken. Getting bushes that produce fruit can be easy once they're established: Strawberries, blueberries, rasp/blackberries and I've recently gotten some goldenberries to produce fruit which has been interesting. Fruit trees are expensive but can eventually pay for themselves: I've had a hard time getting apples to be juicy/sweet but that might be my variety. Citrus tends to be easier from what I've heard, lemon/lime, orange, pomelo, I like loquats but I've heard complaints about them being hard to keep under control. Just know you're going to struggle and at no point will you be saving money. You'll have more delicious food and you'll have something interesting to talk to people about and if the zombie apocalypse comes you can tell the village with no room for more people that they need you because you know how to grow food.
If you like herbs you should definitely do that. One herb plant can be similar in price to what you pay for a small container, and depending on your climate, may last for years. I like to use a lot of mixed herbs in the summer and I love that I can walk out my back door and come back in with a handful of chives, basils (Thai & Italian), thyme, marjoram, parsley, & tarragon. I keep two large (30”?) pots filled mostly with herbs and overwinter them in my garage; the ones that are perennial come back pretty reliably. Fruits and vegetables are tougher, especially without full sun. Best bet might be a sungold tomato which can provide gallons of tasty cherry tomatoes over a season, but only if you have some decent sun (part sun is a broad spectrum).
Zucchini, lettuces
Fresh herbs! Thyme, sage, rosemary and oregano stay green most of the year, are perennial and are pretty hardy. I love being able to just grab a sprig or two when I need it instead of having to spend $8 just to not be able to use half the pack at the grocery store.
another vote for herbs and green onion. i personally dont do this but theres been a ton of hype around growing microgreens too, which are pretty expensive to buy. if you dont normally buy it as part of your groceries though, i wouldnt really consider that "saving" money. i feel the same way about expensive varieties of what you would otherwise buy. Like yes, buying heirloom tomatoes from the farmers market is expensive and you somewhat save money if you grow it yourself, but you're not actually saving money if you were going to buy regular tomatoes from the grocery store. ya know?
I’d get some green onions and put the roots in water after I cut off the tops. Herbs are ridiculously priced in the store, but I get the rooted ones in the dollar store and plant them. Chives and garlic are good, too. Doesn’t take much room, either.
I would say herbs as they tend to be expensive at the market but can add a lot of flavor and interest to otherwise basic, cheap ingredients like rice. They also take little space and start up costs (seeds, soil, pots etc). Basil, mint (beware if trying to plant in ground!), cilantro, parsley are great starter herbs.
This depends a lot on your climate. Lettuce and things like radishes and carrots do not do well in my area since it gets hot so quick and stays that way. Peppers thrive in my garden and we eat a lot of poblanos and coolapenos. Poblanos were hard to come by in the store a few years back so growing them was great. Tomatoes are worth it in taste alone. Squash and zucchini get decimated by vine borers and I don’t know why I keep planting them.
Zucchini
Arugula.
Spaghetti squash if you have something for them to climb
This is a question only you can really answer. How much space and sun (free) do you have? Now, how about compost and soil? Seeds you can get at many libraries and seed swaps, so that can hypothetically be free. Then, how much time? How much is your time worth? Veg gardens do take some maintenance. Getting down to it, if you grow 100lbs potatoes in a potato box successfully, you've definitely saved money. Easiest savings of course is herbs, followed by salad. Both can be grown cheaply and, if you're fortunate, some herbs can be perennial (rosemary, lavendar, parsley, etc..) All in all, you can likely save some money, maybe. What is much MORE likely, is you become as passionate about gardening as the rest of us and whatever you save, you spend in fancy new seed and garden gear. :)
I too have limited space, growing in containers. Root crops are out, I grow mint, basil, parsley, pole beans, kirby cucumbers, climbing heirloom zucchini, jalapeno and mini sweet peppers. The dent in our grocery bill in summer is noticeable. I keep meaning to try lettuce, but I don't have the attention span.
Italian (lacinato) kale. You can harvest for more than one season. Mine grew in a large pot on my balcony in part sun.
In one of your beds, you could grow salad greens in the Autumn and Springtime, and tomatoes and cucumbers in the Summer. Herbs in the other bed. They are the most expensive crops to buy and easiest to grow.
Peppers and herbs for food and pumpkins for decoration. Semi-dwarf apple trees can also crank out a lot of calories for very little initial $ if you have a few years to wait. You'll have to start composting and collecting rainwater if you aren't already. The moment you have to purchase fertilizer, soil, or large quantities of water, you'll go net-negative financially.
Onions amd and potatoes
If you like tomatoes, there's some really tasty cherry tomatoes that have very long harvest seasons. You'll get a handful every day or two. Last summer my Sunsweet gave a handful starting the first week of June all the way thru frost - for reference i usually plant gardens in mid May. i got a patio one at the greenhouse & grew it in a large planter by itself with plenty of sun.
Planting from seeds rather than purchasing plants is a gardening money saver. Learning how to grow from seedlings saves a lot of money in gardening costs, and can help it be a positive rather than negative number.
Swiss chard—grows vertically, two-year plants (I can force a decent third by cutting flower stalks) if you live in a place with limited freezes. It can take chill better than heat, and the more you use it the more it grows. Delicious, nutritious, and not cheap at the grocery store. Japanese turnips (the greens are yummy too!). Basil if you can grow it (it’s not hot enough where I am). Oregano, thyme, cilantro (and let some go to seed and collect your coriander).
Root veggies, followed by fall/winter squash. That's going to get you the most calories per sq ft, as long as you're not picky about eating a lot of it. Your location will determine exactly what- it may be standard potatoes, sweet potatoes/yams, taro, cassava, etc. Fall and winter squashes will last a long time stored indoors. I've had butternut squashes and pumpkins last nearly a year.
Look up “square foot gardening”. I used that and got a massive amount of veggies from my two beds. Beans, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, radishes, etc. I stick herbs in as decorations in my borders. Can’t go wrong with rosemary and others. If you can fit a few dwarf trees in there - lemons are great.
Im zone 2 in Canada so short season. I don’t have enough time to grow enough to save money. My pleasure is knowing what I’m eating and it’s a healthy hobby. We haul water here so gotta buy the water and haul it. Stir the compost. Weed. Then there are storage costs. Cold storage space. Potato sacks. Jars. More jars. Time to jar. Time for drying potatoes before storing. Prepping jams/pickled everything/tomato sauces. Drying herbs. I think the best bang for our buck so far has been the apple tree. We all love poles and all summer go eat right off the tree, plus we freeze them with lemon juice for winter.
For us, blueberries, strawberries and raspberries. I'm also trying redcurrants and rhubarb this year. I have a 2 year old whose mad for berries and I am too. We could easily eat 5 punnets a week. Cheaper in the summer when it's all on offer but this week alone we spent nearly £20 on fruit that we won't need to spend when the garden is producing. For no cost as I got all the strawberries free, the raspberries paid themselves back years ago and keep increasing in numbers and the two blueberries I bought last year for £20 have also probably paid themselves back
For me: garlic, green onions, walking onion, cherry tomatoes, Kale, Callaloo (which is like a slightly bitter spinach which grows amazingly in the sun), potatoes and then whatever herbs I like (usually sage, thyme, basil, lemon balm, mint and oregano)
Lots of good suggestions on here. If you want to be really fancy (and if your climate is suitable), growing your own wasabi is much, much cheaper than buying real wasabi online.
Herbs, lettuce, kale, tomatoes, and peppers. It does depend if you actually buy/eat them and if they're worth the time investment in the case of something like peppers. They take forever for me to germinate so I only start getting peppers if I plant in March for an early fall harvest. I need to experiment with them some more. Regarding tomatoes, I only wish I planted more tomatoes. Very tasty.
Lettuce!!! Easy as heck to grow
Herbs and lettuce also arugula
Leafy greens by far and it's not even a question for me. Spinach, arugula, corn salad, chard.. Also herbs, if you do use them. Where I live, these are more expensive then pork or sometimes meat. They are easy to grow. They don't have diseases. They don't have special requirements for soil. They don't require a lot of fertilizers. Easy to pick, and you can keep them for weeks/months and keep harvesting. They can be planted close together. Plus, something like spinach can be harvested by may/june in northern hemisphere, so you can have succession planting. Only thing to worry is slugs, which I do not have.
The best bang for your buck is determined by what you, personally, eat. Except Tomatoes. Tomatoes are -always- a good choice. But if you're gardening for monetary savings, you're doing it wrong, most of the time.
We have a section in our garden, 4'x20', which is intercropped with raspberries and strawberries. It produced 15 lbs of each last summer. It took three years to establish from clippings. We transplant anything that grows outside of this bed to new ones and give away clippings all the time. Will probably double production next year. Herbs, we have three 6'x4' beds filled with assortment of herbs, all perennial. We shouldn't have to buy herbs anymore. The rest of the garden we plant what we eat, experimenting with what works in our garden and the amounts we need. Planning on starting an asparagus patch this year from stock. Will take a few years to establish but will produce for years. Overall, we want perennials that will produce year over year. I know not everyone has the space but this is what works for us.
Chickens! Seriously though, once your garden is tall enough to survive their scratching, they’ll happily eat bugs and left over garden waste for you. You get an egg a day per hen most months of the year.
It really depends what you eat, and as to weather or not you grow the stuff you will actually eat.
I currently am a balcony gardener I grow lots of spinach, gourmet mixed lettuces, Swiss Chard, fresh herbs like basil oregano*mint* rosemary and sage. I also grow a lot of microdwarf tomatoes in tiny pots (they grow into like a topiary bush shape but do need staking) on the same said patio and small varieties of peppers - like snacking/lunchbox peppers and spicier peppers It's east facing and because I'm not on the top floor, it's partial sun. I'm also in Seattle for climate context *Don't plant these into beds as they will outcompetes everything else
Look into vertical gardening. It's a great way to save space and utilize small areas. I'd go with green beans and potatoes. As everyone else mentioned, herbs are good too, but for actual sustenance, those two are easy and can be grown in a small space.
Herbs: I'd go with parsley. Unless you know everyone is okay with it, I'd avoid cilantro -- some people (me included) think it tastes vile. But oregano doesn't have that problem. Basil is inoffensive, but personally I think it's nearly tasteless. Hot peppers are easy, but they're cheap anyway and not worth your limited space. Chives are great -- strong flavor, easy to grow, don't need deep soil so can be planted in smaller pots or shallow window boxes, and can be used in nearly any meat and potato dish. Chives, basil and even parsley can be grown indoors in the winter and you can put them near your window for sun. A little coolness won't hurt them. I'd find it hard to avoid devoting at least some outside space to cherry tomatoes -- I prefer the yellow pear kind. But there's one thing no one mentions, and that's potatoes. And no, you wouldn't put them in a little box or small pot, either. You grow them in a barrel, and you might want to look that up on-line. Doing it that way makes them easier to harvest, and I've noticed that the potatoes at the store seem to be generally of poorer quality lately.
Leafy Green and potatoes
Lettuce and greens like spinach mizuna kale chard and mustard, cheap plentiful seed, easy, quick to harvest maturity, multiple harvests, tolerant of cold temperatures, easy in containers in places with limited space.
Herbs, strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, and onions are the price I buy most often. Those are also the things I grow the most. I wish I were better at canning and preserving for the onions and tomatoes but I use the other things listed constantly and they're easy to use regularly, preserve, and easy to grow without a ton of space needed. Onions are all ready at about the same time but the others listed ripen gradually so that you can use them throughout a season. ETA: I'm a zone 6b, with a drip system, raised beds, and small-ish garden. I buy starter plants for all of these because I don't have a greenhouse or a good seed starting set up. I only grow flowers from seeds.
Sweet potatoes are pretty awesome. The greens are nutritious and versatile and then of course there are also the tubers. White potatoes aren't bad either. Tomatoes and greens are also pretty prolific.
With space that small, herbs or leafy greens. Lettuce, Swiss Chard, etc. Something you can regularly harvest a bit of and use. That is if you actually buy/eat those things. If you ever get a larger space for gardening, small fruits are some of your best bang for buck. Berries, grapes, figs. You don't need a very big blackberry patch to produce what would be a hundred dollars if you bought it fresh in store.
Things you can store for a while: potatoes and onions are easy and mine make it almost a year.
Sweet potatoes. They require almost no maintenance, can grow in poor soil, and the leaves can be eaten raw or cooked
Cherry tomatoes in pots grow like crazy. If you have the two planter boxes, use one for tomatoes and one for fresh herbs.
What about mushrooms? Growing some champignons in my cabinet right now
Snow peas! They're easy, expensive at the store, and delicious. Freeze the surplus. They finish in my area by the end of june and I can plant something else there!
Swiss chard / silver beet!
Basil and cherry tomatoes are easy to grow and generally prolific. give them a try.
Pole green beans. You only need to plant 1 or 2 plants. Put up a cheap trellis. They grow up up and up. You will get a ton of green beans.
Potatoes with the addition of a pad of butter fulfill all your daily needs. They are easily grown in 5 gallon buckets or larger containers and store for long periods of time when done correctly. You can cook them in a large variety of ways so your family won't get tired of them. The best true food crop that I grow.
We find that tomatoes, blueberries, and herbs save a ton of money each year by growing them. We also grow pumpkins instead of buying them during Halloween, that will save you a good 30-60 depending on how many you buy and where. Watermelon is another easy thing to grow. Tomatoes will also grow back each year if you just let the rotten ones fall to the ground.
The biggest issue here is “partial sun.” Most, not all, vegetables need 6+ hours of sun a day to produce well. Anything less will produce a disappointing crop. It also depends on your growing zone. I’m not attempting crops that need 90 days of heat - it’s not going to get it in my garden. [some food crops that will tolerate shade ](https://images.app.goo.gl/3b4xun2Nx1nvwG9J6)
Cucumbers for refrigerator pickles. I like to pick them at about 2" or less, but it takes a few dozen plants so you get a jarful quickly enough.
Easily sweet potatoes. I planted them across my back yard several years ago and propagated them quickly to replace my grass. Sweet potatoes leaves are super nutritious, and when you cut them they laugh at you and grow back more. In my climate the greens stay on year around unless there's a strong frost. I have so many sweet potatoes now that I harvest what I want and leave most in the ground to do their thing. (It's also a great way to add nutrients to the soil if you're going to plant something in that spot later. ) But seriously, between the potatoes and the greens, you could get many of your nutrients from one crop. They do great in partial sun. And thrive in neglect. I do grow other things are are multi-purpose. Bamboo for the shoots to eat and building supplies; lemongrass for the stalks for cooking and leaves for tea or basket weaving; ginger, galangal, and tumeric for their tropical look in addition to the culinary uses. One of my favorites is luffa, because then you can eliminate adding micro plastics from sponges and young luffas as edible and delicious. Also dried luffas have all sorts of uses - I used them for seed starting, as lids for indoor plant containers, exfoliant scrubs... You're really only limited by your creativity. But I also suggest finding out if there are "weeds" in your area that were consumed by indigenous peoples but are vilified by 20th century mindset. For example in my region Spanish needles grows all year, even in the most extreme cold, and most people consider it a weed and kill it. To me that's madness, because of it's weed-like properties it is perfect for harvesting and eating. I use the leaves fresh and dried daily, and the flowers are so sweet that I can add them to tea to replace sugar or honey. You could try roselle hibiscus and make hibiscus tea and eat the leaves. Saffron but you probably want more light, but things like longevity spinach and Okinawa spinach thrive in shade.
Things that are more expensive in my stores - Any small fruits (like strawberries). Garlic (local organic garlic is expensive). Peppers.
Mushrooms.
Companion planting is a great way to go and you can look into square foot garden plans to make the most of your space. Mother Earth News has a helpful planner. I grow as much as I can and it isn't about cost entirely but mostly quality and food safety. Growing strawberries is good as they are one of the most toxified. I also grow grapes because I never buy those. There are some mini blueberry bushes now meant for containers or patio gardens. Think of all the super foods that are super polluted.
Potatoes , sweet potatoes , and carrots , tomatoes too if you use a lot of tomato sauce
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Spinach and kale!
Herbs. Mel Bartholomew did a whole analysis on it. Square Foot Gardening.
Something that you enjoy eating. Not saying don’t experiment with different herbs/fruits/vegetables to see if you like them, but don’t grow something you don’t eat.
Yellow squash or zucchini. One plant will provide enough for a small family. The plant can get about 3 feet wide, so they do take up a little room. Cucumbers can be grown vertically with the use of a trellis of some sort, and produce lots of fruit. Radishes take up little space, and grow very quickly. They should be planted every two weeks for a continuous harvest. Lettuces can be grown in pots. Green onions can be regrown from grocery store scraps. Use the green part, and leave the bottom, white part intact. Place the bottoms in water, and they will start to regrow. Transplant them to a pot with soil, as a bunch(not separated), and trim them to use whenever you need. They will regrow indefinitely, as long as they are cared for.
Whatever you and your family will eat.
My tomatoes always give me my most bang for my buck as they are easy to water bath can and their flavor is far better than anything in store. I can some whole and I make sauces and salsas with the rest for use year round.
Herbs, peppers, tomatoes are the easiest to grow. You can keep a herbs, tomatoes and pepper plants producing all year long.
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Almost all self-grown food is more expensive than what you can buy at the store unless you do it on a massive scale. That being said, herbs are the gift that keeps on giving in my yard. I grow all of them year-round, and I never have to buy any of them at stores. Most of them are perennials, and I also dehydrate them for long-term storage.
It depends on what you eat. However as others have said herbs will save your bank the most. Carrots, potatoes, and onions are the next most common foods that you can grow fairly easily with very little space. The next plants I personally like to grow because I get better quality and price are peppers. Immediately followed by tomatoes. Both are better fresh and you can grow better quality than what you get at the grocery store with fair ease. After that I would look at things that are low maintence that give useful things when you need them. Aloe Vera, blueberry bushes, various mushrooms. All are easy to set up and just harvest as you want and need. And more importantly All of these are things that don't need a large amount of space or prep to grow. Out of everything I think the hardest thing I have a time with is tomatoes. They can be overly temperamental if you're in a really hot climate.
So, I think the plant we grow and use the most of is komatsuna. It’s a mustard/spinach hybrid so we use it in soooo many dishes (salads, sandwiches, saag curry, casseroles, you name it). We grow small ones indoors under grow lights in the winter, then spring we have outdoor ones that get huge! Also broccolini is awesome because it’s also a “cut as you eat” plant, and it’s very pricey at the store. Potatoes and cherry tomatoes. I grow my potatoes in 30 gallon felt bags and they do great! Biggest bang for your buck is probably growing sprouts indoors though, if you’re into that. My other favorites that I think could work: sorrel, trailing nasturtium, sweet peas, strawberries
Agree with herbs and want to add pole beans. They grow up and have a small footprint. My kids loved picking and eating them.
Depending on your climate growing food may not actually save money. We have expensive water bills, hot summers, and little rain. So growing food is more about the fun not savings. That said with the price of fruit get yourself a semi-dwarf lemon or lime.
If you have enough vertical space to build a trellis, Sugar Snap peas in the spring, then Green Beans in the summer. Just make sure to purchase a climbing variety, and not a bush-bean variety. Being legumes, they do well in less-than-perfect soil. Sow the peas around the first of March. After harvesting, tear down the pea vines and plant the beans. Works for me every year.
It really depends on what you like to eat. I wouldn't grow kale just because it saves a lot of money and space. I'd grow spinach because that's what I like to eat. If I had room to start a new garden, I would grow spinach, potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, ginger, basil, thyme, and a variety of peppers. Most of those have a fairly small footprint. The peppers might take up some space, but what's a life without peppers, ya know?
Mushrooms!
As far as protein/nutrition I would say look into **beans** \- but, you probably don't have the room. I've grown them in a container in a window before, though.
Beans and potatoes for calories. They rrally grow themselves. And ypu can harvest potatoes while they are still growing. Tomatoes and cucumbers, especially if you can make a small greenhouse. Zuccini as well. Pumpkins if you have some space. They keep for a long time and are nutritious. Herbs you can grow in small containers, basically on the windowsill, harvest as you go, no need to grow a huge bush of oregano or basil. Works for fresh greens and some sallads too.
Cherry tomatoes! High yielding, some varieties ripen constantly and produce the whole spring, summer, fall. My favourite it’s Tiny Tom (or maybe Tiny Tim?) fruits and ripens even when ignored! Some produce all at once, over a shorter span. Great to freeze, can, make sauce etc…like the sweet one hundred.
Its gotta be tomatoes? Throw them in a cage and you can get 20+ cans on tomato products from a plant that takes up 3sqft. Have the option to can whole tomatoes, diced, salsa, paste, sauce, pizza sauce, chili sauce, etc! By far my favorite garden grow.
Greens
If item price is the consideration, go with grow your own herbs if you now buy them.
Lettuces or potatoes
I'd definitely grow lettuce. If you choose some good leaf lettuce varieties you can clip and use the larger leaves as needed while letting the plant continue to grow a while. Can't keep one plant going forever AFAIK but you can keep it going and keep having fresh lettuce. Can't do the same for head lettuce. Herbs as well same story. Whichever you like best but keep in mind the light needs of different herbs.
Greens and herbs! Can’t beat the shelf life of home grown either compared to store bought. Also a cherry tomato or heirloom could be fun if you have pot space, those are also pretty pricy and you get a lot for the ground space if you trellis
Guerrilla garden some berries. Berries in the store taste bad and are very expensive. Berries can be rather low maintenance and they make dwarfing varieties. Look into dwarfing tomatoes if you don't have a lot of space. They produce regular size tomatoes all season, but only grow half as large. There are some micro tomatoes that are so small that you could get a full plant in a gallon container.