Dollars from dirt: Economy spurs home garden boom

The Associated Press recently asked for my opinion regarding recession gardening. Between the vegetables I’m growing in the garden and the fruits and vegetables I exchange with my neighbors our grocery bill has been significantly reduced. This month’s food exchange yielded tangerines, loquats, lemons & parsley.

Pictured right is half the harvest from the raised bed seen below. It took two hours to wash all these crops but the results were four 1-gallon bags of Lettuce-Flashy Trout’s Back, Lettuce-Container Garden Babies, Kale-Dwarf Blue Curled, rocula, and an abundance of three types of onions. Not pictured: two celery stalks and four rogue carrots.

Here are some quotes from the article. Full story at ABC News.

By Gillian Flaccus
Associated Press Writer
Photos by Nick Ut

"Adriana Martinez works in her backyard garden in Long Beach, Calif. on Wednesday, March 11, 2009. With the recession in full swing, many Americans are returning to their roots, cultivating vegetables in their backyards to squeeze every penny out of their food budget."

"Adriana Martinez, an accountant who reduced her grocery bill to $40 a week by gardening, said there's peace of mind in knowing where her food comes from. And she said the effort has fostered a sense of community through a neighborhood veggie co-op. "We're helping to feed each other and what better time than now?" Martinez said."

On a side note, our grocery bill is probably lower than $40.00 a week. Occasionally I’ll burn through cash in the baking isle and H is omni so his items are a bit pricier but even then he doesn’t indulge as often as he used to.

We bake our own bread and make our own pizza dough. The dogs go insane over the pizza crust. Rocky gets what I call “crazy eyes” when I feed it to him so pops is going to start making them their own treats from the same pizza dough recipe. Oh yeah, and we’ll be making our own nut milk and creamer too. Stay tuned for that post.

I don't need you corpo agriculture!