Last August, I drew out a plan of what I wanted the gardens on our
not-quite-half-acre lot, surrounding our 1957 ranch house, to be like. I live in
the city, on a typical used-to-be-suburbs but now I'm in the city
limits lot. I grew up in the country, in wide open spaces with plenty
of sunny room for a garden. Not so here, but despite its limitations, I
am determined to convert as much of our land to agriculture as possible.
I was discussing this last night with a friend who has never had a yard. He grew up in a condo, with no grass, and said he didn't understand why he felt compelled to grow things. He dreamed often of farming. It makes perfect sense to me. For thousands of years, people grew food. It's only the last two generations or so who have been so far removed from where dinner comes from. You can't breed such an important trait out of a species in only two generations.
So yes, our plan is ambitious. I dug about half of the new beds in September. With a shovel. Every night when hubby would come home, I would hand him the baby and head outside to dig beds. Our first two summers in this house we had only one row of tomatoes on the right side of the house, and a small bed that holds Peonies and sage that is hemmed in by a concrete sidewalk. Considering how many beds I have left to dig, I have made the executive decision to rent a sod cutter in April to clear the rest.
The real question now has become: How do I make the most of the garden? I can only make the beds so big, because I have to consider the neighbors. It has to be pretty and feed us. Our backyard is pure shade, thanks to two beautiful silver maple trees that keep spitting out saplings faster than I can dig them up and post them on freecycle. (Three silver maples have gone to new homes thanks to the local freecyclers.) The backyard garden is out, unless something unfortunate happens to my trees.
Now, with seed catalogs in hand, I must decide what to plant. Our system may help you make the most use out of your limited growing space as well.
My first stop is Bankrate.com. They have a handy article about home gardening and a list of what fruits and veggies cost the most at the grocery store.
This list is quite handy if your primary goal is to lower your grocery bill.Here are the spendy veggies and fruits.
• Mushrooms. • Blackberries.
• Collard greens. • Raspberries.
• Cherry tomatoes. • Cherries.
• Green peas. • Blueberries.
• Okra. • Apricots.
• Turnip greens. • Strawberries.
• Asparagus. • Pineapple.
• Mustard greens. • Grapes.
• Kale. • Plums.
• Cauliflower. • Avocados.
Of course, there is no sense growing foods your family doesn't love, no matter how much they cost in the store. But the list is a handy guideline. Several of the things we'd like to plant this year are on the list, which simply reinforces our decisions.
How do you grow a garden that will pay you dividends?
* Plant the foods that will save you the most money, or will provide you with a food that you like but normally don't purchase because it is too expensive. Growing foods that can be preserved for winter use, such as hot peppers, potatoes and tomatoes, can help you stretch your grocery budget well past the summer season. Plant foods that can be frozen or canned, and don't waste anything that your garden produces. By mid-September, it can be tempting to let those last green Roma tomatoes rot on the vine. That is not the way to make your garden pay off.
If you, like me, are just starting your food garden, remember that some foods take a long time to pay off. For instance, fruit. Raspberries and blackberries can be faithful fruits for small backyards, but generally take at least a year to bear fruit. If you plant a fruit tree, it can take three years or more for you to collect your first juicy dividend.
Asparagus is another patience-tester. Asparagus can take two to three years to produce a decent crop, but once established, that bed will produce for another 20 years. Strawberries take two years to produce a good crop.Fill in the wait by planting a variety of annuals that will provide a good harvest this summer, like peppers and tomatoes.
It is important to remember
* The garden is a work in progress. You probably won't be able to
accomplish everything in the first year, nor will you necessarily be
happy with the choices you make in the first year. Through the seasons,
you will learn what grows best on different parts of your property. For
instance, we grow tomatoes on the right side of the house. When we
tried green peppers in that spot, they didn't do well. It's almost as
if they got too much sun. When we moved them to the less sunny left
side of the house, the peppers did very well. The beauty of the home
garden is that every spring is a chance to start fresh.
* You must
mix instant gratification with long-term production. Annuals can be
great if you like replanting your entire garden every year (and paying
for plants every year). Me? Not so much. So I am mixing annuals with
perennials and longer-term plants like fruit trees, because in 5 years
I hope to have a varied harvest, and a garden where something new
ripens every couple of weeks.
* Don't spend a fortune on your
garden if you plan to move, or if your main goal is to save money.
Don't skimp on bargain seeds. Buy good ones, yes. But don't go crazy
and spend $500 or more on tools and gizmos. That can get out of hand
quickly, and eat up your profits.
* And when you are picking what
to plant, don't discount something just because it's very cheap at the
store. Cheaper foods like potatoes can be worth growing. Chances are
anything you grow at home will taste a lot better and be more
nutritious than what you can buy at a grocery store. And, you can
choose to grow pesticide-free as well, an added health bonus.It all
depends on why you want a garden and what you hope to accomplish.
*
Be creative in your use of space. The aforementioned potatoes can be
grown in a space saving trash can, if you don't have room for a long
row of them.
* If you are going to do this well, you have to visit
the National Center for Home Food Preservation web site. If you grow
anything that you hope to eat after summer is over, it helps to know
how best to preserve it. Freezing isn't always as simple as just
tossing stuff in a Ziploc and putting it into the freezer.
* Make
room for animals and insects in your habitat. It's always good to plant
something for the honey bees, the butterflies, and other denizens of
your habitat. The goal should be to tread lightly. You may also want to
refrain from using pesticides. You might be surprised at how well your
garden does without chemical assistance.
Now that I have
said all of that, I'll tell you what I am going to plant on my modest
lot, in the flower beds I have reclaimed from lawn.
Asparagus
* Mary Washington asparagus. An heirloom variety, to establish a bed.
* a hot pepper garden, so that we can dry them and use them to flavor
our food all year long. We have chosen to grow Kung Pao hybrid, long
red slim cayenne, false alarm hybrids and hot lemon heirloom peppers.
We'll also plant one or two green pepper plants.
* five each of heritage everbearing red raspberries and royalty standard purple raspberries.
* red pontiac potatoes. We will be 'forcing' these in a trash can, like
my grandpa used to do. By stressing the plant you can get great yields
without wasting precious space.
* six Roma tomato and six cherry
tomato plants. I don't know what variety, as we buy these from my
former grade school every year during their plant sale fundraiser. They
have always been good producers.
* the herb garden will consist of cilantro,pesto perpetuo basil,and Greek oregano.
* a patch of Ozark beauty everbearing strawberries.
* bloomsdale spinach and nantes carrots, for my raised bed and fall
coldframe. I use these to extend the growing season. This will be my
first year trying to extend the fall harvest into winter with the
coldframe.
* green beans of a yet undetermined variety, at the request of hubby, who could live on these alone.
* the obligatory zucchini plant, also from the school fundraiser. I may
get ambitious and plant two, even though I know I'll be up to my neck
in zucchini. I have two new recipes for zucchini, and it always makes a
great extender for sauces and such, so maybe I can keep up.Echinacea
* A butterfly garden, including five varieties of echinacea, two types
of bee balm, and some butterfly weed. I will frame this flowerbed with
butterfly-friendly annuals, and maybe with lingonberries, which are
delicious on Swedish pancakes, unusual, and look like an ornamental
plant.
* Luffa. Yes, the luffa sponge is a squash, not something
that is plucked from the ocean. This will be a fun experiment. They
grow as a vine, so with staking shouldn't take up too much space in the
garden.
* English lavender, for its aromatherapy qualities.
It is overly ambitious, I know, and I haven't even included the two sweet dwarf cherry trees I'd like to plant. But through clever use of space, we hope to grow all of these things in abundance in our small garden, in plain view of the neighbors, without raising their ire. The seedlings for the rest have already sprouted in the sunny window in my kitchen.
No discussion of an economical garden would be complete without suggesting ways to save money in the garden.
* We use rain barrels to collect water for our plants. It saves money
and the collected water is better for the plants because it doesn't
contain the chemicals in treated water.
* We compost. You don't
need an expensive set up, but you do need patience. It can take a year
or two to turn waste into rich compost, but when it is ready, your
garden will pay you back with lots of love, disease resistance, and
delicious fruits.
* Save seeds, or at least let a few veggies and
fruits fall into the dirt. This netted us some lovely volunteer cherry
tomato plants that sprung up and gave us tomatoes just like the plants
we bought every year.
* Skip the pesticides and fertilizer. We
have never once used either in our garden. Instead, we try to take good
care of our dirt via mulch and compost, and we don't get too upset if a
slug eats a tomato or two. There is enough for everyone.
* Don't
waste a single veggie or fruit. Last year, I had two marathon sessions
turning Roma tomatoes and green peppers into pasta sauce. I froze about
a dozen bags of it, which will feed my family all winter. You will have
to have some marathons too, whether you are in the mood or not, to get
the most pay off from your money-saving garden.
