They say eating healthy isn’t expensive, perhaps your grocery bill tells a whole different story. Maybe you want to eat organic, but the $4.99 per pound cost of green peppers has you wincing ($1.99 pp for non-organic btw). What if I told you there’s a way to get an abundant amount of fresh organic vegetables with just a little effort? Add the bonus of exercise, eating fresh fruits and veggies, the joy of sunshine (remember sunshine?) and those are just some of the benefits of gardening! I know what you are going to say:
That’s great, but I have no time to garden!
Hey, I get it – you are working long hours, you’ve got kids to shuffle places, meals to cook, the gym, errands that you have to run on the weekends, a house to clean, and the endless obligations of daily life. You barely have time to cook dinner, and some nights a bowl of cereal is the last resort. But here is the thing; gardening doesn’t require that much time. No, really!
Picking Vegetables to Plant the Lazy Way
You’ve got to have a plan, man! Figure out what vegetables you want to grow. If you want a low maintenance vegetable garden, pick vegetables that don’t require a lot of time. Here are some vegetables you can grow, that are basically stress-free.
These vegetables are pretty self-sufficient. Lettuce doesn’t need too much space and tomatoes can grow anywhere as long as they get plenty of sunlight. Here’s another tip, grow the basil next to the tomatoes (it’s a match made in heaven); the basil helps repel pests. Cucumbers just need water and watch them grow; you’ll be giving them away as gifts every summer. Carrots are pretty resistant to cold weather so you can plant them throughout the season. Plan the vegetables you want to grow and take into account with what goes with your region – you don’t want to plan on growing melons in Michigan in the wintertime; even with a great plan it won’t work.
Where Do I Put My Garden? What Else Is there to Know?
The next key step is to find a perfect location. You don’t need a big space to grow a great garden! So find someplace that gets plenty of sunlight in an area where your hose can reach. Avoid planting close to trees which will not only give your garden unwanted shade but will take nutrients away from your growing fruits and veggies (greedy suckers). Make sure you give your plants plenty of room to grow.
Learn your soil. It’s pretty easy to do and there are kits to help you. This can help determine what nutrients you need in your garden. If your soil needs a boost, composting is something that can really help. It doesn’t take much time and instead of throwing compostable material in the trash, toss it into a composter. We have composters that can get you to your gardening goals and they are fully-enclosed which keeps unwanted guests from digging around in your compost as its cooking. For best results, apply compost into the soil two weeks before you actually start planting.
Next, make sure you have the tools that you’ll need to make your life so much easier. The Mantis Tiller is lightweight and quickly does the hard digging work so much easier than using a shovel. Tilling the compost into the newly turned area will help work the nutrients into your soil.
Maintenance is really low! Don’t go water crazy (rookie mistake) – an inch of water a week is sufficient. Weed on the weekends, send the kiddos out to help or better yet use your Mantis Tiller – you’ll be on the hammock eating your cucumber (that you grew) sandwiches and bragging about it on Facebook in NO TIME! Soon you will be eating your own organic salad with half the cost and all of the satisfaction of knowing you did it all by yourself. Take the plunge, you can do this!
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