To save money? Start by lowering your standards. It’s nigh impossible to grow as good as you can buy for less money. However, you can grow something for very little money. Go for one of the classics. Tomatoes, peppers, and simple leafy greens can be grown in very basic setups. I’ve done all three. Potatoes can can be grown in free cardboard boxes filled with an appropriate soil. If you want fast growing and somewhat economic, you could get into the world of mushrooms. Just be aware, it takes some research and work to be able to do without buying a lot of equipment. It’s technically possible to grow grocery store mushrooms from cutoffs, in a medium made from free sawdust, woodchips, used coffee grounds, and the like if you learn a bit about it.

Gardening is an incredibly expensive hobby from a resources, space and time perspective on top of the investment of start up. Farming exists because gardening isn’t efficient enough to save money, it’s why calories have historically been so expensive

Herbs are often expensive to buy and fairly easy to grow and give you a big quality of life boost, I say start an herb garden, that’s actually worth it

set your goal of what you want to accomplish. are you just trying to save money? then you can be a bit risky in your actions. are you growing food because you might not have enough to eat later? take less risks.

the only thing that needs little to no attention are root veg. potato, carrot, radish, beet, rutabaga(sweed), etc. keep the soil soft and loamy and moist (not drenched or you will rot your food). harvest and “dry clean” the roots leaving dirt isn’t a bad thing but washing them with water will start a process you can’t stop and will need to eat them quickly. keep in a dark dry-ish(around 20-30% humidity) cool place and wash/peel when you’re ready to eat.

greenbeans, peas, tomatoes all grow vertically. I preferred growing cherry tomatoes because you will get a larger harvest and they preserve really easily. greenbeans and peas like nitrogen high soils, tomatoes like an alkaline soil(from my experience they do really well on top of old trash/wood burn pits.

don’t overlook fruits. watermelon is easy to grow but hard to keep. some types do well though. I grew some “black diamonds” last year and the vines were covered in thick white hairs that stopped the squash bugs from attacking it. I ended up with a whole 12 melons ranging from 3-10 pounds and they were sickeningly sweet.

ground cherries are similar to tomatoes, raccoons will eat them. harvest often, or you’ll lose your sweet treats.

I spent around $3k over four years (20-23). each year since 23 I’d say my garden saves me around $1000-1500 a year in groceries and that only increases as prices increase. every meal I have usually has something from the garden.

the real way to save is preservation. can it, dry it, freeze it. if you start your garden this year, you won’t likely see savings until next year (but you will appreciate your meals and savor every bite.)

Whatever you end up growing, if you have the space for it consider setting up a compost pile (You can compost in a tiny bucket, it just takes longer than hot composting). Reason is that basically any plant you grow can benefit from compost, but buying decent compost at the store is kinda expensive.

its kinda hard. To actually feed yourself it would be like potatoes but those are pretty cheap. Very expensive things would be certain spices but you don’t usually use them a lot except for cheap things like onions. Things like chives though grow like weeds. Thing like that in a container are great. You clip them as you need them and just make sure they don’t get into the garden. I think its nice to grow things like lettuce as its something you can not use for awhile and it goes bad but if you grow it you can harvest as many leaves you want want to use at the moment. They kinda go to seed you so you have start growing one and start a new one each week or so. Anything underground can sorta bee a pita with bugs and such plus things that are seperate fruting type bodies the plants often do not bring contaniments into. string beans are nice to eat fresh and keep on producing. tomatoes and peppers are great but its like a lot of nothing and then lots of stuff. Red peppers are a great source of vitamin c.

There’s a whole 1 m² home growing hydroponics community to get inspired from, I am sure there are people that has the same requirements as you.

Or else ask here: !hydroponics@slrpnk.net

Potatoes grow in small spaces and don’t require a lot of attention, but they won’t save you much money.

I think the most bang for your buck home garden are things you wouldn’t buy because they are too expensive but can grow easily. Herbs are a good choice.

In my garden I mix those with things that are cheap, but fun:

• asparagus (perennial, almost zero effort, get a few delicious means out of the 5 plants we have each year)
• fresh beans (easy to grow if they don’t get eaten by various garden mammals) and not something I usually buy fresh.
• dried beans (not a good use of a small space because the yield is low compared to fresh beans but super fun)
• potatoes (fun, use last year’s as seed and augment)
• sweet potatoes (fun, still producing them from slips I bought in 2022.)
• tomatoes (local fresh tomatoes are outside of my budget in general except for the ones I buy for canning in September)
• garlic (very, very low effort and I use last year’s as seed)
• carrots (fun and delicious)
• raspberries (I never buy fresh berries, and the raspberries need nothing more than pruning in the spring)
• weed (almost free weed rules)

I don’t grow lettuce or most leafy greens because I have a slug problem (no advice please) but have hydro lettuce on my “want to try list”.

The only useful thing I can think of is herbs. They won’t fill your stomach, but theyre nutritious and flavorful and expensive in a grocery store. I have a potted rosemary that’s been alive for ~6 years. Unfortunately, rosemary is one herb we rarely eat. What I really need is an enormous amount of basil.

What do you normally buy? If you live on potatoes then your food bill is very low and you should grow potatoes to bring it down.

But potatoes are also very cheap to buy, which makes them a poor choice if you want high value per m². Herbs are what I started with in my garden. Rosemary, sage, chives and mint. Got some bay trees that I started from cuttings last year, hopefully they will become productive at some point.

Then got an allotment this year, high value crops I have are:

Jerusalem artichokes - tubers that are used like potatoes but rarely see them in shops and when you do they cost a lot. Related to sunflowers.

Taunton Deane kale - a perennial kale that grows up to 2m tall.

Hope to keep growing both for years to come.

You will be better off using your time on a side gig.

Veggies are cheap and take a ton of effort for anything decent usually. It’s a hobby, not a money saver in most cases.

It either saves you money or it doesn’t take a lot of effort. Can’t have both. Growing even 5% of the food you eat is barely a hobby anymore but rather a job.

Some things are going to depend on your climate, so what has worked for me may not be a good fit for you.

That said, things I’ve had success with as a lazy gardener in a cool temperate climate:

• beans: pick every few days and eat fresh; keeps producing through the season
• lettuce: choose a variety from which you can pick a few leaves at a time rather than harvesting the whole head
• silverbeet/chard and spinach: pick leaves as needed
• Jerusalem artichokes: takes all season to grow, but produces an abundance of tubers; use them like potatoes
• leeks and spring onions: use the green part, leave the roots in the ground and it will regrow
• radishes: quick to grow, can be eaten fresh or cooked
• beets: can pick occasional leaves to eat while the roots are growing
• perennial herbs (rosemary, thyme, oregano, chives)
• parsley
• Asian greens (pak choy, choy sum, tatsoi, etc)

Mostly those things have grown with little attention from me apart from water when it’s dry. Many of them can be grown easily from seed, which is cheaper than seedlings but takes longer.

Let a plant go to seed and you get more for free. Leeks, spring onions, radishes, leafy greens, parsley are very easy to do this with. Save a few Jerusalem artichoke tubers for next season’s crop. Let a couple of bean pods dry on the plant, save the beans and plant them next season.

If there is a community garden near you, that’s a great place to ask for advice about what grows well in your area. They may also be able to help you get started with seeds or cuttings.

It really depends on where you live. I’m in zone 10 (subtropical) and can grow successfully:

In the cold season - fennel, collard greens, broccoli, cauliflower, cilantro, arugula, lettuces. Sometimes radishes. Eggplant and peppers (eggplant can last a few years here if no freeze)

In the hot season - okra, watermelon, basil, eggplant and peppers, sweet potato (Stokes Purple). Tomatoes. Hong tsoi (plant survives winter but produces in the rainy season)

Trees - citrus, figs, carambola, longan, loquat, bananas.

If you are in a cold place with little space, radishes are fast growing. Potatoes are filling and good to do in containers so you can find them. Greens are very healthy with so much nutrition per calorie, and collards don’t mind a freeze, neither does fennel.

You can’t save grocery money by growing food at home.

Unless you have significant amount of land and you’ve already invested in the resources.

Growing food is expensive. My garden every year costs me $200 or more, but I am not getting that much produce from it, maybe $50.

Search Huw Richards on YouTube. He has a book as well. I guess it’s suited to British climate so will work in new York and anything south of that.

Key take aways: cucumbers beans and peas are the easiest and fastest things to grow, if you haven’t grown anything before.

Potatoes are viable and give a big harvest

I would recommend any root vegetables because, A) its satisfying, B) they’re less susceptible to bug and slug attack. Carrots are super good for you.

Edit: if you have no garden space, just pots, beans cucumbers pease work well in that.

Potatoes are even viable in this method if you have a lot of surplus water (e.g from a clothes dryer or a dehumidifier or from washing up or cooking or tea drinking.)