Using my garden to cut costs at the grocery store

Several months ago, I made the decision to invest in buying some items to make a garden at my home. I haven’t had an actual garden since I had my house in Muskego several years ago, so I was starting over again. I ended up buying a raised garden bed from Amazon and purchasing several plants from a local gardener for $1 each and two plants from Menards. All in all, the initial investment in my garden was roughly around $90. 

I have already gotten several large zucchinis out of the garden in addition to lots of cucumbers. It has been awesome to cut up and grill some tasty zucchini steaks or spiral to use in place of noodles for my spaghetti. I am so excited to try my hand at canning some of these cucumbers to make some pickles this weekend. I have three large tomato plants that, as of right now, I have only gotten two tomatoes from. However, there are two dozen green tomatoes I am so excited to freeze so I can make fresh sauces or salsa in the cold winter months.

I am keeping a tally at home of the cost used to can items and freeze them to see if the garden was worth the financial investment. I will write an update to this blog at a later date to determine if the garden was worth the investment.   do know that I do love spending time maintaining it and so does my mom. She comes over several days a week to watch my dog Willow for me and loves checking in on my plants as well. The emotional value seems so much greater than any financial cost knowing how much we both enjoy it.