Growing Food on a Budget

Hi folks!

I am working on a presentation about how to grow your own food on a budget, and am looking for your own tried and true ways to grow vegetables inexpensively.

I have a good-sized vegetable garden myself, and I know I have spent, and continue to spend, a lot of money on raised beds, soil, seeds, pots and fertilizer. I propagate all of my plants myself. I do it because I love growing things and I love eating my own homegrown, fresh, organic vegetables. But let's say that instead I had little money and perhaps little space to grow. Let's say I were one of the many millions of people in the United States that are food insecure (13.5% of the population!). How then should I build beds, procure soil, source seeds, propogate them and fertilize them?

I have researched this topic on the internet. A lot of what I find I am not convinced that the person that wrote the article has actually done what they are recommending others do. I need to feel that what I recommend others do in my presentation will actually work. It seems to me that you might be the best folks to ask this question of. But I can't really seem to find an existing thread on this site that directly addresses the topic.

And, just to set this up, we are in Western Washington, a temperate climate in which many things perennialize and you can grow vegetables pretty much year round. Our soil is clay, hence the preference for raised beds and good soil, both of which drive up the cost of gardening.

Some ideas that I am working into my presentation presently:
Composting
Aging manure (yours or manure you get free from a neighbor)
Hugelkulture/other cheap raised bed ideas
Growing vegetables that are inexpensive in the grocery store and/or take up a lot of square footage should take low priority - e.g., onions, carrots, potatoes, corn
Growing vegetables that are the more expensive ones in the grocery store and/or take up low square footage and/or can be trellised or staked should take a higher priority, e.g. tomatoes, pole beans, zucchini, cucumbers  
Succession planting/square foot gardening (like lettuce on the north side of the tomatillos and leeks in between tomatoes)
Seed saving
Buying seeds with friends and sharing them
Planting flowers that attract beneficial insects and not buying insecticides
Perennial vegetables
Vegetables that can be grown in containers/cheap container ideas

Your thoughts on the above or on any topics I haven't thought of yet would be greatly appreciated!

Plant things that easily reseed themselves, or seed can be easily collected and spread.

I planted rocket once 19 years ago and have more than we can eat still.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplotaxis_tenuifolia

Arugula is very similar but less likely to reseed by itself. But seeds are very easy to collect. Lettuce, peas, beans, radishes are the same.

Hi Jen! We’re practically neighbors. I’m in north Clark County. Some of my suggestions are: if you have a house: sign up for chip drop, use wood chips for mulch and improving soil. Wood chips can be left in a pile to make compost over time. Add kitchen scraps and yard waste to this. I think there is a seed library in Washougal. I would advise people to start small because there is a lot of learning through trial and error. In an apartment, maybe a small composter, but i don’t think you can’t get away from buying potting soil to get started.
Is your presentation open to the public?

I’ve also done well with cutting one side out of  paper orange juice or other beverage cartons to make a container, filling with potting soil, and planting greens in it. Works fine in a partly sunny window. I save any kind of plastic food container for starting seeds.

Hi Bethany. Thanks for your ideas! (And I thank everyone else for theirs too!)

Yes, I am northwest of you, just off the Columbia. How could I forget seed libraries! I donate seeds we get as donations from seed companies to one at the libary near me.

Yes, it is open to public. I am new to this though and am not promising anything spectacular! It's on zoom at noon this Tuesday and the link is on the Master Gardener Foundation of Cowlitz County website.

There's a non-profit in Portland and Milwaukie called Growing Gardens, one of the things they do is help people get started growing food in yards and on balconies, they start folks out with seeds, pots, beds and knowledge and garden mentors to help them become adept at growing things.  I haven't gotten to participate because when I found out about them I was in West Linn, and now I'm in Clackamas, gardening on a balcony.  Soon we're moving to a house on the border of Portland, Milwaukie and Clackamas, so I might finally be in the right zipcode, and we'll have a small yard.  Will I apply to have them work with me?  Maybe, my MIL  is a few years ahead of me in gardening and growing, so I learn a lot from her, maybe I'll just keep at that and experimenting along the way.

Lately I've been experimenting with seeds from produce from the grocery store, I planted mini white pumpkin seeds saved from Halloween, a cantalope seed and some serano pepper seeds I dried and saved etc.  So far no good.  I probably can't get the standard seeds to grow and I should be doing this with organic produce instead, but price.  Yeah we're in that category of people on a budget that you're talking about.  Occasionally we get to buy organic things or go to a farmers market, but not all the time, they tend to be a bit more spendy, and we live by the sales at the store for the most part.  I do have 2 happy garlic plants though from cloves, but those were organic garlic bulbs, so yeah.

What do I do that has worked?  Get extra seeds from friends and when people are giving away seeds and plants as free things.  Get an extra plant or seed packet when I have a bit of extra cash, things like that.  I hope to have my own composting set up soon at the new rental house, but for now I take raw compostables down to my MIL's house when we go down to visit once a month or so and in trade she gives me newly made compost so I rarely have to buy it.  I bought some organic fertilizer and I use it sparingly so it lasts and yet still helps my plants.  Things like that.

Bethany, that Growing Gardens thing is so cool! We have a small program that gets people started with raised beds, seeds and plants, but what they are doing is a league above.

I have not had much luck with growing plants from grocery store produce. I am sure part of it has to do with everything there being hybrids and maybe not really fresh either. I tried everything when I moved here, during covid times to keep me entertained. The only plant I had super great success with is celery. Grow one celery from the bottom of a plant, stick it in the ground, let it seed, and you have celery forever. But I don't even really like celery. lol.

Moving into a new house with some space to garden is pretty exciting. We moved here from Florida and it's lovely just to even have the right environement to grow vegetables and other stuff. I wish you many happy hours out in your garden!

And thank you for your suggestions. I think I've incorporated all of them from everybody's postings today. I realize that this topic is really relevant and I want to make my presentation useful and meaningful.

Lots of great suggestions here — especially the emphasis on soil building and seed saving. One thing I’ve noticed is that nightshade vegetables (like tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes) can be incredibly cost-effective for small-scale growers when managed properly. They’re high-yielding and store well, making them a smart option for anyone trying to stretch a food budget.

We’ve put together a series of tips on growing and rotating nightshades affordably at www.nightshadefamily.com — focused on low-cost inputs, companion planting, and long-term soil health. Happy to share more if it’s helpful!

Jen Swanson wrote:I have researched this topic on the internet. A lot of what I find I am not convinced that the person that wrote the article has actually done what they are recommending others do. I need to feel that what I recommend others do in my presentation will actually work.

Excellent post Jen! You're right, it's getting harder to distinguish "signal" from "noise." There is a lot of lazy churn out there, focused on growing clicks instead of food.

Etsy has been very valuable for me. Got a bunch of Jerusalem artichoke tubers for like $10. Also Chinese yams. Never would have found either in the garden section of a big name retailer.

Those two crops are also great for the budget - big yields with no irrigation and no need for raised beds or special soil amendments. They are essentially weeds.

I have clay soil, and am gradually improving it. I have always planted directly into the ground. I used to till everything, as the spring thunder storms come rolling through. It was a sloppy mess. I learned to till in February when the ground wasn't soggy. But we rarely get snow here. Now I am mostly no till, except new ground. With mulch, clay isn't a problem after that first turning. Raised beds are not in the budget.

What is it that makes your clay hard to work with?

I use cured urine for fertilizer and then there's humanure...haven't taken that step yet...all free

Hi JoyLynn -
Part of the issue with our clay is that it is a sloppy mess much of the year, because it rains here from October to May. Working with it when it is wet is not wise because it gets compacted. Then in the summer, we get no rain and the clay gets hard as a rock. Another issue we have is that anywhere the ground has been exposed to the weather for a long time (like all the grassy areas in the sun where you'd want the plant a vegetable garden), the clay has turned into hardpan which is pretty much like rock. Sometimes you can break it up with a pickax, but usually that's a futile effort.
I've found a couple solutions to the issue that have made gardening much easier here. The soil gets a lot better after it's heavily mulched with arborist chips for a few years. Sounds kind of like what you are doing. We've been doing that for about 5 years now, and the soil is much more workable. And when planting something in an area with hardpan, we just pile up 6 to 8" of soil on the top of the area and put in the plant. Everything I've done this with is doing just fine. For the garden beds, we have made raised beds, but we also kind of hugelkultured in them by adding cardboard, putting branches and leaves on that, then adding soil and compost. With both these methods, we don't even have to dig up the grass, so easy-peasy!
Does your clay not turn into hardpan ever? Maybe it's all the rain we get that pounds the clay into brick.....

Does your clay not turn into hardpan ever? Maybe it's all the rain we get that pounds the clay into brick.....

Oh, yes. If it is not mulched. Before mulching, one year I decided to put in some cowpeas during our seasonal drought. Here that is mid June to mid August. We do get some sprinkles during this time, but it may be several weeks without. I started the tiller. It went bouncy bounce all over the place. The tines barely dented the ground. I planted nothing at all.

Even a 2 inch shallow leaf mulch improves my soil, and keeps it soft during the dry season. We've got to protect our microbes from the intensity of the sun.

> I know I have spent, and continue to spend, a lot of money on raised beds, soil, seeds, pots and fertilizer.

Well we can look at these individually, depending on your soil you might not need pots, beds, or to buy any soil. I think you can eliminate pots & beds everywhere if you really tried.

The advantage of raised beds is really in soil quality, you get better drainage and dirt because you're just using store bought soil instead of whats on the ground. My goal in gardening is to improve the soil I have instead, and by increasing soil health drainage and water absorption will be by products.

I also plant everything outdoors, so I've never really used pots for much. You can start seeds inside if you need to in about anything that will hold soil lying around.

So this leaves main costs. Seeds, and Fertilizer.

Seeds are always going to be subjective. You can find a lot of seeds for free via forums, neighbors, seed exchanges, and even out foraging. On the flip side you might want to buy something niche where you're going to end up paying to find a variety you want. I don't think seeds alone are very expensive most of the time though, and if you use varieties that aren't seedless (especially landrace or heirloom varieties) you should be able to just keep the seeds and replant annuals again the next year.

As for fertilizer, this is where I struggle a bit too. There are maybe 3 easy methods for fertilizer

1) Compost
2) Living compost
3) Humanure compost

The last one can be a sizable amount of fertilizer, especially with a family of 3 or more. You do need to get hay/sawdust though so it's not entirely free unless you're chipping trees yourself, have a chip drop available to you, or have neighbors with extra hay or something you can use. It is still significantly cheaper than buying fertilizer though.

One economic benefit of growing your own vegetables is that you can eat the plants across their lifecycle instead of just at the point it is usually harvested for market. For example, you can use radish sprouts as micro greens, sauté the small plants whole when “thinning” your crop, and harvest the greens, the rabies, and the pods in summer after the plants bolt.  Many bean and pea pods can be eaten whole when they are young, but even if your “green beans” start to get tough on the vine, then you can shell the beans and cook then up fresh.

Cheap raised beds.

I make cheap raised beds from pallets.  Most pallets are heat treated and as long as the place you get them from doesn't spill oil or some other chemical on them, the pallets will be fine to use for raised beds.  Most of the pallets are made from oak and the oak will last for years. I live in Ohio and we get plenty of rain.  I have gradually replaced some of the raised beds walls with better materials as i could afford to.  I still have some made from pallets that are probably 8 or more years old.   And when the oak pallet is finally rotting out too much, you can toss the rotting boards into the bottom of another raised bed and it will just decompose in the bottom of the raised bed. If you want to spend a little, you can line the inside of the pallets with landscape fabric, or old feed bags.   I have watched videos and read articles where people use chicken wire wrapped around cardboard boxes to make raised beds. Probably a great use for old chicken wire.  Not sure how long it would last, as long as it gets someone started gardening.  

I use grass clippings from my yard (no pesticides or herbicides) for mulch around my plants. Keeps the weeds down amazingly well.  I mow fall leaves with my lawn mower and top off the manure and compost without about 6 inches of leaves in the fall.  Cheap easy free.

i also use old liquid totes the IBC totes to make raised beds.  They work very well for this.  I actually use the corners of the  IBC liquid totes to make goat feeders and the remaining middle part makes a raised bed. I get four goat feeders and a raised bed from one IBC liquid tote.

I raise cherry tomatoes on my deck in containers that hold 5 gallons. Sometimes buckets, sometimes old planters, doesn't matter, just needs to hold 5 gallons.
I can get three raised bed container from one 55 gallon plastic drum. I but them in thirds so I get a top a bottom and the middle section I have successfully raised sweet potatoes in these. I keep them by the water hydrant in full sun so I can water them easily.

I use composted manure so I don't buy any soil.  I have animals so I get plenty of great manure from my rabbits and chickens.  

You can easily raise potatoes in raised beds or containers, potatoes do not need to take up a lot of space.  I like the purple potatoes because they seem to never go away.  In fact, they have spread through my garden and grow all over the place.  I can't seem to get rid of them or keep them confined so i just let them grow.  

I think people who have never gardened before need to start small and simple with things like some lettuce, radishes, beans, and squash.  Then they need to add one or two things each year as they learn.   Lettuce is easy to grow in a small space in containers.    Seed saving and stuff comes later.  

I think another thing to keep in mind is growing stuff you like to eat.  If you don't like broccoli, don't grow it.  If you love tomatoes grow them. Tomatoes are easy to grow.  Personally, I love broccoli and tomatoes and most other veggies so that isn't a problem in my garden.  

The only soil amendment I buy is epsom salts.    And this year for the first year, I did buy some organic fertilizer to use on my seeds that I started in the green house.  Not really sure it did much so I don't think I will buy it again.

good luck,

Hi Bonnie -

Lots of good ideas! Thanks very much for sharing your experiences!

Jen

For the "cheaper" foods at the supermarket foods: cut & come again, greens mostly, becomes more economic if you harvest them thru the season.  Use more of the plants you do grow: pea fronds and carrot tops, for example.

Also replanting things,  a mixed bag, the only thing I've ever had success with it really is bok choy, where I got a 2nd set of leaves, not an entire head, and scallions. The scallions are my only real "success."

Root herbs that will do that after you buy organic. Use the fresh, root some, and plant, also sprouted sweet potatoes and potatoes.

Find a bulk, organic market that's busy and try the legumes and grains as seeds, way cheaper than a little packet.

There's also dual use plants: luffa (small squashes in summer) and dried gourds later, chickory greens in the early spring, roots in the fall, etc.  And of course, perennials: asparagus, jer. chokes, etc.

Unfortunately, many foods that are easy to do cheaply are the cheapest things available at the market.

I have heavy clay, and I use the cheapest raised beds there are most times.  That is, I just pile up organic material without anything containing it.  You aren't going to make a raised bed 2 feet deep this way of course.  More like 6 inches, but I think that is enough.  If you keep compost and mulch on a 6 in deep bed, the clay underneath will get better and better so you will have deeper soil after a couple years.  If I do want to constrain the soil in some way, like in my keyhole gardens, I just make a row of rocks or tree branches outlining the areas I want to separate and fill in the walkways with wood chips, and the planting areas with whatever I have. Compost is best of course.  If you want to grow food on a budget, in my mind, you really just need to focus a lot on making compost with whatever organic material you can put hands on, and you can use found materials for everything else.  You can make biochar for free as well.
Save seeds after the first year and you have that covered.  I don't find money necessary to grow food, it's just a way to make some processes faster or easier.  Lack of money shouldn't stop anyone in my mind.  Money can usually be replaced by a little extra effort or ingenuity.  

Another thing, forgot sorry! Americans waste about 40% of the food they buy. There are websites which will help use those oddments.

Some ideas: use peels (orange can be pot pourri or candied) potato (can be a broth or snack), carrot (for stock), banana (clean leather or "fake" bacon" and... There's a lot of info about using up the little bits we all tend to toss. I've done all of these. Ikea has a scrap cookbook called "the scrapsbook".

Just off the top of my head I'd say start with what you like to eat. maybe go to your grocery store or farmers market, pick out the produce you like, then see if you can get them to start growing. Ie lettuce, onions, garlic, celery, sweet potatoes, ginger tumeric, mint, spring onion, you could start all these and get them going. Have fun with it. Grow fruits from seeds, then maybe find some cuttings and try graft them. Lemons a good one. This is just a basic simple idea you know.

Your ideas so far sound good.

I think trying to get the definition of ‘raised bed’ away from the ‘expensive kits from the garden centre’ definition is a good idea - a raised bed can just be a couple of inches higher than pathways and not need any edges, and there’s hugelkultur too.

Other ideas:
Green manure crops. Growing clover on pathways to use as fertiliser.

Crop rotation and companion planting.

I would also focus on key crops that are very easy to grow in the area, and about being adaptable in the kitchen to use more of these crops, for example, cabbage is cheaper to buy than kale, but probably not a good crop for beginners to grow - by being flexible and learning to use kale, chard, or mustard greens instead of cabbage, it’s easy to make more use of the garden.

I garden in clay soil. Here are a couple "raised beds" from... clay soil. Both areas produced good harvests.

Bumpy, clay clods as raised beds, without sides. This was wet clay as we shoveled it. So clods stayed until the following winter broke them down. Yes, I planted directly into the clods, breaking them up to be tinyer clods only where I put the seeds. The flagg marks the spot that is already planted with pole beans.


Growing pole beans to the right in the same bed, still with clay clods. It was a successful harvest.


And a thoroughly tilled area with paths dug out to create several raised beds. My garden area is on a slope. I flattened the surface of each bed with a length of 2x4.


Edit: The metal post was a visual for keeping the bed in line. It did not support the side of the bed in any way. It was removed following the picture.

Thinking outside of the grocery store has helped my garden. We've allowed the grocery store to tell us what's considered food, yet they're limited to things that are easily grown on a large scale and will stay fresh for long enough on store shelves. Finding seeds from sources with a similar climate as me, native plants, or hardy "weedy" plants has been a game changer. Perhaps the cost is more upfront for the seeds when compared to collecting seeds from grocery store produce, but I find these plants needs less water, less fuss over pests, fewer soil amendments, etc. In the end, the cost and frustration are much less. In my area, purslane, lambs quarter, and chickweed are good eats that grow prolifically but are never found in a grocery store.

I don't know how true it is, but I remember a garden expert saying just urine and ash make a nearly perfect fertilizer (as long as your soil isn't too alkaline).
People buy blood meal, but a menstruating woman with a menstrual cup can easily collect the same thing. Don't know if you're comfortable adding that to your lesson, but it's certainly budget friendly...

Perennials
Sprouts in winter
Salad in containers (all sorts of greens including bok choy)
Peas (also as sprouts of course)
Squash: summer and winter of all kinds: Cucurbita maxima (Hubbard) , summer squash (c pepo) or pumpkin or Delicata winter squash, butternut (c moshata), cucumber (c sativa's) -- up to one from each family to prevent cross pollimation assuming one is seed saving
Tomatos
Mustard and radishes (black radish too)
Beets
Always swiss chard
Herbs, spices, and tisanes

I only grow things that are worth it...I don't bother with onions or carrots because they are pretty inexpensive in the grocery store, especially when I figure how fussy they are as far as weeding goes.  It's also worth growing things that can be "processed" for meals throughout the winter. I cut cherry tomatoes in half and dehydrate them--what an amazing addition to tossed salads. I also love perennial vegetables like asparagus.  They only need to be planted once and come back for decades with a little care.  I bought fifty crowns and they go the width of the property and then some, so at least 150'.  It's only me here, and I like giving food to friends and the food shelf, so it works.  I discovered a great pickling recipe for asparagus that I will make from here on out.

I would also recommend growing some fruit.  I use strawberries as my groundcover out front.  Blueberries are another wonderful crop.  Again, I'd started with 50 crowns of strawberries, and they have been feeding me every day of the year since.  Blueberries are very prolific and are beautiful landscaping bushes, they don't have to go "in" the garden, but can be along side a walkway...again, once you have them, they will keep coming back to give you more and they can be propagated so that the number of plants or bushes you end up with is up to you.

This may not be popular here, but for me the fastest, most bulletproof way to getting food almost for sure, hydroponics wins hands down.
Or at least what I do as sort of hydroponics.

People always ask if the produce is organic, which I explain that nutrients are nutrients, regardless of the source, and I'm eating this stuff  too, so no possibly contaminated nutrients get used and no toxics get sprayed.

It takes a lot of plastic to do this. Hydroponics never really took off until cheap plastic replaced expensive/labor intensive steel pipe and concrete in the 1960s, I suspect given hard times or supply chain problems/nonexistence we could go back to more difficult/primitive methods.


What I do is not so much the high tech versions but more towards simple like the Kratky method.

I don't try to grow things just in water, but in pots full of well draining potting soil composed mostly of pine bark, or straight pine bark for some things.

Pine bark is getting scarce here for some reason, my best guess being that all the local GP plywood mills recently shut down, but still available reasonably with a bit of looking around.
I used to do a lot of this in straight perlite but that was only a few bucks  a bag back then ($30 a barg or more now) and had to be top watered until the roots got long enough to pick up water from whatever it was sitting in.
In a pinch, coarse sand (sandbox sand) would probably work but it's very heavy as a container full and perhaps too fast draining. Combining it with something else like compost could slow that drainage down.

These containers sit in everything  from ...

trenches dug to hold a few inches of water, lined with 9 mil plastic with landscape fabric over that to prevent punctures.

Or....

inexpensive kiddie pools or concrete mixing troughs

Or...

a homemade dutch bucket system in a greenhouse for automated watering.

The essence of all this is to extend the time between watering.

For nutrients I use either Masterblend, a fert specifically formulated for hydro, my own homemade dry fert mix (Steve Solomon's COF) or Tomato Tone/plant tone fertilizer. The dry ferts go into the potting mix in the containers at about the expected root level.
Top dressing with more dry ferts through the season is a good idea.

I'm going more and more with the dry fert added to the containers instead of constantly watering the containers/trenches with Masterblend.
The dutch bucket setup I've stuck with the Masterblend but I really should experiment with using dry fert there, as that's simpler and less expensive...if it works.

One more thought...someone mentioned not bothering with root crops but I would suggest growing them so you'll know what works where you are in case of shortages.

Missed this the first time around but it showed up in the daily batch so I suppose it is fair game for a response.  
Full disclosure, I have not tried it myself so I may fall in your first category.
However, there is a wealth of difference between the Old World farming and the New World farming approaches.  I suspect that the New World type has not been adequately described but lacking draft animals, their farming only required a few hand tools.  Other than fire, clearing land was a real pain so digging a hole for each plant was the solution.  It also did not open up the soil to create the mud problems although weeds were a problem I'm sure.  Vining plants were easier to deal with, either because they went vertical as in Seminole Pumpkins or sprawled as ground cover and weed & moisture control as is the three sisters approach.  
Adopting the New World approach as a simple way to start is attractive as it involves only a shovel, hoe, rake and maybe a grub axe and pruning saw.  And a mindset change.      
Part of our solution may be found in Seth Holzer's approach rather than the tidy garden approach of his mother as he described.  I struggle with the idea that gardens have to have rows as that was my folk's design and always fall back on that design although Nature seems to eventually convert my attempts to her design.  
Feeling we have to produce a lot of produce to prove our worth also is a complicating mindset.  That may just be a mindset passed down from parents who lived through the Depression.  

Has anyone tried hay bail gardening? I heard you can leave them out over the winter and add compost , fertilizer  etc. And plant in it.

Hay has high danger of persistent herbicides.

Every hay producer in my area except one uses them.

you can test for them but then you still have a bunch of contaminated hay to deal with if contaminated.

At least locally, the price of hay has gone to the sky...as in $7 - 8 being the best you'll do on price.
Not sure on the current price of rolls.

I lost my gardens for years a while back due to this, with it taking about 3 years to wash through my sandy soil.

Yes I am doing summer squash in square scratchy hay bales this year. I finally had a batch of seeds that germinated in 2 days and had enough for not just my arc shaped raised bed made of compost underneath and nettle cuttings on top, but had enough seedlings left over that I used my spent hay bales (pigeon bedding for last winter) for a second arc bed parallel to part of the nettle bed. It took a bit more watering during the drought than the nettle bed which I only watered the ends but not nearly as much as I expected.

The farmer uses most of his bales for his horses and when I mentioned his hay obviously has no pesticides because the thistles and burrs are persistent enough that I always wear rain repellent clothes when I come for it, and he seemed a little offended at the idea he could possibly use pesticides "it's for my horses!!"

Anyway, I haven't had the bales through a winter yet, but expect to have to fix them up next spring. In the meantime, I simply used some poor quality black soil with a bit of moss in it, and water logged, that I had bought last year or the year before for $1 a bag (75c USD) when I was on Crutches and one handed, limiting my options (but I did reuse all the soil bags). I used surprisingly little top dressing but then squash aren't heavy feeders. They do love being off the ground though. I have had absolutely no powdery mildew or mosaic virus for the past few years (and no longer buy any seedlings from nurseries and start everything outdoors using my own seed, mostly saved seeds from my own non hybrid harvest, kept in the freezer door rather than bothering to clean and dry them).

I have done straw bale gardening for many years ..sometimes hay.  I place the bales in raised beds in the fall covered with pig manure.  I allow the winter and spring rains to do their thing. Probably one month before planting I shovel on more composted manure.  Then I put on more compost just before I plant.  I attempt to use the hay from my own property.

Hello he & she fellow permies...
I am constantly amazed in the number of people want to spend good money for bag compost, bag manure, and raised beds... To each his own thoughts... But... Have you ever wanted a small greenhouse in the back of your growing area, or even at the back door of your kitchen.. AND NO ONE WOULD BE THE WISER...!!!  You can... And it can also be your compost box, or it can be a raised bed, or even a winter time un-heated bed for your food pulled from you garden....
THINK, RECYCLE that old refrigerator... You can get a HVAC technician to stop by your house, remove all the Freon gases from unit... Remove all the cold plumbing pipes and ice maker... Remove the compressor... Now a days, they save and recycle all ....
WHAT IS THIS GOING TO COST YOU, NOTHING IF YOU GIVE THAT TECH AND HIS FAMILY some garden produce next year...

Now I'm sure, every woman reading this is thinking JUNK IN HER YARD... But no... Lay that refer on its back and surround the sides with your pallet picket fence.... Stain / paint it, it is hidden....

Or it can be your mini-greenhouse in the winter months....prop the lid open , attach some plastic sheeting around the lid. Instant hot box of over wintering some plants....

Or it can be your worm bin... Put about 12" of logs (hugleculture) , add some of that lousy clay ( as you say) from your yard, sod, grass clippings, leaves, food scraps.... You never, SEE THE "YARD VARMINTS" GETTING INTO IT, and there are no smells....go around your neighborhood, collect bagged leaves, put them in the box... And if you by chance you put some sod from your yard, or the flower pot dirt in the box, this gives you your first "worms".   And it being insulated, any worms should be working all of the cold months.... Making that God given lovely smelling D.I.R.T....

I have 1, commercial 2 door unit, a 1 door commercial unit, and 2 small half size units....all of them have compost working all year long....

My wife "steals" the dirt out of my small units for her patio plants... She is constantly dividing the plants to make more for the hummingbirds to hide in...

All of my compost boxes are rescued refrigerators.... The oldest one is the single tall one... I've prolly have been using for 20 to 30 years..
My first worm box...stainless steel sides....I have 6 boxes....
I have them across my 4-1/2 ac patch of land.... All are at the forest edge....

I beg all the power line cleaning crews close to my house, I always try to find the crew-boss, and
"accidently drop" a (20) in his truck as I leave my location with him...

Last year I saw a fellow un-loading a dump truck full of stable droppings....He brought me 45 loads, free of charge... He was cleaning out a stable and need a dumping spot....

Please, stop and think, you can do just as much, probably more....
I will have  (82)  candles on my birthday cake this December...

And I am self employed repairing restaurant equipment in Piedmont NC... Every day, I drive about 100 miles most days getting to my customers... I gotta slow down, my knees are wearing out...(I pray over some old pizza ovens, deep fryers and ranges)…..

I would put up some pictures, if I can figure out how to load them...

Ya'll have a great day...
Joe B..
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after some years of similar efforts i would say the most important thing is to understand that what works for one person may not work for you or for your environment/zone/soil/needs/etc.

So often people get disheartened after seeing a solution they think is excellent but having it fail in their specific setting. And then they give up, because the next solution they see costs too much or is impractical.
My suggestion would be to talk to people where you live and keep your eyes open. Grow what works where you are (see what your neighbors have that's doing well). If something doesn't work, don't despair and assume it's not possible. Tweak, adjust, keep trying. Weather and rainfall and other factors mean that all of us are always adjusting too.

Jen Swanson wrote:
I have researched this topic on the internet. A lot of what I find I am not convinced that the person that wrote the article has actually done what they are recommending others do.

This sadly describes a good 90% of the gardening advice online, and probably an even higher percentage of permaculture, especially from self-promoters and people offering classes and consultation for how to permaculture. It's even worse on social media, I've seen so much content from people showing off their self-sufficient lifestyle, and yet in those videos their tools are brand new...

Anyway, I'd say there are probably two major things to hammer home:

Be brutally honest: it's hard, and unless get the right combination of resources, skill, climate, and luck, you will lose money. You meaning the average, normal person, not gardening die-hards.

Be brutally realistic: what do you actually spend the most money on when it comes to food and to what extent can they replace that with something they themselves can produce? Is it actually cucumbers and lettuce and potatoes, or is it stuff like lunchmeat and bread and eating out? Again, we're talking about normal people here, since this information is supposed to help them and not lifelong permies.

Others in this thread mentioned starting small and mentioned only growing what's worth it and hard to get or expensive to get at the grocery store. This is probably the best starting advice to give. I'd wager everyone reading this still buys food at the grocery store, even if they're not willing to admit that they do and how much they do, so you should expect people just getting into producing there own food will also still be getting their food from the grocery store. Given that, it's clear we're not talking how to be self-sufficient, we're talking how to economize and optimize, and that's an entirely different ballgame.

So, going back to the starting points, people who want to save money by producing some of their own food should start by figuring out what's realistic for them. Do they have land that they are able to cultivate? Do they have cheap, good water that isn't searingly alkaline? Is there space for chipdrop to swing by and leave a few thousand pounds of woodchips? Do they have a truck bed that can get scratched and dinged up or a bulk trailer? If not, it's going to be exceptionally difficult to grow vegetables in any real capacity. Vegetables have some of the highest requirements for fertility, water, and good soil. To say nothing of labor, do they have good manual dexterity, knees and backs that are well-functioning, and time to spare on a regular basis for tending to the plants?

And it's not just resources, it's climate. Where you live determines what's realistic and what's economical. In the PNW? Heat-loving veggies are going to underperform. In the South? The vast majority of traditional vegetables were bred for moderate-to-cold temperate climates, and you're squarely in the subtropics, so don't even think about carrots or rhubarb or potatoes. Each climate has its own advantages as well, of course, so try to figure those out before spending years and thousands of dollars on failures. Do your research and start small.

More than likely, doing your research will include actually looking at what's cheap (corn, beans, carrots, potatoes, cherry tomatoes, apples, pears, bananas--holy smokes bananas are so cheap) and what's eye-wateringly expensive (fresh berries, pecans, herbs, stone fruits, passion fruit) or completely unavailable (figs, persimmons in most of the US, currants and other uncommon berries, feijoa). Notice how all the expensive and hard to get ones are also perennials or woody plants? Now what's easier to grow, carrots that have to be cultivated and weeded and watered, and which have to be restarted each year, or a fruiting shrub like feijoa that you plant once and then just harvest for the rest of your life?

But then go one step further. What do people actually spend their grocery money on? I'll bet you it isn't fresh produce. It's things like milk and eggs and meat and pre-prepared foods. If someone's considering gardening for economic reasons, they it's not the hobby of gardening or the personal philosophy of permaculture that they're interested in: they're interested in producing food for themselves to save money. So start with the big ticket items. No, don't buy a goat because milk is expensive. Goats and goat feed are even more expensive. Focus on learning how to make more of your own meals at home, because that is by far the biggest part of that, and by extension learning to make food that you actually end up eating and making again, is a huge part of that. Find out what kinds of meat are the most economical where you are, it'll probably be a somewhat random thing in bulk, and it'll vary place-to-place. For me, chicken leg quarters in 10 lb bags are the cheapest, followed by whole pork loin. So buy a few big cutting boards, ideally non-porous ones that fit your dishwater like the professional kitchens use, and a few lower-end chef knives, and a draw sharpener that's easy to use and therefore will actually get used so the knives stay sharp. Want to save money by gardening? Find a really simple, really easy bread recipe, ideally sandwich bread since, let's be honest, that's what you actually eat most of the time. No, not sourdough, if you want those flavors just use a cold ferment, sourdough is sexy and trendy but it's a huge time sink and has a steep learning curve and the invention of the refrigerator made it obsolete for anything but hobby bread baking. Baker's yeast is cheap and cold ferments don't need much yeast at all. KISS: Keep it simple stupid. Start by learning how to reasonably handle and use up big, cheap hunks of meat and how to meal prep and do easy baked goods, because that's where you'll actually save money. Then focus on things you can grow.

...which, if we keep the same brutal practical mindedness, means growing herbs, fruits, and berries, but only the extremely low-care, easy ones. No stone fruit. No apples. Probably not pears unless you live somewhere fireblight-free. Research your climate. Can you grow goumi, che, figs, hybrid persimmons, pawpaws, hybrid hazelnuts, passion fruit, currants, or blueberries easily where you live? What kind of raspberry or blackberry options do you have where you are, and how bad is your deer pressure? Lots of deer means you need to get thorny varieties. Keep in mind trailing varieties mean more work, erect varieties require less labor. We're talking practical here, so if you have to train and prune and tip and train and weed and etc. then it's not a realistic option. Erect canes that only require a wire or two and some t-posts are vastly better, and cheaper, than trailing varieties that require complex and expensive trellises and constant care.

Do you use rosemary or thyme or lemon balm or mint or sage? Get the ones you actually use in the kitchen and grow them. Don't grow stuff you don't use. Grow perennials first, annuals are always more work. As for annuals, parsley and cilantro are usually dirt cheap while basil is usually expensive, so which one should you grow? Just the basil. And maybe grow it in a pot so you don't have to weed it.

Speaking of not growing things you won't eat, at some point, especially if you plant fruit bearing plants, you'll end up with more than you can eat fresh. So let's talk preservation. What's the cheapest, easiest, simplest, safest way to preserve food that also preserves the most nutrients? Refrigerating and freezing. Ok, then use the fridge to preserve things short term and freeze what you have in excess long term. Canning is almost never worth the effort and expense for a beginner, and wastes all the nutrients and flavor anyway. If you must dry for sentimental reasons, just partially dry and refrigerate or freeze (room-temperature shelf-stable requires way, way, way more drying, so don't do that and use the tools that are readably available to you, your fridge and your freezer). Freeze things in small quantities, and label and date everything! If you are double-bagging freezer items, just put a piece of paper in the second bag with the label and date, it'll be way easier to read than a half-rubbed off marker scribble on the uneven side of a bag. And if you find next year that you still have leftover preserved food, then just let your excess go to waste. Don't preserve food that you aren't going to eat, because if you aren't going to eat it then don't pretend like you're going to eat it and waste time, money, plastic, and energy on preserving it for a later date when you still won't eat it. Be honest with yourself and just don't eat it now instead of not eating it later. The birds will be happy to eat it for you.

Alrighty, I've probably killed enough sacred cows here to supply a burger restaurant for a month, so I'll leave it at that.