Grow Fruits and Vegetables to Shrink Your Cost of Living
Why Risk Your Money in Crazy Investments when Cutting Costs is a Surefire Way to Wealth?
Do you want to know whether the economy is experiencing inflation, deflation, stagflation? Why not hedge your bets and protect against all three at one time? Here are some investments that will always pay off.
Does your family enjoy eating? Well, no matter what government propaganda says, the cost of food skyrockets in good times and bad. First, because we have to eat. Second, because the fertilizers that farmers use is created by using petroleum. That's right. All that ethanol from corn was grown with fertilizers that consumed millions of gallons of oil.
What to do? How about making sure that your family can afford expensive and nutritious fruit for years to come? The Fall season is ideal for planting fruit trees and perennial plants such as blueberries. Right now, Burpee Gardens is offering a variety of blueberries for Fall planting to yield berries for the life of the plant, which is probably a lot longer than the life of the latest hair-brained investment craze.
Buy a strawberry jar-a large terracotta pot with pockets for planting-and a few strawberry plants in the Spring and you will have both an attractive and decorative addition to your front porch and a convenient source of berries for the cornflakes and the waffles.
How about picking up a few fruit trees? Now's the time to get them so they can establish roots during the dormancy period. Depending on the species, you may need at least two trees for pollination. Consult your local nursery or botanical garden for the best varieties for your garden.
How about a few pots of tomatoes, some hot peppers or some herbs? All of these are easily grown as houseplants, in containers or outdoors during the appropriate time for your climate zone. Don't forget the old-fashioned cold frame. You can buy or make this season-extending mini-greenhouse. Sometimes it takes nothing more than an old window perched on some bales of hay or a wooden frame with a window perched atop. Just watch out for lead on old windows. You might not want to use those for edible plants.
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden has information on cold-frames in this month's newsletter (link below). By using a cold frame or even putting glass jars over tender plants you can extend the growing season for several weeks. Some nice fresh lettuce in November sounds good about now. See my article: Fall Vegetables for Fast Harvests for more information on fast-growing vegetables.http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2114525/fall_vegetables_for_fast_harvests.html?cat=32
Do you need time to think about this? Not to worry. You can also plant in the Spring. And if you choose you can work on improving the fertility of your soil instead. You do not need a great deal of chemical fertilizer if you start adding compost. In fact, if you don't want a full-fledged compost pile, you may simply make a point of mixing in coffee grounds and egg shells from your morning breakfast into the soil. If you need more heavy-duty work, its the ideal time to add manures since fresh manure takes several weeks to decay before the ground can be planted. Since the smell is pretty bad, that may be better for the back 40 than your front yard
If you yard is truly stony ground you may want to mix in some peat or some decayed leaves as well. Just don't go overboard. You want to save money. So if you find you have to do too much, select different plants or use container gardening and a few old pots or discarded containers. Make sure you cultivate the soil repeatedly before planting to kill weeds, oxygenate the soil and expose noxious insects to the beady gaze of hungry birds. Feel free to enjoy growing dividends that the government won't tax and the money men won't take.
Here is a link to all of my gardening and money-saving articles:
www.associatedcontent.com/user/583548/mary_finn.html
Sources:
http://www.burpee.com/category/blueberries+for+fall+planting.do?cid=2009_10_01_Blueberries&sortby=newArrivals
www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/sustainable/2009fa_coldframe.html
Published by Mary Finn
- Growing Dwarf Fruit TreesI don't believe that dwarf fruit trees will ever equal the regular trees in fruit production or any other way but I think there is a place for them in the garden.
Organic Vegetable Gardening the Lazy WayMy vegetable gardening methods are organic, not because I have any deep convictions about using organic versus synthetic fertilizers or pesticides, but because I'm a lazy cheaps...
Three Popular Insecticides for Fruit TreesWhen insects begin attacking your fruit trees, it's time to nip those pests in the bud. Here are three popular insecticides for fruit trees that can be purchased at your local h...
- Cold Frames Provide Gardening Benefits
- Constructing a Cold Frame for Winter Gardening
- Sow Seeds of Flowering Perennials Using a Cold Frame
- Benefits of Cold Frames
- Trimming Your Fruit Trees Can Lead to a Greater Fruit Bearing the Following Year.
- Cool Container Ideas for Container Gardening
- Container Gardening: Finding the Perfect Container
- Avoid crackpot investment schemes, invest in real long term growth
- Practical additions to your garden provide years of nourishment and savings
- How to maximize your growing season and minimize your costs
3 Comments
Post a CommentWe have to wait till summer to grow fruits and veggies, with a little luck with cool weather crops in fall. But we can grow herbs year round.Interesting article.
i have always thought it is more what you can save than earn
if you think you can grow carrots for a living , think again and thank the multi-nationals
it is a selfish world...:)
Lol, kind of a thin connection between gardens and economies. The "hook" of the article (needing a reliable investment) was kind of a flimsy way to transition into a list of the benefits of gardening.