Saving Money by growing vegetables

Can you save money by growing your own food? 

You can save money by growing your own vegetables.

I save money by growing my own fruit and vegetables and I have done from the first year.

When you are buying the seeds, plants or seed potatoes the day when you start to save money from growing your own food can seem along way off.  However once you start to harvest your own grown food you soon notice the financial benefits. I try to remember to write down what i have harvested and how much they would cost in the shops at that time of year.  Sometimes I come in make a much needed cup of tea and forget to log it down. On the occasions when I do remember to write down the weight of my days pickings and then sneak a look at the prices in the shops I am usually surprised by just how much money I have saved.

 To give you some idea of how growing vegetables saves us money  - I have not had to buy potatoes for all of July and August and I will hopefully have a crop of main potatoes to keep us supplied at least
through a couple of months in the autumn. I cannot tell yet how big this crop of main potatoes will be as they are still in the ground tucked up and getting bigger.

Each week we are picking enough courgettes to supply us and another couple who we share own grown vegetable crops with. I have harvested enough onions and shallots to last at least six weeks and  this has not been a bumper year for onions so in a good year I would expect them to last for a longer period of time.

French beans we have had enough for three meals but the weather has not been ideal for these, in a future year I would stager the planting of these so that I had a new batch coming on at the point the first ones were starting to flag in the production of beans.

Peas - we have enough to add to soups and other meals but still use frozen ones at times. I think I need to plant to use different  varieties planted at different times to maximise the yield of these in future.

Growing your own forces you to evaluate ways to make the vegetable plot work to your advantage and each year has seen some crops that have excelled themselves in how much they have produced while other vegetables have not done so well in those years. I think the weather plays a major contributing part in what we get gluts of a what provides us with lean pickings. One thing I can see for sure and that is now that the land has been nurtured by use for a number of years it is providing us with better opportunities  to grow our own food and be more independent from the rising costs in the supermarkets.