Gardening can help reduce your grocery bill by reducing the amount of produce that you purchase each week. Fresh vegetables are great. This is an old, old tip but if you raise enough veggies, you can “can” them or freeze them. This helps to reduce your grocery bill throughout the year not just when the veggies are fresh.
We are going to reduce our grocery bill is that we are going to plant a container garden. Down here in south Texas, we have a lot of caliche dirt. The dirt in our yard is not the greatest for growing veggies. We tried that a couple of years ago and the plants didn’t produce anything. Plus our neighborhood has a lot of tom-cat’s and well they did their tom-cat thing on our plants which didn’t help matters.
Last year we tried the containers that set on our deck. Guess what… the tom-cat’s could come through the rails and did the same thing as when the plants were in the ground. It killed every one of our plants.
Picture by Carissa Marie @ Flickr.com
This year we are going to do hanging planters. We went and bought one of the upside down tomato planters. But after doing some research, we have decided that in addition to using that, we will buy some 5 gallon buckets and drill holes in the bottom. We will hang them by the handle. Wonder which plants will do better – the ones hanging upside down or the ones that hang right side up but in the air. We are planning on planting tomatoes, green peppers, jalapenos, and I may try some green beans.
Growing our own vegetables will help cut down on the produce portion of our grocery bill. What are some container garden tips that you have used? What are some vegetables that you have grown in your container garden? Leave us a comment…we’d love to hear from you!!!
Till Next Time,
JT Locke
The Frugal Housewife
About The Frugal Housewife
When I was in the Phils., we used to grow a vegetable and herb garden in our backyard. It really help us save money on food especially that our family loves eating veggies.
Container gardening can be very productive but requires more care than “in the dirt” planting. More water, as the planting medium tends to dry out faster. Location is important for veggies. They need sunshine at least 4 straight hours each day and that can be a problem if your house shades the planter.
Watch the weight on a 5 gallon container. Once filled it can be quite heavy. The bigger issue seems to be the cats. Any chance of talking over the problem with the neighbor? Cats that roam are responsible for incredible songbird predation each year. It’s a big, big problem.
However you plant, have fun!
Karen, the Practical Preserver
I agree that 5 gallon containers can get very heavy. I have upsidedown tomato plants and use a 2 gallon galvanized buckets that I drill holes into the bottom of