Sentry Page Protection
The Simplest Way to Go Organic: Grow Your Own
Whether you’re on a budget, aren’t sure of the authenticity of local organics or both, the surest and cheapest way to get good organic food is by growing your own.
Now before you roll your eyes and think I'm on that "grow your own" bandwagon again, remember: growing your own can be as simple or as involved as you want.
If you’re a first-time gardener, time poor, or just not really interested in gardening but would really like to eat fresher, truly organic food and save money, the trick is not to overwhelm yourself.
Keep your garden relatively small, but leave room for expansion when you’re ready. A family of 4 can start with about 200 square feet (approximately 50 square feet per person) and have a great supply of produce. But if you don’t want to start that big, don’t - I didn't.
Create a veggie garden as big or small as you’d like and what you can.
Now before you roll your eyes and think I'm on that "grow your own" bandwagon again, remember: growing your own can be as simple or as involved as you want.
If you’re a first-time gardener, time poor, or just not really interested in gardening but would really like to eat fresher, truly organic food and save money, the trick is not to overwhelm yourself.
Keep your garden relatively small, but leave room for expansion when you’re ready. A family of 4 can start with about 200 square feet (approximately 50 square feet per person) and have a great supply of produce. But if you don’t want to start that big, don’t - I didn't.
Create a veggie garden as big or small as you’d like and what you can.
If you don't have a lot of space, time or interest, containers work well. Root vegetables may not be possible but some people report great success in growing potatoes in compost bags. I use "green" shopping bags to grow our spuds, they work really well, are much easier to care for and take up less space.
Other traditional container fare includes tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, carrots, peppers, strawberries, blueberries and herbs.
If you are growing in the ground, there are a couple of things to consider. First, is the amount of sunlight. The second is soil quality.
For sunlight, you should find a space that gets full sun. That’s about 8 hours of sun each day. Some plants may need a little less sun, but 8 hours will help you grow a large variety.
For soil quality, you are looking for a pH of about 5.8 – 6.8 and you can buy an inexpensive testing kit at any garden store. You can increase pH, or correct acidity, by adding limestone. To decrease pH, or to correct alkalinity, use elemental limestone. Also, ensure that you have plenty of organic material in your soil and add leaves and compost to help.
If your soil isn't quite right, you can make raised beds and surround them with bricks or stone to contain the nutrient rich and balanced soil.
Raised beds also make gardening much easier, with less bending. I have slowly been converting all our garden to raised beds, a little higher than the usual so I'm not bending at all. To save our precious compost and money on soil, I filled the lower half of each box with bales of pea straw, then topped with a layer of newspaper, then a layer of my own soil/compost mixture.
When you’re ready to start planting, consider planting some seedlings or even the more advanced plant starts, instead of seeds. They may be a little more difficult to find organically, but for first time growers, they’re much easier to work with.
Make sure to water your plants regularly. Seeds should be watered daily. New plants should be watered every 2-3 days. On particularly hot days, you may need to do more. You can even collect rain water for your plants by using rain barrels or creating your own from garbage bins.
Organic herbicides don't work that well. Instead, take the time to pull weeds, ensuring you grab the weeds fully by their roots or they will continue to grow. Weeding regularly will keep them from maturing and becoming problematic...plus it makes your whole job quicker and easier. Pulling weeds as you see them when you water will make this tedious job easy and painless - you won't ever really need to actually devote time to weed the garden.
All these tips are well and good, but what are you going to plant and grow?
Well, firstly, only plant and grow things you are actually going to eat. If you hate kale, don't waste your money, time and energy planting it. You don't like it, so you'll just end up resenting the time you put into growing it. However, if you really love using fresh herbs in your cooking, then devoting a garden bed to basil, rosemary, oregano, parsley, chives, thyme will not only give your cooking a flavour boost, but you'll save money. And gardening will be enjoyable.
Throughout the year our garden grows (the list is in alphabetical order because I copied it from my garden spreadsheet):
Basil
Bok choy
Broccoli
Brown onions
Cabbage
Capsicum
Cauliflower
Cucumbers
Eggplant
Garlic
Lettuce
Parsley
Parsnip
Potatoes
Pumpkins
Silverbeet
Spring onions
Strawberries
Tomatoes
Turnip
Zucchini
We eat all these veggies and fruits regularly, and they are all easy to grow. They will all also grow in containers - perfect for lazy gardeners like myself, small backyards and balconies. You may love and eat all these foods, you may only eat some of them or none of them.
If you've made it this far, you're probably wondering just how all this work and effort, time and money spent to get started can actually save you money.
Think of it this way: this morning (11th October 2017) iceberg lettuce were on sale for $1.79 each. A packet of red iceberg lettuce seeds from Diggers Club costs $3.95 for a packet of 400 seeds. That's 1 cent per seed, with a 98% germination rate. So for $3.95 you can potentially grow 392 lettuces for just $3.95 - or 1 cent each! When lettuce become the price of that packet of seeds in December and January, you'll be crossing it off your shopping list and keeping that $3.95 in your purse.
Tomato seeds for the very prolific Tommy Toe tomatoes (again from Diggers Club) cost $3.95 a packet of 25 seeds. That equates to 16c per seed, with a 98% germination rate. Each plant has the potential to supply you with up to 11kg of tomatoes - for 16 cents! That's approximately 1.5 cents per kilo! Now that will surely put a smile on your face when tomatoes are $7 a kilo in December!
Cabbage for coleslaw? A packet of 60 seeds for $3.95, with a 9% germination rate, will give you 58 cabbages. You'll have the base of a delicious coleslaw for under 7 cents!
Now obviously you're not going to want to grow 58 cabbages and 400 lettuce, so don't worry, your seeds will keep for a couple of years.
While your seeds are getting started, you can plant seedlings or the more advanced speedlings. Yes, they'll cost more, but you'll be harvesting earlier, giving your seeds a chance to grow and produce for you. And you'll still be saving mega bucks over supermarket or even greengrocer prices for your fresh produce.
Have I convinced you yet? No? You can see the potential savings, but you don't have the time to grow your own food?
Yes you do!
As I mentioned above, I do the weeding as I water each day, so no time spent weeding. The on a Sunday, I mix up a bucketful of seaweed liquid fertiliser and give the veggies a treat - all up it takes no more than 10 minutes.
It will take you a little time to get started. I'd allow at least a half-day to get the beds or containers ready and plant those seeds and/or seedlings. But once you've done that, the hard work and, if you're time-poor, the time consuming work is done.
As you go through your gardening journey, keep a record. Write down dates things are planted, how they are treated and progress. Take weather and other conditions into consideration. It will allow you figure out what worked well and help you improve your gardening techniques, year after year.
You may not feel like a green thumb now, but keep at it. It’s so worth it - for your grocery budget and your health.
Other traditional container fare includes tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, carrots, peppers, strawberries, blueberries and herbs.
If you are growing in the ground, there are a couple of things to consider. First, is the amount of sunlight. The second is soil quality.
For sunlight, you should find a space that gets full sun. That’s about 8 hours of sun each day. Some plants may need a little less sun, but 8 hours will help you grow a large variety.
For soil quality, you are looking for a pH of about 5.8 – 6.8 and you can buy an inexpensive testing kit at any garden store. You can increase pH, or correct acidity, by adding limestone. To decrease pH, or to correct alkalinity, use elemental limestone. Also, ensure that you have plenty of organic material in your soil and add leaves and compost to help.
If your soil isn't quite right, you can make raised beds and surround them with bricks or stone to contain the nutrient rich and balanced soil.
Raised beds also make gardening much easier, with less bending. I have slowly been converting all our garden to raised beds, a little higher than the usual so I'm not bending at all. To save our precious compost and money on soil, I filled the lower half of each box with bales of pea straw, then topped with a layer of newspaper, then a layer of my own soil/compost mixture.
When you’re ready to start planting, consider planting some seedlings or even the more advanced plant starts, instead of seeds. They may be a little more difficult to find organically, but for first time growers, they’re much easier to work with.
Make sure to water your plants regularly. Seeds should be watered daily. New plants should be watered every 2-3 days. On particularly hot days, you may need to do more. You can even collect rain water for your plants by using rain barrels or creating your own from garbage bins.
Organic herbicides don't work that well. Instead, take the time to pull weeds, ensuring you grab the weeds fully by their roots or they will continue to grow. Weeding regularly will keep them from maturing and becoming problematic...plus it makes your whole job quicker and easier. Pulling weeds as you see them when you water will make this tedious job easy and painless - you won't ever really need to actually devote time to weed the garden.
All these tips are well and good, but what are you going to plant and grow?
Well, firstly, only plant and grow things you are actually going to eat. If you hate kale, don't waste your money, time and energy planting it. You don't like it, so you'll just end up resenting the time you put into growing it. However, if you really love using fresh herbs in your cooking, then devoting a garden bed to basil, rosemary, oregano, parsley, chives, thyme will not only give your cooking a flavour boost, but you'll save money. And gardening will be enjoyable.
Throughout the year our garden grows (the list is in alphabetical order because I copied it from my garden spreadsheet):
Basil
Bok choy
Broccoli
Brown onions
Cabbage
Capsicum
Cauliflower
Cucumbers
Eggplant
Garlic
Lettuce
Parsley
Parsnip
Potatoes
Pumpkins
Silverbeet
Spring onions
Strawberries
Tomatoes
Turnip
Zucchini
We eat all these veggies and fruits regularly, and they are all easy to grow. They will all also grow in containers - perfect for lazy gardeners like myself, small backyards and balconies. You may love and eat all these foods, you may only eat some of them or none of them.
If you've made it this far, you're probably wondering just how all this work and effort, time and money spent to get started can actually save you money.
Think of it this way: this morning (11th October 2017) iceberg lettuce were on sale for $1.79 each. A packet of red iceberg lettuce seeds from Diggers Club costs $3.95 for a packet of 400 seeds. That's 1 cent per seed, with a 98% germination rate. So for $3.95 you can potentially grow 392 lettuces for just $3.95 - or 1 cent each! When lettuce become the price of that packet of seeds in December and January, you'll be crossing it off your shopping list and keeping that $3.95 in your purse.
Tomato seeds for the very prolific Tommy Toe tomatoes (again from Diggers Club) cost $3.95 a packet of 25 seeds. That equates to 16c per seed, with a 98% germination rate. Each plant has the potential to supply you with up to 11kg of tomatoes - for 16 cents! That's approximately 1.5 cents per kilo! Now that will surely put a smile on your face when tomatoes are $7 a kilo in December!
Cabbage for coleslaw? A packet of 60 seeds for $3.95, with a 9% germination rate, will give you 58 cabbages. You'll have the base of a delicious coleslaw for under 7 cents!
Now obviously you're not going to want to grow 58 cabbages and 400 lettuce, so don't worry, your seeds will keep for a couple of years.
While your seeds are getting started, you can plant seedlings or the more advanced speedlings. Yes, they'll cost more, but you'll be harvesting earlier, giving your seeds a chance to grow and produce for you. And you'll still be saving mega bucks over supermarket or even greengrocer prices for your fresh produce.
Have I convinced you yet? No? You can see the potential savings, but you don't have the time to grow your own food?
Yes you do!
As I mentioned above, I do the weeding as I water each day, so no time spent weeding. The on a Sunday, I mix up a bucketful of seaweed liquid fertiliser and give the veggies a treat - all up it takes no more than 10 minutes.
It will take you a little time to get started. I'd allow at least a half-day to get the beds or containers ready and plant those seeds and/or seedlings. But once you've done that, the hard work and, if you're time-poor, the time consuming work is done.
As you go through your gardening journey, keep a record. Write down dates things are planted, how they are treated and progress. Take weather and other conditions into consideration. It will allow you figure out what worked well and help you improve your gardening techniques, year after year.
You may not feel like a green thumb now, but keep at it. It’s so worth it - for your grocery budget and your health.