Growing a Vegetable Garden For Under $30

Here is how to grow a vegetable garden or "recession garden" for almost no money.

A few years ago we had a very prolific vegetable garden, with lots of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and other vegetables. The problem is, that between seed and pesticide costs we ended up spending over $300 on it. We barely got enough fresh vegetables from it to make up for the huge amount of expenses. We would have done better to take that $300 and go to the farmer's market and buy organic vegetables.

The following year our challenge was to reduce the cost of our garden and also use environmentally friendly products. One way that we saved on planting a garden was to start our own tomatoes indoors. We chose the Betterboy variety, starting plants from a pack of of 99 cent seeds bought at the discount store. We started about twenty tomato plants in containers in the house (recycled yogurt containers), and by planting time they were six to eight inches high.

Note: It helps to take your starter tomato plants outside on warm days, to let them "toughen up" a bit. Wind and direct sun will make the starter plants stronger and better able to survive when you plant them outside.

More Discount Seeds From The Sale Rack

Many stores have such as Home Depot have deep discounts on vegetable seeds in the fall. We found one such sale where every pack of seeds was 90% off, or around ten cents each. We purchased discount seeds for carrots, squash, kale, cilantro, basil and corn. For green beans we planted dry pinto bean seeds from a bag bought at the food store. Hardy pinto beans will grow in almost any climate and produce delicious green beans.

Our $12 Recession Garden

Total cost for seeds for our recession garden was $12.00. To save on pesticides and fertilizer we made our own insecticide soap with a tablespoon of Ivory dish washing soap in a twenty ounce spray bottle. We never really have much of a bug problem but when we see an active aphid infestation we give them a little spray of the soap mixture and it works just as well as dangerous pesticides.

Free Poop

As far as fertilizer is concerned, we had been composting since last year's garden and by springtime had a couple of wheelbarrow loads of good rich compost. We are also lucky enough to have a horse farm across the road and we asked the owner, who is a friend, if we could have some decomposed horse manure from a pile in his pasture. He said "of course", and surprised us one day by bringing over a big scoop of it with his tractor and dumping it next to our garden.

The Results

This year's tomatoes (and the rest of the vegetables), were better than those from any previous years. We saved over $270 dollars as well as having pesticide free vegetables. to eat. During the salmonella outbreak, which affected store bought tomatoes, we had lots of home grown ones to eat.

To plant a very inexpensive recession garden all you have to do is be creative and avoid expensive pesticides and "gimmicky" garden tools seen on TV. Consider starting your own plants indoors before gardening season and using seeds saved from previous year's gardens.