The Cheap Vegetable Gardener

Doing recon at the local farmers market

Aug 2, 2009 corn, farmers market, garden planning, garlic bulbs 4 Comments

Your mission, should you decide to accept it is to infiltrate a local farmers market to gain intelligence to help aid your personal garden.

Sure, the farmers market is a great place to find some fresh food you can’t or didn’t have time/space to grow in your garden.  It is also a great place to get seeds/starts for your garden.  It is also a great resource to figure out how various fruits/vegetables grow in your area. 

Even if you are growing everything you want/need in your own garden a quick stop at your farmers market can help you check out your competition and see for example in my case, “hey their garlic grew just as bad as mine this year.” 

This is also a good time to try out new fruits and vegetables you are thinking of growing next year.  There is nothing worse than growing a bed full of arugula and figure out at that point you hate the stuff.  If you are lucky enough you might even get a meal and some seeds to plant with next year depending on you seed saving ability.

Now as always you don’t want to blow your cover while doing surveillance, so make sure you have a good cover store.  In my case I used a few people known as “my wife and daughters” to appear less conspicuous.  You can even use techniques of taking a picture of your “daughter” to get some recon picture of their products for further analysis.

In the end it looks like my little spy helpers had a good time and we even contributed a little to the local farmers economy and got the secret ingredient to CVG Black Bean and Corn Salsa Recipe (ok, it was corn). 

This post will self destruct in 10 seconds (sorry had to say it)

The most profitable plants in your vegetable garden

Jan 2, 2009 Uncategorized 45 Comments

It may be impossible to put a price on the satisfaction of bringing in a basket of produce fresh from your garden.  As well as the enhanced flavors from having truly fresh produce from your garden compared to that of your local supermarket.  Though when I was harvesting my potatoes this summer with my daughter I did have the thought, “Would it have been smarter for me to grow something else in this space?”  I estimate out of the 4-5 square feet I used for these plants I probably got about $4-5 worth of potatoes.

I did a little research first to determine yields of various plants per square foot and secondly what the value (organic supermarket prices USD) of the yielded produce at harvest.  Given I am a city dweller with a fairly small footprint for my vegetable garden (about 30-35 square feet) making decisions on what to buy at the supermarket and what to grow in the garden may be a huge money saver.

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Guest Post – Sustainability Through the Consumption of Things Conserved

Jul 2, 2010 Uncategorized 3 Comments

I do not have too many guest posts but I thought this topic was so interesting I couldn’t refuse.  Though Dan specifically talks about purchasing more exotic foods for consumption but the very same principals can also be used when selecting species of plants to grow in your garden.

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Cheap organic fertilizer for your lawn and garden

Feb 23, 2008 alfalfa pellets, cheap, fertilizer, organic 10 Comments

We all know if you walk into a grocery store the organic produce is always more expensive than produce grown using non-organic methods. Using deductive reasoning it seems easy to determine that this would mean growing vegetables organically will cost me more than if I used non-organic methods. What is a cheap vegetable gardener to do?

One disadvantage (and advantage) to organic fertilizer is that it is not as potent as chemical fertilizers. So my 2 lbs of organic will not nearly go as far (at least short term) as the same amount of chemical fertilizer. One trick to being cheap is to purchase products that are not being marketed for your planned purpose. So to solve my expensive fertilizer issue I used this same logic to solve the problem of finding a location to buy organic fertilizer that was not marketed as “fertilizer.” After some research I determined a source from my local feed store. For $10 I was able to get 25 lbs of alfalfa pellets compared to 2 lbs of alfalfa meal at my local nursery for around the same price.

One great thing about using organic fertilizer is my kids can help spread it around, unlike chemical fertilizers. It also contains triacontanol which is a root growth stimulant along with plenty of organic matter to help boost some extra microbial activity. This not only helps the grass but also improves your soil at the same time. By taking a few cups of alfalfa pellets and mixing with water you can also make alfalfa tea, which I am planning on doing later but will sure to let you know how it works out. One more tip, make sure you distribute the alfalfa pellets before a big rain or watering, currently my lawn looks like some geese are using it as their bathroom.

Why are strawberries called strawberries?

Aug 7, 2010 strawberries 1 Comment

The common theory is that the origin of the word “strawberry” is based on the practice growing the plants with a layer of straw mulch to help retain moisture, deter pests, and keep the berries cleaner for picking.  There is also a thought that they were simply packaged in straw when being brought to market.

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How to freeze strawberries

Jun 26, 2010 freezing, strawberries 11 Comments

One thing I realized halfway through the winter was that I did not nearly save enough berries to make it through.  With local strawberries showing up in my garden and in the farmers market this seemed like a perfect time to get an early start this year.

Freezing strawberries is much like freezing other berries strawberries are just as easy with just a few simple steps:

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