Costs To Anticipate If You Want To Set Up A Home Garden
Having a home garden has been touted by health specialist to be an affordable method of bringing more nutrition and flavor to the typical diet. When it is done in the right way, the tiniest lawn or yard can yield a windfall of the best produce specimens and even save you a lot from your grocery budget.
The following factors below will tell you how to calculate the true cost to start a garden and its maintenance throughout a year. Have in mind that the total cost for a veggie garden varies by type of plant grown, the number of plants and the length of a growing season.
- Cost of plants or seeds
- Cost to enriching the soil such as dirt’s, fertilizer and worms.
- Cost to protect and structure plants such as, cages, coverings and fences.
- Cost for watering the plants
- Cost for the basic tools and accessories.
- The cost of time and effort too, this cannot be excluded.
The real return on expenses
Well, there’s always a possibility of making a total loss of your initial investment in gardening but, from the report of the National Gardening Association, they still conclude that the average gardening household in 2009 went through a $530 return on their average $70 investment. The worth of home-grown plants such as lettuce or tomatoes will double or triple when events such as drought and disease affects the availability of certain foods to be bought at an affordable price from the grocer each year.
Tips on how to make savings when starting your garden
- Start early with seeds started indoors. It is advisable to give your plants a home-grown start and then you can spread the risk out over several tiny plants. When you do this, you can transplant the strongest and best plants outdoor. This will save you a lot and also give you a comparable option to that costly plant from the nursery.
- Give square-foot gardening a try. This is well known for producing the healthiest plants with little efforts. It is also cheap.
- Grow only what you need. Well, we won’t deny the fact that it is interesting to have a lot of produce to share with family and friends, but the cost of a very large garden will weigh you down. The effort and time will also be a basic factor here and you don’t want that. So, pick just one or two of the plants you love best and then avoid planting rows and rows of veggies only because you have the space. You might even end up wasting your produce.
In conclusion, do only what you know you are capable of. Don’t go overboard. Deciding to start a garden is a personal thing and you must be able to take the risk. Don’t give up. The result will be great later. And also, don’t forget to do your research before starting anything.