Starting A Food Garden – On A Budget
Being at home so much has generated some new interests for us. Our family has decided our new interest would be to start a food garden. Starting a food garden has brought up many questions about soil, watering, bug control and sun exposure. It’s a challenging but fun family bonding experience. And we have created some very unique solutions that might surprise you.
How do you start a vegetable garden from scratch?
Choose A Good Soil
This is where you could get very involved with soil quality and cultivation. The simple solution for our small backyard garden was prepared soil from the nursery and large planting buckets. This allowed for instant successful growth so we could enjoy our garden immediately. Be sure the bucket has holes so water can drain and start out by watering once per week. Or how about a raised planter bed? Check out a raised planter bed here to start a food garden.
Consider What To Plant
We chose some fast growing veggies and fruits that were already showing signs of sprouting. The ones we chose are known for fast and easy growth: strawberries, squash, basil, tomatoes to name a few. Lettuce and spinach are simple veggies to grow and can tolerate cool temperatures. Tomatoes can be hard to grow because the leaves get so large and the tomatoes get heavy. It’s also important to use stakes to help the vines to grow onto.
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Decide on Bug Control and Sun Exposure
The first week was a disaster. The bugs were eating our leaves and caused so many problems. But we came up with a great solution to raise our planting buckets off the ground. We put them on a table. Now little did we know that putting them on a table allowed us to move them about the yard into sunny spots when needed. Success!!
Benefits of a Food Garden
Since starting a food garden last year I’ve noticed some great benefits. I do believe that tending to a garden has helped with my physical and mental state. I tend to spend more time outdoors watering the garden and caring for the garden. It’s been so rewarding to see the fruits and veggies sprout. For some people, it could help with reducing stress and enjoying being closer to nature. I’m sharing this video here that details how to start a food garden. Please let me know if you have any questions and comment below your experiences starting a food garden.
Starting a food garden has been a fun project. I know there is so much to learn so we’ve been spending time researching all the do and don’t. If you check out my blog post from April 22, you can see which of the easy to grow veggies is on the top 10 list of foods to eat.
If you decide a backyard garden is not for you try this indoor solution from Urban Leaf. The ideas mentioned here all helped us to stay within our budget so hopefully it will for you too. Check out my article on how to indoor garden.
Check out my review on the minigarden from Urban Leaf by clicking here
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I have always wanted a veggie garden and never knowing where to start. You’re my kind of people, working from the roots of gardening. So many blogs always expect you to know so much and don’t give you just the sheer basics like soil quality and that having pots allows you to move the plants to a better spot. I think that’s been my problem if it doesn’t grow in one spot, the thing dies. Thanks for this post.
@Ultimatelesson thank you for visiting my site! I’m glad it could help you!
Gardening at home on a budget is a passion of mine! I have turned our back garden into a tiny ‘allotment’ with several raised beds and I have got lots of plants growing already. My top tips for growing food at home on a budget: save the inner tubes of toilet rolls and use them as ‘pots’ for vegetables like broad beans, runner beans and sweetcorn, that don’t like their roots disturbed; don’t be afraid to reuse compost – you just need to mix in some new fertiliser like blood and bone meal; grow from seed rather than buy starter plants, and if you can save seeds from your plants from the previous year even better!
@Teri… thank you for stopping by and wow you are very knowledgable in this subject so thank you for sharing here!! I love the toilet rolls idea!!
I think quite a few families are thinking about a garden of they’re own this year. The thought of buying imported veggies and fruits is a little scary with what is going on now and growing our own food has never sounded better. I dont have a whole lot of experience with gardening, I always grow tomatoes and peppers, I have gotten really good at tomatoes, m,y problem is those worms! I tried to be totally organic last year because I did not want to put poison out and get it in the dirt. I tried quite a few home remedies and organic pesticides. I found that attention works more than anything. I check on them daily so nothing will get out of hand, We are planning on expanding our garden this year with cucumbers and squash maybe okra. We live in the country and have decent dirt on part of the yard but a lot of rock in the ground. I believe there may be someone that will turn our soil for a certain price or we can rent equipment, maybe you have some suggestions? I am also trying to learn how to prune my peach trees, do you know anything about that? Thanks for the good information.
@coolycue thank you for stopping by. I’m planning to do a future article on in ground gardens so hopefully you can check back soon. And I do not know much about pruning trees but hope to learn more about that soon. Again, thank you for stopping by.
I love it! I have been wanting to plant a raised bed, potted garden for a while now. Thank you for the good information and inspiration:)
@Lori…thank you for stopping by and be sure to check out the outdoor and indoor garden kits. So cute and fun!
Beautiful layout on your blog post to start with. I was doing a research on starting an online food delivery service and then i stumbled on your post. It’s important to get the right item to plant and controlling bugs to avoid unhealthy food which is ultimately consumed by us humans. Great takeaway from your post and thank you for that.
@Wilfred Thank you for stopping by my site. Best wishes for success with your food business.
Hello thanks for this very informative post, this is exactly what I have been looking for, since the locked down due to the corona virus pandemic I have been doing a lot of things and recently I have been having thought of starting a food garden, but I have been very skeptical about it because I have never had one, but I feel so good to have seen this article and read your own story, so right now I know what to do and I wouldn’t make the same mistake you made. Thanks for sharing this. It really met me well.
@Jomata thanks for stopping by and I’m so glad you found the article helpful.
Helooo dear, thanks for sharing these valuable content with us, I was actually doing some research online when I saw your post, I believe these article is of great quality to me, love the write up, your description of each word’s you used make’s it much easier for the readers to form an opinion, thanks for the info
Hi Alyse, We have been growing our own vegetables for several years and love it. We know that it is organic and it is zero miles to the kitchen. Yes, there are some veggies that do better than others.
We do compete with slugs and even porcupines!. Because we have pets and we don’t like poisons, so we have to use organic ways to keep the slugs and snails at bay. One way of keeping the slugs away, is to crush egg shells and put it around the base of the plant as slugs and snails don’t like crawling over the egg shells. If you have plants in pots, you can also sprinkle salt around the outside, as that would kill them and therefore prevent them from climbing up the pots.
We are fortunate enough to have a large property so have lots of space, but using grow bags and pots are perfect if you have limited space. All the best with your food garden. Liné
@LineCowley thank you for stopping by and offering such valuable info to help us all… have a nice day
Hi there, very interesting post and I think your writing is fascinating!
Although I do not have a garden because I live in a building, but I have a balcony, not too big for growing vegetables.
That’s why I grow small leafy vegetables that don’t take up much space like parsley and coriander.
I really like eating the fresh vegetables I grow and I think they taste much richer than the ones you buy at the grocery store.
Either way, I think not only me, but many more people loved reading your post content, looking forward to see more!
Thanks,
Edi.
@Edi Isakov thank you for stopping by and be sure to check urban leaf here for mini garden options
Hi there,
Seeing you share this post showing that you are a hard worker and healthy person. It’s so much safer and healthier to eat veggies or fruit that we grow in our own garden. I really want to have my own grader and plant some veggies and fruit. But unfortunately, I can’t do that because I live and rent a motel so there’s no place for me to do gardening staff. Thanks for sharing about healthy food and about the plant and how they grow and how to take good care of them. I wish you all the best and I can feel how you enjoy being in your garden and eat your healthy food. Be success in your business.
@Paw Simon thank you so much for visiting my website and be sure to check out the indoor mini food and herbs garden options available from urban leaf
Hello there, thanks a lot for sharing this wonderful piece of information here with us. I must say i really did enjoyed going through your article. I recently start growing some plants just for the sake of it, i think starting a food garden would work fine for me and i will also need to go through your previous post so i can get those veggies to grow. Thanks for sharing this
Wow! This is an awesome article that you have got here. I have always cherished veggie gardens and would love to set up one for myself. I appreciate your counsel on how i could start my own veggie garden. I use to think that using chemicals would be fine for controlling bugs but then I was considering the danger involved. When I start my veggie garden I will apply your strategy.
Thanks for sharing with me.
I know that finding a good article does not come by so easily so i must commend your effort in creating such a beautiful website and writing an article to help others with useful information like this,wow! whilst reading your work i understood that when starting a food garden one must have a laid out plan or structure and also there are some decisions to be made such as: choosing a good soil,considering what to plant,deciding on bug control and sun exposure,i think its high time i become a veggie.
@wilson kume yes great idea, that sounds good to become a veggie
I love the idea of a backyard vegetable garden, but each time I tried it the ground gets very hard and the vegetables dried up. I still like to do it if I can figure out how to get the soil to be moist.
@Althea thank you for stopping by my website. There is a method to the soil preparation and cultivation. I will hopefully cover that in a future article.