A budget veggie garden?

[Amii]

Here's a good article on which plants will save you the most money.


The most profitable plants in your vegetable garden

http://www.cheapvegetablegardener.com/2009/01/most-profitable-plants-in-your.html

 

[Zhoen]

Question- I have heard of using newspaper as free "mulch" in a garden, anybody tried this and any pros/cons/recommendations you can share?

I was thinking of putting it in the flower beds as a sort of biodegradable landscape fabric/weed block, then topping it with the normal, pretty mulch. Cheap and earth-friendly or not, I can't imagine just letting it all hang out... so anyone know how well that sort of thing works? Should I be concerned about chemicals in the ink?

 

[mrodgers]

Here's a good article on which plants will save you the most money.


The most profitable plants in your vegetable garden

http://www.cheapvegetablegardener.com/2009/01/most-profitable-plants-in-your.html

That doesn't show the most profitable, it shows the value per square foot. Big difference.

Corn according to the article is $1.25 (would like to know how he came up with the values.) You get about 100 seeds in a packet of corn for $3. Each seed (in a perfect world) nets you 1 stalk with 2 ears. Thus, that is 200 ears of corn, or about 15 or so farmer's dozen (13 ears.) So, for $3 you get 15 dozen or you can stop at the roadside stand and buy the "fresh" stuff that has been picked a few days ago for $5/dozen. For $3, you get $75 worth of corn bought off the farmer.

Like I said in an earlier post, 2 stalks per square foot will net 4 ears of corn. That from a farmer is $1.50. 4 ears of corn from a $3 packet of seeds is $0.06

Question- I have heard of using newspaper as free "mulch" in a garden, anybody tried this and any pros/cons/recommendations you can share?

I was thinking of putting it in the flower beds as a sort of biodegradable landscape fabric/weed block, then topping it with the normal, pretty mulch. Cheap and earth-friendly or not, I can't imagine just letting it all hang out... so anyone know how well that sort of thing works? Should I be concerned about chemicals in the ink?

We don't get the paper delivered, but any time I buy one, I always save it to use in the garden as well as pull a bunch out of the recycling at work. You can tear it into strips, wet it down, and lay it out. Our first mowing in the spring creates a ton of grass laying around, so I just lay down sheets of newspaper and lay cut grass over top of it. By fall, the newspaper is gone. Cut grass and stripped newspaper is the 2 most common things to throw into a compost pile aside from the normal kitchen waste.

Corrugated cardboard can also be used to block weeds and toss into the compost pile.

 

[pixiewings71]

You should be able to. I plant my lettuce and spinach under my cucumber A-frame and they do fine there with only the dappled sun that comes through the vines.



Hmm, I wonder how the neighbor who watches our dog feels about chickens? He's over here morning and night when we're gone anyway to let the dog out and play with her a bit. We don't have any real predators in this area unless neighborhood cats count; we're in a small town and I thought for sure we'd have raccoon, deer, rabbits, etc. but they all seem to stay out in the cornfields where the food is easier to steal and there are less people & pets interrupting their foraging.



Here too. We have a big lot for our neighborhood at 1/4 acre, and we're actually considering buying the foreclosure next door to have more yard. Ours was the original house on the block and the man who built it held on to a nice yard for himself when he started splitting the property to build houses for his kids and grandkids. Around here, a lot of houses don't have much more than the space the house sits on. But it does come with perks - I basically don't drive from April through October because everything I need is walking distance from my house.

Thank You!! I'm going to show that to DBF and see if maybe we can plant some lettuce this year!! We eat a lot of salads in our house.

 

[Colleen27]

Here's a good article on which plants will save you the most money.


The most profitable plants in your vegetable garden

http://www.cheapvegetablegardener.com/2009/01/most-profitable-plants-in-your.html

Profitable only matters if you're selling. That sort of list makes a lot of sense for people looking to start a market garden, though even then you have to know your local shopper demographics as well. It isn't much use in planning a backyard kitchen garden, though. There's no value at all in growing something you're not going to eat.

Question- I have heard of using newspaper as free "mulch" in a garden, anybody tried this and any pros/cons/recommendations you can share?

I was thinking of putting it in the flower beds as a sort of biodegradable landscape fabric/weed block, then topping it with the normal, pretty mulch. Cheap and earth-friendly or not, I can't imagine just letting it all hang out... so anyone know how well that sort of thing works? Should I be concerned about chemicals in the ink?

I've used it under raised beds to help kill the grass beneath the soil and it seemed to work well enough. Most (maybe all?) newspapers use soy-based inks now which are considered safe for compost/mulch.

 

[gillenkl]

My advice is to read up on square foot gardening at www.squarefootgardening.org - I have one that is 20 x 4. So far I have peas-lettuce-radishes-swiss chard-carrots-spinach planted. After the last frost I'll be putting in corn-tomatoes-peppers. I'd start small and work my way up and don't count on kids for doing the work, although they will probably enjoy picking the vegetables....kids often lose interest in projects....