Saving money, growing vegetables, why growing your own saves money and is a good idea.

Growing my own fruit and vegetables saves me money and  has always been cost effective for me. I have never thrown money at growing my own food, as I think it is unnecessary to do so. I am not mean but I refuse to invest money into expensive items when there are less costly alternatives available. When it comes to growing fruit and vegetables my thrifty streak comes to the fore front and I can come up with ways to save cash that can then be used on other things that are important to me.

Here are some of the ways I save money while growing my own fruit and vegetables:
Money saving Ideas that are easy to do -

1. Buying Seeds rather than plants. I buy good quality seeds, but I am not tempted by fancy names that you can pay extra for.
2. Try never to waste food that I grow, eat it, cook it, freeze it store it, compost the waste such as peelings and leaves. Try never to throw away food that can be used in the daily meals or stored for future use.
3. Make do and mend, once too proud to ask for things being thrown away,  we now have a wonderful set of raised beds made from wood rescued from a skip when an old building was being renovated. It took time and effort to get them built but the only cost was for the nails that hold them together and the cups of tea I made for my other half to drink when he was building.
4. The compost bins were also made from salvaged wood and  now we have two large composters (well compared to the chicken wire one I started out with). We pile in all the waste from the allotment, unless it is diseased plants (very rare), all kitchen vegetables and fruit peeling waste, teabags, clean used paper kitchen towel, some (not all) grass clippings, garden prunings, hay and poop from the guinea pig hutch (he happily provides us with a more than adequate supply of this in return for lots of hay and grass), brown paper bags and cardboard.  In return  for adding these items to the compost heap we eventually get a valuable resource to use on the allotment, almost organic compost.

Growing our own food has changed the way we cook as we now eat seasonal meals, it has made my menus and recipes more inventive and enjoyable to prepare and cook. Picking something you have grown, taking it home, cooking it and eating it the same day is a luxury that money cannot buy, growing your own fruit and vegetables for me is a priceless pleasure when I taste the end results.