Growing your own fruits and vegetables
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Anonymous
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How time-consuming is it? Has it helped you to reduce grocery costs?
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Anonymous
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LOL I feel like it costs more & results vary! I mean, which fruits could you truly grow, besides berries? If you have no experience, it's hard to grow enough to replace the store produce (in quantity & quality) and getting set up is expensive.
I feel like my little hobby garden that I started from seeds cost a ton just to get it off the ground and half the stuff didn't grow correctly. |
Anonymous
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It isn't time consuming once you know what you are doing and have an established garden, but the reality is that fruits and vegetable s are seasonal and tend to all come ripe at the same time. You can plant every two weeks to extend seasons and get succession crops, but mostly you will have periods of feast and periods of famine.
If your goal is to save money, plant crops that are expensive in stores (figs, heirlooms, funky colored vegetables), crops that store well in winter (winter squash, turnips, onions, potatoes, etc.), and perennials (herbs and fruit). It makes little sense to grow things that are easy to get at store for cheap prices, unless you just love to garden. |
Anonymous
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It can be time consuming, but IMO, I like that I am eating fresh from my garden, and it tastes different. It's also a hobby, and my workout (I hate exercising).
We grow lettuce zuchinni tomatos strawberries peppers sugar snaps cucumber We tried carrots, but they tasted a bit odd to me. Maybe too used to grocery ones. One year we grew a pumpkin and made pumpkin pie with it You might want to move this to the gardening forum. |
Anonymous
and we have two fruit trees that bear a fair amount of fruit. I love my fruit trees. I live in a regular suburban subdivision, but we do have a privacy fence to try to keep the deer and rabbits out. I can't keep the squirrels out no matter how hard I try. If someone can find a way to do that, you would make a fortune. |
Anonymous
What kind of fruit trees? We’re moving soon and have room for fruit trees. We’re looking for something low maintenance that will do well in this area. |
Anonymous
| Fig trees are super easy. |
Anonymous
At the risk of outing myself... asian pear and persimmon trees. The pear tree can be tricky. We had an infestation of some kind, and it was turning the leaves spotty. DH sprayed it with something, can't remember, but it wasn't pesticide, and that seemed to do the trick. side note: the cicadas have been laying eggs in the new branches of the tree, and the branches/leaves are dying. Grrrr. |
Anonymous
Mine dies every year and then grows like a bush. |
Anonymous
| It's a hobby or a job, it doesn't reduce cost unless you grow enough to sell it. |
Anonymous
| We installed a garden this spring- it was very expensive: lumber was about $300, soil was $150, compost $40, fencing to keep dear out $200 and other smaller expenses making it around $1K for the garden. Now we are growing a variety of veggies but the prior poster was correct- all of a sudden we will have more tomatoes, squash, cukes, herbs than we can possibly eat (all at once). It would take awhile to spend the $1K at the farmers market... it was kind of fun installing it and it's nice to see it all grow but it isn't necessarily a way to save $. |
Anonymous
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Tomatoes and zucchini - easy and worth it in my opinion.
I have had blueberry bushes for years and each year, I get maybe 17 blueberries in total. That does not really put a dent in our blueberry consumption. |
Anonymous
My blueberry bush has never produced any fruit. The birds keep eating it all. It's been llke six years or something. Same for the rasberry bush. Blackberry bush fruit is too tart. I'm the PP who also has fruit trees. |
Anonymous
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We have 10 tomato plants, 10 types of hot peppers, 3 types of mild peppers, watermelon, cucumber, mint, chives, lavender, broccoli, snap peas, peas, rosemary, strawberries, and blueberries.
The first year, it def. cost more to have the garden than if we bought the food at the store. Buying all the supplies to build the beds was costly. Now we savea little bit of money, only because we make some pretty popular pickled veggies, salsas, and hot sauces that get sold at a local farmers market. It's fun and has been some good family time tending to the garden and making various products. Plus, you can't beat the taste. |
Anonymous
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I grew lettuce and tomato last summer and yes, it did prevent us having to go to the store for salad for a couple months. That was a big deal during covid, and we eat salad every dinner. I'm growing them again this year but the lettuce is struggling in the heat.
The big cost was the planter and soil, but you could grow in ground. Strawberries, cucumber, snap peas, and peppers are easy and inexpensive but unlikely to offset you bill unless you have a huge garden. One plant doesn't produce that much. I am not interested in canning, so we just eat what's ripe and don't try to produce a bunch for later. I planted apples, berries, and asparagus but those will take years to mature and bear. |