Starting our Vegetable Garden

One of my big frugal endeavors for this spring and summer is going to be a vegetable garden. I am very excited!

Last spring, we had just moved into our house, but I was so excited to finally have a yard that we managed to put in a few plants anyway. Our most successful crops were bell peppers, basil, and mint, and we enjoyed a pretty good harvest of those for several months. But this year I have visions of a much bigger output -- we'll see how it goes!

Last year we bought most of our plants as already started plants at home depot, plus we had to buy gardening tools, pots, soil, etc. So I don't actually know if we saved any money in the long run. However, this year we bought seeds for everything, and I'm trying to keep costs to a minimum in order to actually save money once we start harvesting some vegetables and herbs.

Here are the seeds we purchased:

We're not actually sure if the area we have to work with technically gets "full sun," which pretty much all vegetables seem to need, so there will definitely be some trial and error. However, I remember my dad raising pretty successful vegetables gardens even with somewhat limited sun at my childhood home.

Yesterday my daughter and I planted the seeds to start indoors: the tomatoes, bell peppers, jalepeno peppers, and canteloupes. I had used egg cartons last year, and they work well. You don't need drainage holes, as the water just soaks through the bottom.

I'll definitely sharing plenty of updates on our garden as the season progresses. I hope this will turn out to be both a money-saver and a great learning experience for our whole family.
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