A budget veggie garden?

[Zhoen]

We all know someone who spends hundreds of dollars to build a garden to save money... and ends up with a handful of spotty greenbeans.

I guess what I'm wondering is, if you're working with a limited space and your target audience (for both help in the garden and for the veggies themselves) is two young (4 and 8) children and a man who very few vegetables, what would you plant?

I am thinking:
- lots of tomatoes that I'll get pre-started wherever I can find them cheapest, slicing kind and the grape kind (because the kids love those and they are very gratifying because there's always at least a few ready to pick)... but should I bother adding some romas for sauce, or will the slicers be good enough?
-slicing cucumbers from seed
-pickling cucumbers from seed
-green beans from seed

We already have:
-some lettuce and a few chard, but those will bolt and be ruined as soon as the heat comes
-herbs:basil, thyme, rosemary, parsley, cilantro, sage, spring onions for cooking/ catnip for the kitty/ lavender just cuz it's not an herb garden without lavender
-strawberries I splurged and bought half-priced and using a discount at home depot over the weekend. Those are in pots on the deck rail to discourage rabbits...

Debating:
squashes/zucchini-- yes they are easy and good producers, but I still have some in the freezer from last year, meaning "will we use it if we grow it?"
peppers- not a huge fan of peppers...we use them sometimes for cooking and snacking and stuff, but is it worth the space/expense?
stevia-- we'd like to reduce our use of commercial sugar, but I don't care much for honey, so is stevia a good choice?
turnips- roots are yummy, greens are yummy... but not sure I can spare the space
peanuts- just cuz it seems kind of cool, and being beans they're good for the soil
watermelon- because the kids would love it, but they take up SO. MUCH. SPACE!
Pumpkin- same as above

ruled out:
carrots- our soil is wrong
radishes- nobody here eats them
corn- not enough room and I suck at growing it
peas, celery, more lettuce--our time between "frozen" and "volanic" is too short for most spring vegetables...


In the end, I want a few plants to minimally reduce our environmental impact and help my daughters understand that food does not come from the back room of Safeway. We don't have very green thumbs, so I'm not up for trying anything really exotic, and I only want things we'll actually USE...

Ideas?

 

[VanessasMom]

How about broccoli and cauliflower? I am doing peppers and they are good producers as are the tomatoes.

 

[My3kiddos]

I'm doing tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, onions, cucumbers, jalepeno peppers, green bell pepppers, brussel sprouts, and asparagus (this is 2nd year so next year I'll be able to cut it). If you are canning tomatoes use a heirloom or roma. I'm planting ALOT of tomatoes just so I can can sauce, diced tomatoes, and juice. I bought my tomato plants, green bell peppers, and jalepeno plants this past weekend for half price at Home Depot. Watermelons and pumpkins do take up alot of space and watermelons you have to make sure get enough water or they aren't any good.

 

[mrodgers]

peppers- not a huge fan of peppers...we use them sometimes for cooking and snacking and stuff, but is it worth the space/expense?

Peppers for us is as necessary as tomatoes and corn, our 2 must haves in the garden.

peanuts- just cuz it seems kind of cool, and being beans they're good for the soil

One of these days I'd love to try peanuts. We are trying a new technique and have reduced the garden down to about 1/4 of what we use to do, so I'll try peanuts some other time.

carrots- our soil is wrong
radishes- nobody here eats them
corn- not enough room and I suck at growing it

Carrots, if the soil is wrong, change the soil.
Radishes, another must have for myself only. I don't plant a lot, but I have to have them. No one else eats them.

As for the corn, the technique I am trying (new to me, not new in general) is square foot gardening. With square foot gardening, I'll have 48 corn stalks in a 4 x 6 foot area. I'll plant 2 of those 4 x 6 foot areas and have 96 corn stalks which should produce 192 ears of corn. As I said, corn is a must have for us. Even from the farmers along the roadside, it can't compare to pulling it fresh off the stalk and cooking and eating within minutes.

I bought my tomato plants, green bell peppers, and jalepeno plants this past weekend for half price at Home Depot.

So jealous. I still have 8 or 9 weeks till I can plant tomato and pepper plants and my corn from seed. I still have a couple weeks before I can plant the spring stuff.

 

[Colleen27]

If space is a concern you can grow watermelon on a trellis. Just be sure to look for a variety with smaller fruit and tie "hammocks" of old pantyhose under the melons when they're small to support them as they grow and ripen. The same is true for cantaloupe.

If you process your tomatoes at all, into sauce or salsa or whatever, I would suggest planting Roma or another sauce type because they're so much easier to work with. If you're only concerned with fresh eating you should be fine with slicer and grape variety.

If your soil isn't good for carrots you could put them in containers. At 16 per sq ft it doesn't take a lot of space to grow a decent crop. I have friends who grow theirs in those knock-off Rubbermaid type bins from Dollar General.

Where I started with my garden was by looking at what we eat the most of. In the first few years, that meant growing mostly tomatoes, bell peppers, herbs, green onion, peas, carrots, and green beans. I really enjoyed adding potatoes to that mix too; they are so easy to grow and produce huge, long-storing yields in not a lot of space. I've branched out some over the years and find myself searching out recipes to use things I want to try growing now, rather than just growing things that we're already used to eating, and because of that we're all eating more veggies than we did before I started gardening.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

With limited space, I'd try to focus first on the things that you can't get at the supermarket in the same quality as home-grown. Tomatos are the most obvious (as you've mentioned). We do eat Romas raw, but also can some. Personally, I think it's more of a pain than it's worth though. So, the bulk will be larger & smaller varieties.

 

[Zhoen]

I used to have square-foot style gardens, but I'm trapped here in suburbia, DDs "need" the mother-of-all-playground-sets, and DH is not willing to cede me the lawn... so while I'm keeping the herb garden and cutting garden, which are hardscaped (insert maniacal laugh here), my veggies are now relegated to the (formerly flower) beds around the back yard...

I figure I can train tomatoes and cucumbers up on the fences and keep bush-style greenbeans at the bases to help offset them being such heavy feeders. I did zuchini very successfully in those beds years ago, when a pack of seeds got left in the rain and I had to put the darn things SOMEWHERE... so I might do about 2 of each zuchini and squash... any more than that and we'll never use them...

The peanuts I was going to throw into a bed on the side of the house that's not ideal, but it's there and empty, so why not...

Then I was thinking I might put the pumpkins and watermelon in the FRONT flower beds, just to be silly... there's nothing else there but azaleas, plenty of room to wander around, and so much more fun than hostas...

Now where to put the eggplant???

 

[aprilfoolwed]

My kids all LOVE sugar snap peas. We can't get enough of those! Not huge fans of English shelling peas though.

Even though vine plants take up a lot of room, we've found them to be one of the more fun things to grow because the kids really like to see the progress.

We do lots of tomatoes, peppers, lettuce & spinach, green beans, sugar snap peas and carrots (The kids think these are fun too - even if we've had limited success with them). We're trying corn this year as something new and fun.

I will try to toss anything into the garden! Especially this year, as we are moving in the fall and this may be the last garden we have for a few years (until a lawn is established at our new place).

Eggplants were fun - love the pretty purple flowers! And we have a fairly large strawberry patch that is the envy of all the neighborhood kids!

 

[limace]

Tomatoes are a huge hit for our kids, as are peas and raw spinach-they will eat all of those raw off the vine, where they won't touch peas or spinach cooked.

I love growing potatoes, and they are fun for the kids. You can try doing them in 5 gallon buckets or in a bale of straw-easy and fun (just google for techniques).

We have a huge lot-3/4 of an acre, and my husband gardens a big chunk of it. However, we really only spend money for seed and for fruit trees. Everything else we seem to manage to get from friends. Might be worth asking around and see if anyone you know is starting anythign you want (or starting it yourself). My aunt gives us masses of tomato plants each year, for instance, and we barter some canned produce for starts with some other friends.

I plan to plant a few of my leftover potatoes from last year, although I have bought a few more to try a couple different varieties.

I also love having a rhubarb plant-add it to apple sauce or make pie, which is one of my favorites.

 

[pixiewings71]

We do sugar snap peas, carrots, tomatoes (in pots), cucumber, squash, zucchini and bell peppers....last year our bell peppers didn't do well at all, if I was to put them in pots would they grow well? Anyone have experience with that? I also would LOVE to plant some jalapenos, do they do well in pots, what about onions? Our garden space is tiny, like under DD's bedroom window in the front yard tiny.....lol So with such a small space for veggies I hate to crowd them. I think this year I will skip the squash and zucchini, but I'd really like to have the bell peppers, onions, and jalapenos.....

 

[Colleen27]

Then I was thinking I might put the pumpkins and watermelon in the FRONT flower beds, just to be silly... there's nothing else there but azaleas, plenty of room to wander around, and so much more fun than hostas...

If you're in a warmer part of the country sweet potatoes might also work there. They are such a pretty vine that they look good weaving in and out of flowers in the front beds.

Boy do I know where you're coming from with the yard use! It is just in the last couple years that I've convinced DH to give up the back lawn, and in fact we tilled about 1/4 of it under this spring. Before that I was stuck with whatever was leftover after the playsets and clubhouses and all of that, and it didn't make for ideal gardening space at all. But the kids are getting older now and DH is less concerned with his golf-course-perfect lawn so I'm building more and more gardens each year.

 

[poohfriend77]

My DDs love picking their own salad for dinner!

We plant lettuce, spinach, peas, broccoli, carrots, green beans, peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes. I thought I didn't like raw broccoli, until I grew my own. It is soooo much better and more tender than anything you can get at the store.

Our tomatoes were out of control last year! We gave away buckets full to the neighbors because we couldn't eat them all, and I don't can. But our peppers have been pretty pitiful the last couple years. I may skip them this year to make room for more green beans.

My "budget" tip is that we get garden compost from our local landscape recycling center. They will fill the back of my husband's truck for just a few dollars... about the same price as two small bags from the gardening center! Everything (except the peppers???) grows like crazy, so it must be good stuff!

 

[sleeperclan]

We do romas (make our own sauce), cucumbers, lettuce (didn't do well as it's gotten too hot too fast), rosemary, basil, oregano, bush beans, raspberries (low maintenance), two apple trees, and blueberries (have one more year before we can actually eat them). We are also going to try a little corn and summer squash/zucchini this year. We've been using boxes for the veggies, but will plant corn and squash next to our fence. If all goes well this year, we'll expand the garden to add several kinds of peppers. DH wants to chop down some of our trees to put in more fruit trees

 

[Gigi22]

Hmm--I don't know if I've ever gotten over finding blanched cabbage looper caterpillars ("worms") in the blanching water for the homegrown broccoli I was freezing. Cabbage loopers are fiendishly hard to deal with. Those who are squeamish might want to reconsider growing veggies in the cabbage family, although Brussels Sprouts seem oddly resistant.

 

[bettymae1121]

You can grow the cucumbers (both large and pickle) on a trellis, that will save a lot of space and you won't have to worry about the cuke plants doubling in size overnight and strangling your other crops (been there done that...)

I love growing bell peppers, any that I don't use fresh I just dice up and freeze, the frozen diced peppers are great for chili, soups, and pizza toppings. My DH likes hot peppers so I'll try to grow some jalepenos or habeneras each year too. The jalepenos can do double duty for salsa and guacamole too.

Tomato sauce is time consuming to make, I usually just seed and dice my tomoatos and freeze to add to canned store bought sauce when I make pasta sauce, soups and chili. I just use whatever is still on the vine right before the frost. If space is a concern I'd skip the romas and just use whatever you have left over that you can't eat freash before they go bad.

I find that I don't use rosemary, thyme, parsely and sage often enough in cooking to justify growing it, I get more bang for my limited garden space with other crops. Basil I'll still grow but have cut down to only one plant, it produces more than enough for our needs. Cilentro I had too much trouble with, I'd get one good bunch and then it would stop growing.

One thing I'd love to grow once I have more space in the back yard are raspberries (they grow on bushes). They grow pretty easily but also spread easly too, so you do need to keep on top of them to make sure they don't take over whatever space you have them growing in.

 

[livndisney]

LOVING all these growing suggestions!!!

Not to hijack-but you guys seem to have some good ideas.

We have LIMITED growing space, so I am going to try container gardens this year. Last year was not successful due to the bugs etc. crawling over from the next door neighbors "jungle". Any suggestions?

 

[mrodgers]

We have a huge lot-3/4 of an acre, and my husband gardens a big chunk of it.

I love the differences of thought with different areas. We have a rather small to medium yard. Its only about 2 acres, lol.

We did potatoes once. Only got 6 potatoes or so. I was really disapointed. When we moved in, the previous owner left only 1/3 of his potatoes in the garden. He had 3 rows when we looked at the house and 1 row was still in the ground when we moved in. We had to have had well over 200 pounds of potatoes we dug up. I filled a box 3/4 full that measured 3 x 3 x 4 foot.

 

[sarahlovesmickey]

One year we did a potato patch in our side back yard. I didn't know how well it would turn out, but in the fall, we dug a TON of potatoes up. They were so easy to grow. That same year, we did some containers on the deck of grape tomatoes and pickling cucs--the tomatoes did great, the cucs not so much. I would love to do a veggie garden someday when I'm not so busy with young kids. We have 6 acres of land so space isn't an issue!! =)

 

[My2CrazyGirls]

One year we did a potato patch in our side back yard. I didn't know how well it would turn out, but in the fall, we dug a TON of potatoes up. They were so easy to grow. That same year, we did some containers on the deck of grape tomatoes and pickling cucs--the tomatoes did great, the cucs not so much. I would love to do a veggie garden someday when I'm not so busy with young kids. We have 6 acres of land so space isn't an issue!! =)

Great thread! Question....what grows well in shade? Yes there is some sun but not too much of it....

 

[Reese]

For space issues I suggest hanging some plants if you can. My brother makes hanging "pots" for strawberries and cherry tomatoes from large water bottles. Hang it upside down and cut windows in it, fill with dirt and than plant your plants in the windows. At first I thought he was nuts they grew very well. The plants grew down and out and yielded a ton of fruit.

As for staples I love peppers, they take little space to grow. I grow a lot of roma tomatoes for sauce and salsa, cherry tomatoes for the kids to eat everytime they walk by and a few beefsteak tomatoes. Cucumbers take a lot of space and can overtake other things in the garden. We also do a beans, assorted lettuces, eggplant and squash.