We had a garden in the city; however, planted with plants that had already been started (and paid a pretty penny for them!). We had great luck with the zucchini, tomatoes, and strawberries that year.

This year, we decided to start from seeds. I tried some seeds in a pot for a month and nothing happened. Went out and bought little greenhouses from WalMart (Jiffy brand: holds 72 peat moss pods: Cost $5.96/each), and planted my seeds, in 3 days our soybeans, greenbeans, and roma tomatoes sprouted. Today, a week and a half later, I had to take the lid off of the greenhouses because the seedlings grew so tall!

I highly recommend a grow light. We bought ours at Home Depot for $5.00, and put it in the light socket in the hall closet. The greenhouses (2 of them) fit perfectly on the top shelf along with room for my other pot of red raspberry chutes that came from gurneys.com too early (in my opinion).

One problem: I tried to transplant a couple of the soy & greenbeans after just 1 week in the greenhouses, and some of them did not do too well. I think I will have to take the advice from this website and wait until they are at least 3 weeks old. Thank goodness I didnt do all of my plants.

Our garden will consist of potatoes, tomatoes (roma, beefstake & globe), soy beans, green beans, zucchini, hot peppers, and red raspberries.

To save on room in our garden, I’ve made my own “topsy turvey” for the roma tomatoes (I have started many roma tomatoe plants because I am looking to make alot of spaghetti sauce this year). Not just one home-made “topsy turvey,” but 6 of them! The cost from TV: $9.99/2 of them. My cost: $1.25/each (containers from the dollar store, a yard of fabric from WalMart at $1.00, soil & rope to hang them). I am hoping to grow strawberries from them next year. Also, I am planning on planting my potatoes in mounds to save room.

We will see how much fruit we get from our labor.

~M

We’re heading into Winter here in Australia, so I might be inspired to start my own come Spring!

Not to mention it’s free for me too!

http://homeharvest.com/containergardenpotsplastic.htm

but shipping is close to $7.

grrrr….

I got the plastic, ice-cube tray style ones and completely butchered my seedlings when I transplanted them into the soil.

Sigh…

That does seem to be a lot of tomato plants, though. I had only 4 plants last year (that were worth anything, at least), and still had more fruit than the family and neighbors could handle.

During the months when we don’t water outside at all, our water use runs $10/month. During the five months (May-September) that we do outside watering, our water bill averages $22/month. Subtract the inside uses and that means our irrigation outside costs us $12/month. I’d love to hear what other areas of the country/world pay in comparison.

Note: we choose not to water our lawn at all (meaning it’s crispy by August), so our outdoor water expenditures are split between the vegetable and herb beds, the fruit trees and berries and my flower beds. I’d attribute $8/month to edible crops of some kind. Our sewer provider is a separate utility and is a flat monthly fee.

Second note: We do have a shallow irrigation well that I can use until about July 1 (when it dries up). This is used mainly on the herbs. I also have a rain barrel I use to collect water for hand-watering newly planted seedlings and bedding plants in the flower garden.

I’m actually impressed our water costs are so low. When Jd & I bought our first house, we didn’t realize we had to pay for water. We watered that beautiful lawn every day the entire first month– May– until the first bill arrived. Surprise! Now we don’t prioritize a “perfect” lawn of grass, so it lets us spent our energy and money elsewhere.

A previous poster mentioned the possible energy consumption issue around the upright freezer - would be very curious to hear about that. We’re on a solid grid but only wired for 70 amps, so we have to count watts (stereo+vacuum=boom, for example).

If the freezer turns out to be a big pig, would laying it on its back work? I’ve heard of people doing that with their fridges in genny-dependent situations.

I think food production is becoming critical for us peasantry. Local meat and dairy is being blocked by new inspection regulations, while big agribusiness puts on its Local(TM) Organic(TM) makeup.

If I can raise carrots more impressive than last year’s rather, ahem, puny bitter stubs, I might even try out a chicken or two.

Have to check out this bio-dome. Maybe I can make one myself (this year’s cash, if any, is reserved for flour, firewood, and dirt).

Everyone’s expenses seem high on the dirt+shovels front. Last year I spent about sixty bucks for several hundred litres of dirt, plus the cost of some seeds.

Water costs here are negligible (I live on the West Coast, up north, and it’s wet and forested here). I have a couple of hoses, some recycled buckets, some very cheap (sub-$10 each) light tools, and I’m getting along O.K. so far. I would advise people finding their overhead high to shop out of town, and buy soil and manure and the like in farm country if possible.

Anyway, I digress, as usual. Looking forward to seeing how your garden grows. It seems you’re a bit ahead of us seasonally down there - I’ve still got frost every morning and only the most tentative little buds are poking forth here and there.

Off to punch down my dough (it’s PIZZA NIGHT here hahahaaaarrrll drool slurp),
Lord Reptor.

But, being dreadful gardeners, and our previous gardening attempts all having turned out quite futile, we often conclude that it might end up costing us more money.

Now I have more seedlings than I know what to do with.

They look good so far!

Well, after adding up the cost of our garden; tiller rental, fertilizer, garden hose, hoe, shovel, seeds and seedlings. We spent a total of $235 for a handful of tomatoes, and two bags of green beans!

Not to mention all of the time we spent planting, and watering.

Oh well, at least we got the itch to start a garden out of our system.

I’ve tried starting from seed before, but didn’t have much luck. However, I didn’t have a ‘grow lamp’. How much does this cost (other than the electricity)? Does the bio-dome eliminate the need for this?

Are you planning on canning your extra vegetables? Or just tossing them in the freezer? You may have discussed this in an earlier post, and if so, please point me in that direction. . . .

good luck!

I’d recommend that anyone with such passions and interests invest in a subscription to Mother Earth News. The spring issues are chock-full of awesome money-savers for creating and maintaining a small garden, composting, and advice about fertilizer.

For example, I was going to rent a rototiller to turn up the soil on my 18 x 24 garden plot. But then I learned that that the better way is to cover the entire piece of land with newspapers for a couple weeks and let the newspapers kill the weeds for you.

Then you choose where your rows will be and pile on some local (usually free) compost in the rows (right on top of the newspaper), while putting down wood ships (usually free from a local stump grinder) in the paths. This totally negates my need for a rototiller and helps control the weeds all summer long.

What I didn’t realize is that when you till the entire plot, you turn up thousands of new weeds sprouts and give them exposure to the sun, thereby creating a virtual weed garden! I’m so excited that using this method will drastically cut down on my weeding time this year, plus I can use the established paths and rows for years to come. No more tilling for me!

In addition, Mother Earth News comments that many people spend oodles of money on chemical fertilizers when one of the best fertilizers is one we usually throw away: pesticide-free grass clippings. Grass clippings are also awesomely effective for weed control when you put a thick layer all around your veggie plants.

Check out http://www.motherearthnews.com…I think you’ll find that a $10 subscription will pay itself off with the first issue!

Good luck to all you fellow gardeners out there! Enjoy the experience!

This is a very clever series, I’ve always wanted to do the garden thing but we don’t get enough sun (it’s the way our townhouse is laid out, nothing to do with geography).

The main design flaw in the uprights is that every time you open the door, the cold air inside the freezer spills out onto the floor, resulting in the compressor having to kick on and drag the temperature back down. (Remember that hot air rises, cold air falls) Chest freezers are much better in this sense as they don’t have an escape path for the cold air. Be sure to minimize the times you open the door as much as possible.

Also, a freezer is at its most efficient when it is full. If you only have a few items in there at the beginning of the season, you may want to bulk up the items by freezing water in old gallon milk jugs and using those to help. This is due to the frozen mass of the contents being much better at maintaining the temperature than the compressor.

Just a few caveats to be aware of. I hope your harvest is more than enough to make it worthwhile.

We will be getting a late start here, as we will not be able to start even prepping our garden until after we get into the new house the middle of May. Until then, we will live vicariously through your efforts.

Also got some tomato seeds from my in laws (Tomatoes in Spain are almost inedible) and planning on starting them in clean yogurt containers.