Grow the herbs, not the potatoes

People are honest, and the answer many people give is no, with an exception this whole page is about. Some people say the upfront cost of soil, pots, seed and tools means a new garden does not break even for several years, and that it is a hobby or a way of life before it is a budget line; in the discussions, some people say a garden lowers food bills and many people say it costs more than the shop. Some people say their grocery bill was not lower for gardening, others that it was too much work for the return, and others that bad years cost more in inputs than the produce would have cost to buy. People warn why, one person each: everything depends on already having fertile soil and supplies — bought fresh, they are the cost; bagged soil is poorer than it looks and wants fertiliser; pests — squirrels, voles, caterpillars, vine borers — can take a crop before it yields a penny; weather does the same; a beginner picks finicky plants and loses them; and the shop drops its prices exactly when your tomatoes ripen, because everyone else’s did too. One person points out that home-grown is not automatically organic — a farmer notes that home gardens use sprays too. One person warns to write off the first two seasons as tuition. So the frame: a garden is a hobby that sometimes pays, and the next three questions are about making it pay where it can — which is the herbs, the berries and the free inputs — and not pretending it pays where it cannot, which is the potatoes. Some people add the thing they would not trade: the tomatoes and greens taste better than anything the supermarket sells, and some people say gardening is relaxing and calming even when it saves nothing, which is not a saving but is not nothing.

Herbs first, then anything expensive by weight, then anything that comes back on its own. Some people say herbs are one of the few things a garden reliably saves money on, because fresh herbs are dear at the shop for the little you get and cost almost nothing to grow; others say the flavour alone justifies them even where the saving is small, and others say rosemary, thyme, oregano and sage are nearly unkillable and turn into shrubs, that basil roots from a cutting in a glass of water, and that spring onions regrow in a pot. One person warns, and another learned it the hard way: mint takes over anything it is planted in — and keeping it in a pot is this page’s own fix, since people named containment as a gap. Then the dear things: individual people name berries, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers and salad leaves as the crops worth space because of what the shop charges, and people argue it, some people on each side, turning on plot size, local prices and whether your time counts as a cost — and the practical reading is to grow what is expensive to buy, not what is cheap. Some people say perennials are the long game — asparagus, berry canes, fruit trees — because they cost once and produce for years; people argue it, one person on one side and some people on the other, and it resolves on your time horizon, since one person warns trees take years before a real crop, and another says raspberries and blackberries want a warning about how they spread. Warnings people give about success, one person each: two courgette or squash plants feed a street, so plant one; and basil dies if you miss two days of water once it is big. One person grows sprouts and microgreens indoors — lentils, peas, broccoli — because the shop charges most for those by weight and they grow in days; sprouts need no light at all, and the seed warnings above apply. Some people put a number on it this page carries as theirs: herbs and hydroponic greens saved them six to nine US dollars a week, which is the honest scale of a windowsill.

Potatoes, and people argue it properly, so here are both sides. Some people say that for cheap staples — potatoes, onions, carrots, basic vegetables — the soil, the containers and the labour cost more than the shop charges, and some say the potting soil alone, bought by the bag, outruns the saving. People argue the potato question, with some people on each side: one side says potatoes are easy, filling, fun and worth the space for the satisfaction of digging them; the other says they are the worst possible choice for a frugal gardener, because their market value is lowest and their input cost is not. People argue the same way about growing potatoes indoors under lights, one person for and some people against, where the electricity finishes the argument. People’s own decider settles it for this page: if the goal is strictly money, the second side wins, and if the goal is the hobby and the hour of calm, grow the potatoes and enjoy them. Some mistakes people caught, one person each, are worth carrying for anyone who does: heaping soil up over the stems — hilling — does not make more potatoes, it keeps the light off the ones you have, and burying the leaves cuts the harvest; a pile of dirt in a corner is not a potato bed until it has been worked with water, manure and existing soil for a week or two; and the stacked ‘potato tower’ that the sellers of supplies promote does not, in the words of the person who corrected it, grow potatoes that way. People warn, one person each: potatoes left in the ground come back for years whether you want them or not, and — the safety line — a potato gone green in the light has made a toxin in the skin. Some people do buy potatoes and let them sprout as seed stock; how exactly is a gap people named.

By paying for almost nothing, which some people say is possible in most towns. In some discussions people source compost free — from coffee shops’ grounds, a bakery’s waste, the council’s or the city’s giveaway days — swap seed, and borrow seed from a library that lends it; one person adds free manure from a local stable, composted first; others add local giving-groups and classified pages for pots, cuttings and buckets, restaurant buckets for containers, end-of-season clearance seed stored in the freezer, saving your own seed, and propagating from cuttings and saving seed. One person notes that in the US, food-assistance benefits can be spent on edible plants and seeds. Some people mix their own soil — topsoil, compost, a lightener — rather than buying it bagged, and in some discussions they use square-foot planting and free compost to cut start-up costs. Some people say to grow in the ground rather than in raised beds or pots if you have ground at all: mineral soil does not decay the way container mixes do, it is improved by adding organic matter over the years, and mulch cuts the watering; a raised bed is convenient and expensive, and one person edges beds with foraged stone and sticks. The mistakes people caught and the warnings they give for the free route, because free has traps: do not put dirt from the garden into pots or grow bags — one person points out it carries disease and holds too much water, and potatoes rot in it; fresh manure burns plants and must be aged or composted first, and one person warns manure from animals whose feed carried herbicide can bring it into your bed, and cow manure is safer than horse; only food-grade buckets, one person says, unless you know what they held; hard tap water salts a pot over time, and rainwater is better where you are allowed to collect it — the rules vary by US state and by country, so check yours. One person’s warning sums the whole question up: it is tempting to substitute money for skill, and that is exactly what a frugal garden cannot afford.

For herbs and salad leaves, some people say yes; for anything you would call a vegetable, many people say no. Some people say herbs are the only edible thing that reliably grows indoors, because full crops want more light and pollination than a window gives — one person points out a south-facing window is not enough for fruiting plants, and individual people who succeed indoors mention a grow light, and indoor instructions beyond a sunny window are a gap people named, whose electricity one person calls negligible and another says is the cost that kills the potato maths. People argue the indoor question in full, with some people on each side: one side says indoor growing is space-hungry, fiddly and dearer than the shop once you count kit and power; the other says it works well for herbs and leafy greens, especially in winter and especially where there is no outdoor space at all — and people’s decider is the crop, not the flat. People land in the same place in other discussions: a windowsill will not dent a family’s grocery bill, and it will keep you in basil and salad; one person grows lettuce, spinach and kale in a tote of water with nutrients — and one person points out plain water alone will not do it, the plants weaken and rot without feed. The warnings for indoors, one person each: the ready-made growing kits cost a great deal for what they yield; a homemade water system can leak or raise the humidity enough to mould a wall; pots need feeding because the soil is finite; cats eat the plants; and every cycle of lights and fabric pots is a cost you pay again. Some people say the more frugal indoor answer is not indoors: a community garden or a co-op, where the land is shared. And one clause for the reader who saw the advice about keeping chickens for eggs: not indoors unless you will clean daily, and it is a different page.