Planting your own vegetables is fun. Don’t waste your budget paying for containers for your plantings.
You can also use any container to plant yourself a nice container garden. One of my favorite things to use happens to be an old basket. First line it with plastic shopping bags. Reuse is the key here. Then make sure you leave some drainage holes so you don’t drown your planting. Old buckets, cans, or jugs, even old straw hats, and old boots can be used as long as you can allow for good drainage of water. So find something interesting that you already have. Decorate it if you like.
Fill your chosen container with either soil from you yard or potting mix if you have it on hand.
If you are using soil from your yard. You can add leaves, grass clippings, your kitchen compost, and some eggshells to provide calcium and other nutrients to your young plants. Seashells work also in place of eggshells if you have access to them. You want your soil to have small air pockets to aid in drainage. Finally, once you have your soil filled container you are ready for planting.
Check in your search engine for folks with an extra something or other and you can swap something you have extra of to get your veggie seeds. There are many, so find one near you. They have become very popular, and you can find different types of certain veggies that you haven’t tried, because they aren’t available in stores. One very good place to check out is. http://Facebook>Greatamericanseedswap
You can essentially grow your own veggies and then take them off the shopping list. Think how much you can possibly save a month. Fresh vegetables tend to be more expensive than the processed food at the grocery store.
My favorite is first planting a tomato. Tomatoes require a good bit of space so use a fairly large container and one is usually the best number in a container planting. Then add a few types of lettuce. Next sew in carrots, radishes, and finish with Swiss chard to make a salad garden. A container garden is very simple to do using what you have in your own home.
You may be overlooking stuff that’s right in your pantry or fridge.
You may have an old potato in your cubboard that’s growing those little protruding eyes. Just cube it with an eye on each cube and then plant each cube. You can replant carrot tops and regrow them. Celery, and cabbage bottoms can also be regrown. If you have an older organic tomato, just slice and plant the slices. After they start making plants you can move the ones that are too close together. Strawberries have their seeds on the outside. Slice and plant the slices, making sure there are seeds on each slice. Be creative and you can have great results. Become a seed saver when you find something you really like, save your seed from at least one plant of each kind for the next year. There are many articles on how to collect and preserve your seeds for next year, if you are unsure of how to do it.
Saving money and planting your own veggies can be fun and rewarding.
You are only limited by your own imagination. Be sure to give your plants more food and water while they are producing your veggies. Your planting will require plenty of warmth and sunlight and room to grow. Keep in mind your lettuce will keep producing if you just trim some off and then let it keep growing until it gets too hot for it to grow. There’s is nothing that tastes as good as a tomato you grew yourself. If you happen to decide to use a liquid fertilizer, use sparingly so as not to burn your plants. I would love to hear about what you are growing this year.
All photos were designed by Vector Freepik that I used for this article. You will find the link in the caption of the first picture.