Getting started on a tight budget

Acadia, welcome!!

How would you suggest a brand new gardener get started if they're on a tight budget? When I lived in an apartment, I loved the idea of growing my own food but it seemed I made mistakes and ended up spending money with no food to show for it. I have more land now but still a tight budget...

I plant lots of beans and peas from the 1 pound bags at the grocery stores. The key is to get the shiny beans and peas they are the newest. I've planted Black Beans,  Butter Beans, Black Eyed Peas and many others straight from the bag into dirt. No fertilizer or really much tilling. I used a shovel to break the soil a bit and just plant them about half an inch down.

They are a great staple, I set them in a paper bowl till they dry and store them in Mason Jars. Plant them next year!

Can you connect with other local gardeners? Everyone I know has seeds left over from last year and are probably willing to share, along with lots of advice.

Your own compost takes a long time to develop, and it's never enough no matter when you start. I have finally given up and I just toss it all into the beds, ready or not. We have chicken straw mixed with kitchen scraps that are both old and new. It all gets buried anyway. I call it guerrilla composting.

Depending on what your neighbors will tolerate you can easily plant in such things as bathtubs from recycle yards, like ReStore. I plant tomatoes in stacks of tires I removed from the landfill before the powers that be put a stop to it. I painted them green, which turned out to be wasted effort because we then had to circle them with metal sheeting to keep the ground squirrels out. All of this saves my aging back as well as money.

You do have to find reasonably good dirt to fill your tubs but I am also doing a little heugaculture by piling wood scraps (untreated) and broken limbs in the bottoms along with not so good dirt and then straw, chicken straw if you can find someone cleaning out a coop. So, less added dirt in the long run.

Starting a few tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, etc. indoors saves having to buy sets. Our challenge here is protecting them from the cats. Some years are better than others. And my last piece of money saving advice is to stay out of  commercial green houses for as long as you can stand it.

I like the gardening videos of Huw Richards. One of his videos features free gardening hacks:
Huw Richards gardening hacks

...but there is a lot to learn from his other videos as well.

Don't read to much on the internet!
If you clear a bit of ground and put some seeds in you will almost certainly get a plant, you don't NEED compost or fertiliser, and you certainly don't need the latest preparation  or miracle amendment, sure you will not get the biggest or best plant in any old dirt you scrape up, but so long as you keep it watered and kept away from to many pests you will get something to eat. ,
It sounds like you have a garden now, so get a couple of tomato plants and a squash plant or two and perhaps a packet of lettuce seeds. cover the ground with some cardboard/newspaper and lawn clippings (or anything to hand up to and including old bricks!) to hold it down plant the tomato and squash in holes you make in that. and then clear a bit of ground and plant some lettuce seed, follow the directions on the packet. Plants want to grow and will manage it in amazingly bad conditions, so just start small and spend very little, as you get experience you can decide what tools etc you want to buy, but to start with I would suggest a spade, fork, and a hand trowel. you can manage without the fork but it is better than a spade for many things.

Most years, my garden supplies are under $100. The lowest I've gone is $12. My family and friends know I keep an organic garden, so they think of me when they have things to get rid of. And my holiday wishlists always include garden items.
As others said, you basically need seeds/plants, soil, and water. Think critically about how to get those for free or inexpensively.

Seeds -- Utilize swaps/trades or other gardeners with extra to share. If you're in the US, I've had good luck with the NextDoor app. Many libraries are starting to have a section for free seeds, too. Otherwise, Facebook groups, GardenWeb, or other gardening forums have spots for trading.

Soil - To start new ground, I prefer smothering sod with cardboard and piling mulch on top for a season. You could also ask around if anyone has a tiller you could borrow, or just use a shovel to flip clumps of sod over in a small spot. For soil amendments and mulch, friends have offered me various animal manure, fish scraps, bags of leaves, etc. I see over and over again that it helps to be vocal about what I could use (though not obnoxiously so). I also compost in place (bury food scraps directly into the garden).

Water - I was blessed with multiple rain barrels by friends who knew I was on the lookout. Before that, I had a few 5 gallon buckets placed at the downspouts of my roof and saved some indoor water (like from cooking). I got buckets for free from a grocery store bakery (former frosting containers). Depending on your rainfall, hugel beds and mulch can be super helpful.  My mulch is whatever I can get for free, including corn husks, peanut shells, and past-their-prime leafy greens.

I hope your garden is productive!

Skandi Rogers wrote:Plants want to grow and will manage it in amazingly bad conditions, so just start small and spend very little, as you get experience you can decide what tools etc you want to buy, but to start with I would suggest a spade, fork, and a hand trowel. you can manage without the fork but it is better than a spade for many things.

Skandi is making a very good point: You don't need to buy garden soil, amendments or expensive transplants. But you do need a set of tools. Little is more frustrating than crappy tools, tools that do not do the job or that are so cheap that the shovel bends or breaks.
The tools I most often use is a "Lady's spade" like this (because I am 5.2' and weigh 99 lbs), a pointed hand trowel like this and a regular hand trowel.

For cutting, I have small pruning shears for almost everything and bigger long-handled pruning loppers (word?).

For turning the compost I also have a fork but I use it less often.
Depending on your soil you might also find a rake convenient (my soil is too heavy).

Don't feel tempted to buy a "starter set" for gardeners for little money because it will be wasted money.
Buy once, buy quality.

My budget for this year (second year gardening here) is about $500, including seeds, manure, rototilling a new bed, potting soil for seed starting, etc. Not really "budget" gardening, but not as extravagant as I could be if  i thought i was living here long term. So far I have spent about $350, trying to figure out where I will get the most for my remaining money.  Last year was a bit more, but we bought a lot of wood chip mulch and tools. A butternut squash is about $8 in the local store right now, potatos are more than $1/lb, so although that sounds like a lot, we will get far more in produce than we put in.

Save seeds. Each year I grow from my own saved seeds, things seem to produce better. I think it has as much to do with epigenetics as genetics. A package of heirloom tomato seeds or a few starts might be $5. If I save the seed, the next year, I can grow that plant again basically for free and use the money for something else. I didn't buy any tomato seeds this year and my only commercial pepper seeds were gifts. I bought no new pepo squash or melon seeds, did add new cucumbers and maxima squash.  I  havent reduced the amount of money I spend on seeds yet, but have increased how much I can grow with the same budget! If I was on a tighter budget, I could have grown fewer varieties of each thing, but I am still trialing to find things that work. You dont have to buy fancy seed starting cells either. I use a lot of egg cartons, cream cartons, plastic trays, and other things scavenged from the recycling bin. Also- although i love the heirlooms and unique varieties, for things like carrots and onions, you can get 1000s of typical variety seeds for a few cents more than a few hundred heirloom seeds at some of the big seed companies, enough to last a few years for me.

Mulch. Depending on your climate, mulch might make your gardening far easier! Water, and my willingness to water things is a bigger factor for me than soil fertility. Mulch doesn't have to be expensive. The best mulch I ever got was free used mushroom compost from a local mushroom farm- carried home in buckets and more wrapped up in a tarp in the back of my car. It kept the soil moister, was weed free, and provided nutrients. But I also like wood chips and straw, both of which can be cheap. Manure can be picked up for free on local buy and sell sites. I have an alert set right now until one pops up that's close enough. A truck would help, but my small car works fine. Also- I have been surprised to discover posting wanted ads works! Just got my garden rototiller from placing an ad, picked up other stuff the same way . This year I have a large bed mulched almost entirely with yard waste from the neighbors and waste cardboard collected over the winter. Completely free, unless I decide to add manure to break it down further.

Like Anita said,  get good quality tools- I prefer heavy steel heads, not flimsy modern stuff. But that doesn't have to cost too much. All but my garden rake and scuffle hoe came from my grandmother or garage/estate sales  and cost $5 or less-  and my grandmother is after me to get a "better garden rake" as the best one I could find in the local stores ($40) has too heavy a handle and she considers it worthless. She thinks the same about my scuffle hoe! For me, a nice spade, a trowel, a garden rake, a leaf rake, a digging fork, a large and a small hoe/scuffle hoe are probably the minimum, but we do have more than that, and some duplicates. I will be looking at mail order $100 + tools to replace anything that breaks if I can't garage sale it, but my used tools work just fine.

Thanks everyone! You're giving me some great ideas!

I mostly have been blessed with great tools already, but I appreciate all the suggestions because they can benefit anyone on a tight budget who's just getting started.

And the comments about not needing perfect soil are helpful too. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed reading about all the wonderful amendments people have that aren't an option for me since I live in a small town, different land parameters, etc. (I signed up for chip drop equivalent almost a year ago and haven't received any). BUT I have some ideas for investigating now. :)

Thank you!

I didn’t get any results from Chipdrop but finally called a couple of local tree services. Now there’s a tree guy who lives less than a mile from me and will give me all the wood chips I can accept. Now I use them for mulch, the chicken run, the paths in the garden, occasionally for carbon in the compost heap, an amendment to some intensely clay soil we have, and fill for a ditch that doesn’t belong here.

I love my wood chips. The garden path chips filled half of one of my raised beds this year.

Local farmers often have excess manure. I love manure too!  Coffee shops will give you nitrogen, I mean spent coffee grounds, which can give the soil a boost. And an old bale or two of hay can mulch the garden and break down faster than wood chips. Straw is even better (supposedly no seeds).  

I like to start new garden beds with what I find around my neighborhood. I use cardboard and wood chips to cover the turf. The cardboard I save from amazon packages and the wood chips come from my local utility company when they clear the lines. Look in your local phone book for companies and give them a call. They usually have to pay to get rid of them so if you're on their way home they are happy to make a drop!

For soil, I compost in place or sheet mulch with grass clippings, leaves, food scraps and old straw that I stash away throughout the year. I plant directly into this mound after a little top dress of compost. Before you know it the heap decomposes into nice soil.

For plants, I ask neighbors for volunteers that they don't want. This year I managed to score 200 strawberry plants found on the side of the road! And the year before that 10 blueberry bushes! I also buy seeds with a friend to cut costs. If you're only planting a small space purchasing a whole seed packet, of lets say lettuce, can be over kill.

For water, you can save big in the long run by investing in a rain water barrel. It costs money upfront but over time it will pay for itself, especially if you live in areas with high water costs.

The two books that made an incredible difference in my results and how hard I had to work to get them.

Steve Solomon's Gardening when it counts and The Intelligent Gardener.

The Intelligent Gardner corrects a few things he felt he was wrong about in the earlier one, both are great.

Sonja, your location is listed as PNW. If you have access to a car or truck and are in range of the ocean, you can bring home seaweed to compost and make your own fancy-expensive soil amendments for free!

It really doesn't take a lot of money to get started gardening.

So to me, getting started on a tight budget is easy.

It is as easy has buying some beans and potatoes at the grocery store.

Cut the potatoes so there is one eye per piece.  Plant at the right depth. Then water.

Soak the beans overnight then, dig some small holes and put 1-3 beans in each hole then cover and water.

Keep the potatoes and beans watered until the sprout then water as needed.

Christopher Weeks wrote:Sonja, your location is listed as PNW. If you have access to a car or truck and are in range of the ocean, you can bring home seaweed to compost and make your own fancy-expensive soil amendments for free!

Thank you so much for this suggestion!! Somehow I never heard of this option. I can definitely get seaweed. And after researching, it seems like a great solution.

A portable greenhouse is suitable for gardeners who started on a tight budget, for example, a Quictent small greenhouse.

IF you're doing tomatoes, sure, you can just drop the seeds into the soil of your garden. But, watching those plants grow are particularly satisfying.

Just buy the cheapest pots you can get at a Dollar or some similar store. You only need a few and one tube should do you. Fill the pots with soil from you garden except for 1/2" at the top. Level the soil a bit and the place your tomato seeds on top. Don't punch them down. If it bothers you that they are not covered, then just barely cover the seed then moisten the soil and keep it moistened.

Within about 1 week you should see the start of the plant, particularly if you've placed them in a South-facing window with a good room temperature. Don't let them get too cold at night!

Once they get about 6" to 8" tall transplant them by laying as much of the stem of the plant into a longer hole that you dig out. All of the little "hairs" you see on the stem will become roots also. Tomatoes' rooting system is usually fairly shallow and you will want to water them on a continual schedule, at whatever time you set. Don't drown the plants, but also, don't let them dry too much either.

You can take the salt shaker and a pan of water out when tomatoes are ripe and pull a nice plump tomato off the vine - thoroughly wash it - and sit back and watch the rest of your garden growing. The washing I always recommend due to the constant application of Chem Trails going on across the U.S. I've used a couple of the chemicals they use and neither are beneficial to humans at all. The washing SHOULD get rid of most of that stuff!

Below are different things I’ve done in the past, but what I’ve found that is necessary when working with little or no budget (regardless of the project) are patience, collect as you go, and start off small.

You will find things when you least expect it – be prepared for that whether it be storage or having a bit of extra cash on hand.  Have an idea of what you want/need and when you come across something on that list, pick it up.  If the only things you have are tomato seeds and sweet potatoes, start there and work your way forward.


FREE OR LOW COST SEEDS/PLANTS/ETC -
See if there are any Facebook groups in your area that swap plant material.  If not, then start one.  I’ve sent and received seeds by mail with the cost of a stamp and an envelope.   I’ve had folks drop off plant materials and pick them up at my home.  I’ve gotten some awesome plants and seeds that would be considered landraces.  Craigslist may be another source as well.

Department of Agriculture Extensions sometimes have free workshops with seeds or seedlings available.  Our local Extension will have giveaways or very low cost offerings throughout the year.

The grocery store is a wonderful place!  Potatoes, sweet potatoes, ginger, sugar cane, yams all grow well directly from the store.  In this thread it’s been suggested to get bags of beans – great idea!  Seeds from purchased produce such as tomatoes, bell peppers and different fruits have all worked well for me.  Some of my best tomatoes have come from ones I’ve gotten from the store.  

Look for plants that have gone to seed/fruit and grab some of the mature seeds/fruit.  I’ve done this mainly for trees or ornamental plants, but I’ve also done this for elderberries, starfruit, guava, etc.

Going to a big box store after a frost/freeze.  This may be more of a southern thing, but I’ve gotten lots of plants over the years that I’ve nursed back to health after buying them for a fraction of what I otherwise would have paid.  This may not be a direct source for your garden, but this may be good for trading.  Someone may want the crazy exotic plant you nursed back to health for some vegetable seeds you may want.

Let opportunist veges grow where they land.  Sometimes when I bury my kitchen scraps, something will sprout and I let it grow.  I’ve harvested onion tops, tomatoes, potatoes, herbs, etc.

CONTAINERS –
Collecting containers that would otherwise go in the trash or be recycled.  Ask your friends, family and neighbors to collect them for you.

Saving toilet paper or paper towel cardboard tubes work great as well.  I cut tabs at one end and fold them to create a bottom.  I had a problem with them unravelling after a while when I watered my seedlings.  Then I found that if I dipped the tubes in beeswax then they stayed together.  This is also a good way to share seedlings.

Looking at big box stores/nurseries for any unwanted containers.  Every once in a while there will be a rack stacked up with containers free for the taking.

Looking at Craigslist and Facebook groups are good for collecting containers too.

SOIL and  AMENDMENTS  – this one can be a toughie…..
Using local soil can work a lot of times.  In the case it doesn’t work or doesn’t work very well, then keep an eye out for low cost amendments or soil.  
I’ve purchased broken bags at big box stores for a fraction of the cost.   I’ve also purchased bags of very inexpensive compost or soil to amend my local soil.  

Composting is fantastic, although I don’t produce enough plant waste material to make a bin/pile.  I normally direct compost a la Ruth Stout-ish.  I will take my kitchen scraps and bury them in my gardens.  It’s worked fantastically.  Ask your family, friends and neighbors to collect their scraps too.

Using woodchips has been a godsend for me.  When I prune my plants I put them through a wood chipper.  No, the wood chipper is not really cheap, but chop and drop works just as well in my food forest.  (FYI, my wood chipper was around $160 and takes branches up to 2 inches….may be something to save up for eventually.)  

While we’re at it, grow things that make good compost/chips.  I grow Mexican Sunflower and sweet almond shrubs to chip up.  Both grow crazy and give a good amount of material.  The sweet almonds feed the bees/butterflies too.

Learning which soil amendments will do what you want in the soil…or what plants will do well in the soil you have.  Testing your soil is key (an inexpensive test at a big box store or one from your Ag Extension) and the rest just requires reading or asking questions.  At one of the houses I lived in the soil was off the charts alkaline.  I learned that if we just continue to use our mulching mower on our grass, nature would eventually work….and it did.  

Look in your area for manures – online groups are good for this as well.  There are always folks who need to get rid of copious amounts of manure.  

Local landfills sometimes will offer compost free of charge to residents who use their services.  I’ve had good results with this.

PESTICIDES –
I normally don’t use chemicals.  I’ve learned about pest cycles, companion planting, trap plants, planting techniques, hand picking pests, etc.  It’s worked well for me.  I’ve learned to appreciate my passion fruit vines will be just fine after the butterfly larvae have eaten the leaves.  And that the ladybugs will show up in force if I just let the aphids run wild on my night blooming jasmine…and the jasmine will keep on growing.  For the EXTREMELY rare times I need to use a pesticide I will use something that is the least harmful depending on the situation.  I’ve used neem oil, Organicide, teas made with tobacco or tomato leaves, etc.

I'm in year two of the apartment gardening stage.  I've mostly gotten seeds and plant starts that people are giving away or selling for a dollar or two.  My MIL gives me extra seeds and my best friend does too, if I have too many from one of them I send them to the other, to create reseprocity without me having to spend money.  Free pots from craigslist/next door/facebook marketplace, or buying them from thriftstores.  I did buy potatoes to sprout, organic, I'm doing a potato experiment this year for Nancy's permies potato experiments suggestion.  My MIL  has a composting system going well in her yard, so I take scraps to her and bring home compost in exchange.  I'd say make friends who also are growing things, trade space with them, resources with them, knowledge with them, etc.

I'm in the process of starting to be more into wanting to try seeds from the grocery store, the fact that some of them won't succede is what has stopped me so far, but I'm growing past that concern and just winging it to see what good can come of it.  All last year I watered plants with water in an old milk jug from the sink.  Not the best, but doable, I need a proper watering can for this year.  Going to keep an eye out at the thriftstores.

Echoing what was said above about volunteer plants, we plant ID app. each one to see if its something useful, either for us or for pollinators, and then if so we put it in its own pot to thrive and grow, absolutely free  Or if its a native plant, but not particularly useful to me or pollinators, I plant it guerilla style over in the soil by the drainage ditch.  Unfortunately some of the volunteers you put in their own spot may not take correctly, but some of them do, so its worth it to me.

We're hoping this summer to be able to finally get into an intentional community of some kind, in which we'll have more space for growing.  But for now we're sticking with our patio and making do.

Starting with the best wishes for all of you, I'd like to emphasize the importance of sterilisation of tools, pots, growing medium when you start seeds, amend soil, a.s.o.
I'm "cooking" the ingredients in a pot at 80-120°c in the oven for about 30min to minimise the levels of pathogens, fungi, etc. I'd like to think that this is my small scale solution, time intensive but cost effective in the long run.
You want to make sure to bring "the good guys" back in, aka EM, worm juice and the likes.
If on a budget with money, you'll have to put in the work and time.

Here are some threads that might help folks who are getting started on a tight budget:

https://permies.com/t/free-seed

https://permies.com/t/victory-garden

also, i didn't see anyone post it, but i might have missed it: i've given tons of plants to people through Freecycle, and pots too - i have SO MANY extra pots. i suggest everyone support Freecycle if they have one in their area. and anyone in the Central NY area, i have pots and seeds for you if you can get to me. *lol*

Smart folks have already mentioned going to the grocery store and buying bags of dried peas/ beans etc. or connecting with neighbors. You'd be surprised how helpful they can be. I go to the Wisconsin garden fair in February and a number of folks have seeds for free, plus great advice. I'm sure that in the Pacific Northwest, they have spring events like this too.
Ask them anything. Gardeners are very savvy and helpful people.
The only thing I didn't see covered are getting tools. If like me you go to rummage sales, you will find old tools that just need a bit of TLC. Start small: A hoe, a fork, a shovel. If you make friends with a neighbor, they might lend you a tool or two.
And of course, whenever you eat a drupe [fruit with a stone in it] or a nut, look up what they need to prosper in your neck of the woods. Same thing with potatoes that  go wrinkled and start sprouting. Make the most of what you got.
Good luck to you. I'm happy you have a bit of land to start enjoying life!

I guess I'm a hoodlum or heathen, ... I eat vegetables and spit the seeds into the soil in a pot. I live in Santa Monica. No space

So pleased with peppers and tomatoes

I second the recommendation for Steve Solomon's books.  Also, Carol Deppe's Resilient Gardener. But I read all of those and reread them for years, without being able to grow much of anything at all. Some tree work, some desperation at a sudden financial downturn, and changing how many of each type of plant I tried made a huge difference last year, when I finally managed to actually produce more than a few veggies here and there.

Which qualifies me to say almost nothing at all compared to all the master gardeners here except to keep trying!

Lots of great ideas here. I'll add a few tidbits. I've been gardening for about a quarter century... While I spend more on heirlooms, which I love, I would start with the basics. Tomatoes, roma, early girl, beefsteak or similar. Peppers, California Wonder, jalapeno or similar. Cucumbers, Straight 8, etc. After a year or two you will understand their wants and needs and then branch out to fancy varieties.

Grocery store produce seeds are great to play with, but may be easier once you know how to prep and use them. None of it is rocket science though and you can Google about anything. I save seeds from heirlooms and plants I love. Tomato seeds take a little work prep them, but save well as do pepper seeds. Squash seeds often cross and or want to revert back to or create something new, but generally not a very welcome discovery, unless you have the extra space to end up with unexpected results. Last year I ended up with some strong zucchini starts that ended up, even while still at 6", which skins harder than 3 month off the vine butternuts, and soft zucchini flesh inside. Too much work to salvage the small amount of meat inside.

It takes a few years to get a handle on any new garden plot, just know with a little care, each year will get easier, and weeds will get less (generally). Mulch is key to building up healthier soil, watering less and thank goodness, weeding less! We started mostly with recycled newspaper (when newspapers were a thing), cardboard, but mostly grass clippings piled as deep as we could up to about 6". We used leaves to cover everything in the fall. Then we discovered our small city's dump for wood chips. They rotate piles they add to, which is great because they are different sizes and different levels of decomposition. Best practice, if possible, layer your mulch with different material and different sizes, like a lasagna.

I have areas in my garden for different things. I don't rotate or till anymore, just dig and plant. But that's because over time your soil will be healthier, softer and easier to work.

I've become a bit of a lazy gardener (which also saves money) where I leave a lot of my plants in the ground in the fall over winter. The production may have stopped, but roots have time to dig a little deeper and they are easier to pull in the Spring, both good things. Also, many things go to seed and I have early volunteers. Sometimes I may move them, like tomatoes and peppers, but most other things I leave where they start and don't get too hung up on them not being in rows. Things don't grow in rows in the wild. If something is going to be in the way, no worries, I pull it and add it to compost. My common early volunteers are cosmos in my squash area, chamomile, cilantro, sunflowers, mustard greens and lettuce. I'm in Iowa and can squeeze in some early and late crops. I like to leave a few early crops, like cilantro, radish, leaf lettuce and spinach, to go to seed. Then right there in the same spot where I've pulled their siblings, I harvest the seeds and replant without even getting up! Lazy, but saves money too. So one packet of each of these can go a long way.

I start a lot of plants too, and while you don't need a lot of fancy equipment, you may need a few items to get started. We don't have enough warmth or daylight in Iowa to start seeds (successfully) in a sunny window, believe me,I've tried. With the help of a few of my sunniest windows, I started some shelving. I bought grow lights for each shelf, they run around $20 each. You will likely need at least one germination heat pad, some seeds need more heat to germinate. You can move the mat to a new tray or section once the seeds you you started in your first section have germinated. I have several shelving units and 4 or 5 mats now, but I start a lot of plants. These things are an investment that you can start small and build on with time and space. You can use about any clean container with a clear lid that is easy to open and remove when needed to start your seeds in. I prefer good seed starting soil over the little disks, but use both sometimes. I have a bunch of 9" frosted solo type cups that I Sliced two chunks out of the bottom edges for drainage. I reuse these until they fall apart for moving many plants up in size as they grow, before they're big enough to plant. I especially use these for tomatoes and peppers as the tend to get leggy (too skinny and tall) even with window sun and grow lights. I repland the starts deep in the cup and add soil up most of the stem.

I feel I'm rambling now, but the biggest advice is look for what you have to use around you, start with the basics and add as you can and want. Our grandparents didn't have Amazon and many only access to one grocery or general store and made it work with what they had and a little help from friends, family and neighbors. Our heirlooms of today came from those times as well. Happy gardening!

I have had mixed results saving peas, beans, squash and tomato seeds from year to year.
Seems to work for sugar snap peas and cherry tomatoes but beans and large tomatoes seem to vary a lot and never seem as vigorous as commercial seeds.
I usually buy one commercial variety of tomatoes each year and I have much better results with the disease resistant varieties than the heirloom ones although hope springs eternal.
Squashes grow well and true from seeds from grocery-store-bought butternuts and spaghetti squashes but saved squash seeds never seem to come true although some of the results are interesting.
Whenever I find potatoes sprouting in their bag I plant them in a bed if I have space or in a 5 gallon pot (got a pickup truck load of pots free from a landscaper on Craigslist a few years ago) if not. I start the pots with about 6 inches of soil and feed the pots kitchen scraps and add more soil as the potatoes grow. The worms move in and these pots are an easy way to do vermicomposting while growing potatoes. The year after I plant cherry tomatoes or pole beans in these pots and they seem to do well along the sunny side of my house growing up strings nailed to the eaves with a dripline on a timer (lazy gardener).

Dave Smythe wrote:I have had mixed results saving peas, beans, squash and tomato seeds from year to year.
Seems to work for sugar snap peas and cherry tomatoes but beans and large tomatoes seem to vary a lot and never seem as vigorous as commercial seeds.
I usually buy one commercial variety of tomatoes each year and I have much better results with the disease resistant varieties than the heirloom ones although hope springs eternal.
Squashes grow well and true from seeds from grocery-store-bought butternuts and spaghetti squashes but saved squash seeds never seem to come true although some of the results are interesting.
Whenever I find potatoes sprouting in their bag I plant them in a bed if I have space or in a 5 gallon pot (got a pickup truck load of pots free from a landscaper on Craigslist a few years ago) if not. I start the pots with about 6 inches of soil and feed the pots kitchen scraps and add more soil as the potatoes grow. The worms move in and these pots are an easy way to do vermicomposting while growing potatoes. The year after I plant cherry tomatoes or pole beans in these pots and they seem to do well along the sunny side of my house growing up strings nailed to the eaves with a dripline on a timer (lazy gardener).

About plants that do not come "true to seed", do you think you may have saved hybrid seeds? Perhaps you planted a seed that was *not a hybrid* but your neighbor may have planted something that will cross with what you planted:
https://extension.umd.edu/resource/vegetables-not-true-type/
As far as winter squash, there are 5 subvarieties: Pepo, mixta, maxima and moschata. You would plant one of each and be OK, but planting 2 different ones of the same type will bring weird fruit. If your neighbor is upwind of you, the pollen his cucurbits throw may cause havoc with what you plant.
For your tomatoes, when you say the disease resistant varieties do better than the heirlooms. Well, yes, they are bred for disease resistance, but the diseases you get may be in your soil. I have not been able to get really nice tomatoes for years because of nematodes. Last year, I planted marigolds in every pot where I had tomatoes but, shucks: they still got the blight! Even will all new imported [and expensive] bagged potting soil. So I may not grow tomatoes for a couple of years, or just buy them as plants [We don't need that many anyway and I don't have a lot of room in the house to grow them to transplant size].
It could also be that the heirlooms you got are not acclimated to your neck of the woods. Heirlooms are more adaptable to different climates and soils usually, but that's not a guarantee: I tried to plant Duchess of Oldenburg apple and Red Gravenstein apple. They kept failing me so I won't plant those any more.

Sonja Draven wrote:Acadia, welcome!!

How would you suggest a brand new gardener get started if they're on a tight budget? When I lived in an apartment, I loved the idea of growing my own food but it seemed I made mistakes and ended up spending money with no food to show for it. I have more land now but still a tight budget...

Hey ! I'm a bit late to the party here, and don't have time/energy to read all the replies 1st, but have a couple encouraging ( I hope !) things to share :
#1: I super highly recommend the following YouTube gardening channels. Like, really really. Most of these practice no-till, which REALLY saves $, EVEN in the first season depending on how you kill the sod and acquire compost, because plowing, tilling and repeat tilling or mulches, aren't free, or without labor or time, either !! Huw & James are very into permaculture as well, and the others aren't exactly not.
Charles Dowding
Huw Richards
MIGardener
James Prigioni
The No Till Growers ( and I like the tomato trellis system " the trellis to make you jealous" by associate Josh Sattin, on Y.T., on his channel).
I don't market garden and I'm still not at all great at turning out wonderful heads of broccoli, but I've also had to keep moving, to temporary rental properties, these past years since I've been learning more and more. With VERY limited budget, I have hesitated to spend much on compost or I did find what I thought was a good ( cow-yard dirt from an organic practice farm), my parents farm and we'd always had superb results with the like, but what I got was from sandy soil (which my new, horrible yard is, purely) and lacked any hay or other organic matter to speak of, so, was just manurey sand which didn't hold water either, or help much. In one of our driest, also hot, summers ! So, while I've usually managed or been blessed with still a good harvest of many items, I have learned to either just do a CSA for the year or get some actually great compost brought in. And to maybe till after all, the potato bed, in addition to mounding up some compost and mulching well with hay. ( I don't have the problems with weeds from hay everyone talks about, and prefer it to straw for blocking light and staying put and not being so slimy when wet). One does need to watch out in compost, manures and hay for persistent herbicides. Ask and if they don't know, maybe pass. Research that. Anyway, going no-till overall has been amazing. Vastly less weed pressure, even when starting out, compared to tilling sod ! Again, I keep having to move ( hubby's job or family issues or etc. ) but you should be able to, by year 5, see a lot of the longer term benefits of no-till/healthy, abundant soil life, such as less pest pressures and hardy plants. That said, sometimes some areas of the nation or world just really struggle with certain pests for certain crops, such as brassicas, and/or with climate challenges, such as here in west-central Wisconsin, it often very quickly goes from too cold to too hot in spring for many cool season crops to have enough time to do well. A hoophouse ( or cold frames) can probably help a lot with that, this will be my first early spring with the homemade ( cattle panel) one I have. Meanwhile, I learned to focus on things I usually had more reliable success with. This is where asking neighbors what grows well, easily for them, helps, but also learn your own self. I, for various reasons, have long struggled with radishes whereas other, newer gardeners seem to harvest beautiful ones without half trying ! If something is cheap enough to buy at the farmer's market and/or you don't need a lot of it, it makes sense to just set that aside for a year or two ! Less losses save $ and morale ! Lastly, I'll leave you with a "game changing" solution for cucumber beetles and possibly squash bugs, which is what this was originally for, but for me the needed and highly effective benefit was against cuke beetles giving my cucumbers downy mildew and moving on to my squashes, for some years worse and worse in spite of everything else I'd tried !! Get plain tobacco ( we've bought "pipe tobacco" , it's plain, dried, chopped) and place a palm full in the soil at planting or transplanting time, with all of your cucumber and squash/pumpkin seeds/seedlings. I still had some squash bug issues on my buttercup plants at a friend's new, tilled garden but those are known to be extra susceptible to the bugs, I just read in my book "seed to seed" which us awesome seed saving resources l if you can ever borrow or buy it. No cuke beetle issues anymore, hurrah !!!

My best advice for a new gardener on a tight budget is to start making your own compost.

Learn to grow mushrooms.

Get a lot of your seeds from the produce aisle at the grocery store and the dry beans section.

Get the free wood chips delivered and contact the local coffee shops to get free coffee grounds.

In the fall collect all the bagged leaves you can off the curbs and make leaf mold.

For folks that have not made leaf mold:

https://permies.com/t/125311/leaf-mold-awesome

https://permies.com/t/13602/Incredible-Amazing-Leaf-Mold