Can You Actually Save Money with a Veggie Garden? (Part 1)

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So you’re thinking about planting a vegetable garden? Well, vegetable gardening can be a fantastic way to bring healthier food to your table, but it may also be able to save you money. The key, though, is to balance the money you can save against the time, effort, and money that you put into your garden. So can a vegetable garden really save you money? Here’s what you need to know:

The Studies

There are a few studies out recently that do show you can save money through a vegetable garden. The problem is that these studies are sponsored by companies with a vested interest in getting more people gardening. While this is the case, the studies may hold a grain of truth. Here’s what they say:

• One study by the National Gardening Association which was sponsored by Scotts Miracle-Gro found that a family can spend about $70 a year on a vegetable garden and grow about $600 worth of vegetables.
• Studies by the seed company Burpee show that you can generate about $75 worth of green beans for every $1 you spend on seeds, and for potatoes, you can generate about $5 worth of potatoes for every $1 you invest in seeds.

These studies may seem too good to be true, and if you’re just beginning as a vegetable gardener, they may be too good to be true. At first, there are lots of up front costs to gardening, which you need to take into consideration before you decide to start a vegetable garden.

What are the costs?

The up front costs of vegetable gardening will depend vastly on your circumstances – what your soil is like, how much space you have, what types of vegetables you plan to grow, and more. In areas of the country that have clay soil, for instance, you may need to build a raised vegetable bed so that you can put in good soil for your plants. This, obviously, costs money. In almost any area, you’ll need to amend your soil to make it more fertile, especially if you’re going to be gardening in the same spot for years on end.

You’ll also need to have gardening tools, which can last a while but which can cost you a lot up front. You may want to buy a tiller, even, if you’re going to do heavy gardening and have room to store one. But you can also just rent a tiller to get your plot of land for your garden dug up, and then use hand tools to garden throughout the year.

Tools will last for years, but the items you may need to keep your garden under control probably won’t. Organic gardening is the cheapest option by far, since you don’t have to pay for lots of chemicals and things to solve gardening problems. However, there will be gardening problems at some point, and you will need to learn how to deal with them – whether that’s in the form of expensive chemical treatments or home remedies, which will still have some cost associated with them.

And then, of course, you’ll need the seeds or starter plants for your garden. Depending on the varieties you choose to use, you could pay a pretty penny for these, as well.

Read Part 2 here: http://www.plantingvegetables.net/can-you-actually-save-money-with-a-veggie-garden-part-2.html