Video 3 Released - Grow Your Own Vegetables ...it's FREE!

Grow Your Own Vegetables with Stacey Murphy
Free Online Video Training Series : Feb 16-27

This 4-part video training walks you through the big questions: Do you have the right space to grow food? Can you actually shrink your grocery bill with a vegetable garden? What tasks should you focus on so you only spend 2 hours (or less) per week while growing lots of food.

Video 3 was just released...check it out.

The third video is (not-so) secretly my favorite. Lots of viewers have a revelation when they realize how much growing their own seedlings is costing them. We assume growing from seed is ALWAYS cheaper…is it?

And don't forget to download the pdf “Set-Up Costs Budget Template." I list all the resources you need to get started, how much you may need to invest, and ways to think about getting those resources for free. Everyone’s favorite word, right?

If you have dreams of sun-kissed vegetables on your plate, lots of them, and growing organic inexpensively…

Sign up now, for no charge.

Peace & carrots,
Stacey Murphy

p.s. while growing zones are different around the world, there is something for every vegetable grower in this video series. Check out the comments of beginning growers, vegetable gardeners, homesteaders, and permaculturists all over the world!

As regards growing from seeds producing cheaper plants, it is also the case that it is usually very difficult to get heirloom plants from the usual plant providers, and heirloom plants usually take up more minerals and thus are healthier to eat.

If you can get locally-raised seedlings from a local grower at the farmer's market, then get them. Otherwise, I'd avoid potted seedlings. Not only is it hard to get seedlings that aren't the same bland hybrids you see on the supermarket shelves, but most towns don't have any source of seedlings besides big box store "garden centers". I have worked in one. The plants available in that setting are shipped long distances in closed containers, meaning that they are either carrying all kinds of molds and diseases or they are drenched in fungicides or both. Most of the time they are potbound and past their prime, often stunted for life by poor root development. Most have been raised with chemical fertilizer and sprayed for the insects that swarm in these greenhouse monocultures. To quote plant breeder Frank Morton:""The practice of applying systemic neonicotinoid pesticides to flowering plants and bedding starts at nursery outlets is ironic beyond belief--pollinator food plants made poisonous by conventional practices."

So, once you've added up the systemic bee-killing insecticides, the fungicides, fertilizers, and other chemicals, the carbon footprint of the long-disstance shipping, the carbon footprint of the greenhouse production, the poor quality and potential of the pot-bound plants, and the likelihood of them carrying disease--what exactly is cheap?

Lee Kochel wrote:As regards growing from seeds producing cheaper plants, it is also the case that it is usually very difficult to get heirloom plants from the usual plant providers, and heirloom plants usually take up more minerals and thus are healthier to eat.

Lee, I never heard about that before, that heirloom plants take up more minerals. Can you give us any links or direction on that? I'd be very interested in finding out more.

In one of his books, Michael Pollan quotes USDA figures showing a precipitous decline in nutrients since before WWII. As I think he notes, that can partially be attributed to diminishing soil mineralization.But as I recall he also quotes some datathat seemed to show that the faster-growing modern hybrids achieve that growth at the expense of cellular density and nutitional value.

Thanks for adding your perspective. I agree that the seedlings you describe are not "cheap" in any way with all those environmental impacts. I very much recommend nurseries that source locally from organic farmers or straight from the farmers at the markets (including heirlooms). I realize now that perhaps not everyone has the same experience having those sources available. I could have stated more explicitly NOT to get big box seedlings, but the thought didn't even cross my mind that people would do that! Perspective is everything, so thanks so much for broadening mine to include others' experience! - stacey

Jamie Chevalier wrote:In one of his books, Michael Pollan quotes USDA figures showing a precipitous decline in nutrients since before WWII. As I think he notes, that can partially be attributed to diminishing soil mineralization.But as I recall he also quotes some datathat seemed to show that the faster-growing modern hybrids achieve that growth at the expense of cellular density and nutitional value.

No disagreement, though readers out to view things a little differently.

Its not that the heirlooms assimilate and deliver more minerals in their make up, they do. Its that the 'commercial' varieties have been dumbed down by modern science to utilize less of the trace minerals so the farming community only has to worry about NPK levels and nothing else. Yet the fruits retain their color and texture aspects that sell in the stores to the lack of what you bought the fruit for, nutrition.