"Frugal Gardening: Nine Vegetables That Offer Greater Economy When Grown at Home - Based on my personal experience, these nine vegetables have the potential to substantially reduce your grocery expenses by cultivating them at home."
Verdant Savings: Frugal Cost-Cutters' Guide to Growing Your Own Veggies
Going green isn't just good for the planet; it can also lighten the burden on your wallet. With more gardeners opting to cultivate their own vegetables, you might be considering joining the trend. Homegrown vegetables not only save money but boast better taste and nutrition than their store-bought counterparts.
To be self-sufficient is an impossible dream, especially when you live in tight spaces and don't have acres of land, but there are certain money-saving vegetables that can trim your grocery bill while still offering a healthy feast. Here's a list of crops that yield bountiful harvests and are easy on the wallet.
9 Frugalway Favorites: Homegrown Vegetables to Lower Your Grocery Costs
With over a decade of gardening under my belt and a career as a professional gardener pinning my colors to the mast – kitchen gardener that is, growing vegetables for restaurants and selling them to visitors in public gardens – I have a wealth of experience to share with you.
Always a fan of growing from seed, this is the surest route to reducing the cost of your crop. A packet of seeds may not seem significant, but once planted, it can produce enough fruits to fill your kitchen with flavor and frugality. Even better, many seed packets come with hundreds of seeds, so you can save the remaining seeds for planting the following year.
Here are the top money-saving vegetables you can easily grow at home – all from seed and suitable for planting in the ground, raised beds, or vegetable container gardens.
Sun-Soaked Delights: Cherry Tomatoes
Growing tomatoes at home opens up a world of flavors, far beyond what you'll find in the grocery stores. And with cherry tomatoes, you have the joy of not only tasting exceptional fruit but also tucking them into every corner of your garden or balcony container.
For a negligible cost, you can buy a packet of seeds that, with minimal effort, will yield a beautiful assortment of cherry tomatoes throughout summer. Just a plant or two will provide enough tomatoes for fresh eating, cooking, or making a pasta sauce when the fondness for fresh tomatoes wanes.
Tomatoes do need sun and heat to grow, but they can thrive in pots on a deck or balcony in urban spaces. Choose heavy-cropping varieties like 'Super Sweet 100' for the best results; you can find these seeds at Burpee.
If you're looking for an even easier yield, compact bush varieties of tomatoes can reach less than two feet yet still reward with a large, delicious harvest.
Vertical Veggies: Pole Beans
A money-saving vegetable must be productive, and beans fit the bill nicely. For the cost of one or two small packets of beans in a store, you can purchase a packet of seeds offering a lavish harvest during the growing season.
Green beans, runner beans, and climbing French beans can provide lots of pods in a small space, whether you start seeds indoors or sow them directly into their growing position. Climbing beans do need room to climb and something to grow on, but once you start picking them in midsummer, they'll keep churning out beans.
If space is at a premium, consider bush beans; they're smaller plants that don't require the same training as pole beans, making them ideal for smaller spaces. However, while easy to grow from seed and producing a good crop, bush beans are not as prolific as pole beans.
The Greenest of Greens: Leafy Salad Leaves
Wilted bags of salad leaves have probably crossed your path more times than you'd care to admit. Instead of wasting your money on these limp lettuces, why not grow a wide variety of mixed salad leaves quickly and easily from seed?
These leafy greens can be grown indoors, outdoors, even on a windowsill, and they're fast-growing vegetables that can be harvested in 30-50 days from sowing. They can be harvested as baby leaves or left a little longer to reach maturity.
From lettuce to arugula, spinach, or peppery Asian leaves like mizuna, there's a flavor and texture to suit every taste. What's more, with a large number of seeds in each packet, you can sow them successively from spring to fall for a large harvest throughout the year.
Refreshing Cucumbers
Growing cucumbers requires less space than you might think, and you can harvest more than enough fruits to make a dent in your grocery bill. And the homegrown versions are nothing like their store-bought counterparts; get ready to be amazed by the contrast in flavor.
Cucumbers enjoy warm temperatures between 70 and 85°F, either outdoors or indoors by a large south-facing window. While absolute beginners might want to grow cucumbers vertically up a vegetable garden trellis, there are bush or dwarf varieties ideal for growing cucumbers in pots in smaller spaces, such as Cucumber 'Bush Champion' at Burpee.
This compact variety grows to 24 inches but still produces a bountiful harvest of cucumbers. And if you prefer to save a few coins on seeds, you can harvest the seeds from your fruits to sow again in the following season.
Speedy Radishes
Radishes might not have a monumental impact on your grocery bill, but with a packet of seeds setting you back just a few dollars, they're an easy and quick vegetable to grow with minimal fuss.
Plant radishes successively from spring to fall, and you can harvest radishes within a month. Plus, each packet contains so many seeds that you're likely to have enough left to sow for the following season.
Just around the corner, you'll discover a range of characteristics with various radishes, from the classic pink, globe-shaped roots to longer, finger-shaped radishes, and varieties in shades of red, purple, and white – a sight rarely seen in the grocery stores.
Salad Superstars: Kale
Once scorned as everyday fare, kale has reinvented itself as a superfood, and for good reason. Not only is it highly nutritious, but it's also an easy vegetable to grow, even for those with minimal gardening experience.
Make a few successive sowings of seeds and cultivate a variety of types, and you can potentially harvest kale all year round. It's worth sowing black tuscan kale seeds from True Leaf Market in both spring and fall to keep your salad supplies well-stocked throughout the year.
Pick more unusual varieties of kale, such as Tuscan kale or dinosaur kale, alongside more traditional red and green-leaved types, for a diverse selection of leaves.
Zucchini: The King of Productivity
If productivity is a marker of a money-saving vegetable, then zucchini easily takes the crown. This versatile plant can produce twenty or more fruits per plant during the summer.
While zucchini may not be as beloved as its relatives like cucumber or tomato, it's still worth considering for your vegetable garden. Its vibrant green skin, tender flesh, and long fruiting season make it a valuable addition to your culinary arsenal.
And don't forget about the zucchini flowers; they're a delicacy not often found in stores and can be stuffed, fried, or added to salads or soups.
Colorful Chard
Swiss chard is often overlooked in the grocery store, but at home, it shines in all its colorful glory. The leaves come in a range of hues, from deep red to pale yellow, with a sweet, earthy flavor.
Swiss chard leaves can be steamed, sautéed, braised, pickled, or used raw, making it an incredibly versatile addition to any kitchen. Consider sowing Chard 'Rainbow Mixture' seeds from True Leaf Market to enjoy the full spectrum of chard colors in your garden.
These seeds can be sown in the spring and fall for a large harvest throughout the year, making it a reliable source of nutrients for your meals.
Delayed Delight: Asparagus
Asparagus is a perennial vegetable that can offer you harvests for 20 years once established, but it will take some patience. With a three-year waiting period before you can harvest the first spears, it's a commitment that might be daunting for the instant-gratification generation.
However, think of asparagus as an investment in culinary future – one that will pay off handsomely once you're ready to reap the rewards. Plant asparagus crowns from Nature Hills in zones 3-7, and you'll be enjoying tender, sweet asparagus spears each spring.
While it might seem pricey to invest in a pack of asparagus crowns, consider the long-term savings – you could be enjoying free asparagus for two decades! And if you share some of your harvest with friends and family, you can easily recoup your investment.
As well as adding money-saving vegetables to your garden, don't forget about fruit. Adding soft fruit bushes such as blueberries, blackcurrants, or redcurrants will reward you with big harvests of delicious fruit for many years.
These perennial crops need annual pruning to keep them super-productive and also benefit from being fed once a year to provide all the nutrients they need for a rich crop of fruits to harvest every summer.
Enrichment Data
Overall
Growing vegetables from seed in raised beds or container gardens is a cost-effective way to reduce your grocery bill. Here are some of the best money-saving vegetables to grow at home:
Best Money-Saving Vegetables
- Cherry Tomatoes
- Ease of Growth: Easy to grow and prolific in production.
- Space Requirements: Can thrive in containers or raised beds with minimal support.
- Cost Savings: One or two plants can provide a season's worth of tomatoes, making them a cost-effective choice.
- Pole Beans
- Ease of Growth: Fast-growing and reliable germination.
- Space Requirements: Need space to climb but are highly productive.
- Cost Savings: A packet of seeds can yield a large harvest, making them cheaper than buying in stores.
- Green Beans (Bush Beans)
- Ease of Growth: Easy to sow directly into the ground.
- Space Requirements: Suitable for smaller spaces.
- Cost Savings: While not as prolific as pole beans, they still offer a good yield for minimal cost.
- Cucumbers
- Ease of Growth: Easy to grow and can thrive in warm weather.
- Space Requirements: Require a trellis or other support for climbing.
- Cost Savings: High yield for a low cost of seeds.
- Leafy Greens (Kale, Chard, Lettuce)
- Ease of Growth: Fast-growing and can be harvested in as little as 20 days.
- Space Requirements: Can be grown in small spaces.
- Cost Savings: Continuous harvests throughout the growing season provide a steady supply, reducing store purchases.
- Radishes
- Ease of Growth: Quick to mature (about 20 days).
- Space Requirements: Can be grown in small spaces between other plants.
- Cost Savings: Fast turnaround and high yield per square foot.
- Zucchini and Summer Squash
- Ease of Growth: Easy to grow and quick to mature.
- Space Requirements: Need some space to spread out.
- Cost Savings: High yield, often producing more than can be used, making them even more cost-effective.
- Herbs (like Rosemary)
- Ease of Growth: Easy to grow and can be harvested continuously.
- Space Requirements: Small space requirements.
- Cost Savings: Provides fresh flavor on demand, reducing the need for store-bought herbs.
These vegetables are not only cost-effective but also allow for continuous harvests, making them ideal for raised beds or container gardens.
In the guide titled Verdant Savings: Frugal Cost-Cutters' Guide to Growing Your Own Veggies, several money-saving vegetables are recommended for home cultivation. Some of these vegetables include:
- Cherry tomatoes, with their prolific and delicious harvests that can fill your kitchen with taste and frugality.
- Pole beans, which offer lavish harvests during the growing season at minimal cost.
- Leafy green vegetables such as kale and chard, providing a large harvest throughout the year with minimal effort.
- Radishes, easy to grow and quick to mature, offering high yield per square foot.
- Zucchini and summer squash, known for their high yield and continuous harvests, often producing more than can be used.
By growing these vegetables from seed and planting them in raised beds, containers, or even within a small garden space, you can significantly lower your grocery costs while enjoying fresh, nutritious produce.
