When spring is springing I feel an urge to buy a couple of pots with fresh herbs and flowers. How about you?

This year, I became aware of another side and added value to buying herbs in pots. One of the things I learned from the Hunger challenge is that I can save a lot of money on fresh herbs if I grow my own. During the challenge, I could not afford to buy fresh herbs because it stretched my budget beyond what I could spend on groceries. For $2 for a cilantro bunch… I had to skip it to be able to buy more substantial foods.

A little pot of thyme, oregano, mint, rosemary, or parsley – herbs I use a lot in my (mainly) Mediterranean and Pacific Northwest cooking – cost only $2-$3 each. When I buy a fresh bunch at the grocery store it cost the same, but then I can only use it for about a week before it goes bad and whatever is left gets thrown away.

Think about it. To buy4 types of herbs in pots costs about $12. If I buy these fresh herbs at the grocery store, let’s say twice a month, it will costs $288 a year. Add to that other herbs like sage, tarragon, lemon thyme, which you can grow even in a pot on a sunny porch… and it easily adds up to about $500 a year.

It’s so much fun to grow my own and so fantastic to see something green and fresh grows from seed or little plant right in front of my eyes.

In addition to that I think that many people spend too much energy, money, not to mention the use of chemicals, to treat their lawn, kill weeds, moss, insects, to make it greener. I don’t want to do that. I have two little kids and the thought of them running around in chemically treated lawn just kills me. We haven’t used anything on our lawn since we moved to this house. I prefer to have weeds and moss and healthy kids.

This year we are making the lawn smaller by using some of the area to build raised beds to grow herbs, fruits, veggies, and flowers. Beside the first investment in materials to build the beds, we will be able to save money later on on both the lawn treatment and the purchase of herbs at the store.

 

We are no gardeners so this is going to be something completely new to us. How exciting. Until we got to building the beds, I started a few pots. What did I get so far?

Blueberries, strawberries, mint, thyme, lemon thyme, lemon verbena, oregano – we have those from last year. They survive the winter or make a come back when the weather gets warmer.

Nature is so amazing. Everything you see in this photo below (taken 2 weeks ago) is now twice bigger.

New this year – mizuna (a type of lettuce), colored lettuces, rosemary, basil.

Here is my baby arugula which I started from seeds about a week ago, and parsley on the right side.

Now that we start building our first raised bed, I’m looking for more ideas. I don’t know yet what we will plant in it. Luckily there a few bloggers that write about this kind of stuff like digginfood, or I go to a local nursery and consult with someone. I have just recently discovered new blogs about this topic. Check out:

Every bit cooking and gardening

Ghost town farm

Fat of the land

My vision – after we learn and do in the backyard, have an urban garden in the front yard. Just imagine what this can do to our little community and neighborhood!

Do you grow anything? Yes/no/want to/not into it?

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Backyard Vegetable Garden

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Categories : Urban garden