by K Lochery

Created on: May 20, 2009

With the current economic crisis it can be very difficult to find the money and also the time to buy, prepare and cook fresh fruit and vegetables to maintain a fresh, healthy and balanced diet. With prices going up and our monthly incomings not quite stretching to meet all of our demanding costs, a lot of us have passed on the fresh foods to buy the cheaper canned and tinned varieties along with frozen foods in a bid to make ourselves feel better while still affording to eat. However, with a little bit of saved money you can plant your own garden so that you have a constant supply of fresh fruit and vegetables and the good news is that once everything is in place, there are no more costs to have to shell out for.

The things that you will need for your food garden are things such as good quality soil with a bit of fertilizer and plant food. You will also need a couple of large plant pots and a couple of smaller ones if you do not have a lot of space and if you do, you can usually cut out these things but for the purposes of this article, we shall remain focused on planting in a small garden or balcony. Once you have the pots then it is time to look at things such as seeds, wooden rods for keeping plants upright and also ways to keep insects and cats and suchlike away from your precious plants.

When it comes down to figuring out what plants you can grow in the garden that you have for the purposes of eating then the options are fairly limitless. If you want fresh potatoes all the year round then it is very cheap and easy to grow them. A potato planter can be bought from the internet, especially a well known online auction site for a very cheap price and all you need for this is an old potato that is growing sprouts and some soil with a bit of fertilizer. After a few short weeks you will have spuds growing for you to eat as you wish and you can pick them early for smaller new potatoes and later for the larger ones for meals such as jacket potatoes. As well as this however, you can grow onions in the planter for fresh onions all of the year round and if you want more than just a couple, buy another planter and another large bag of soil to have a separate container for the two.

If you are struggling to keep the vegetables going all year round, you can buy flat pack glasshouses to keep them warm and almost summer like all the year round and these again can be bought fairly cheaply online. Within this you can also grow tomatoes in a normal window box and also carrots if you have a large and round plant pot. For carrots however, the planter does have to be fairly deep otherwise the vegetables will not amount to a very big size.

There are no limits to what you can grow on the balcony or garden that you have. You can plant apple trees, cherry trees, lemons and any other tree that you like and if you are finding the fruits are not flourishing, you can always give up and try another type. You will also find that with grow bags and larger pots or beds; you can grow things like green beans and peas as well as mushrooms, chilies, lettuces and much more besides. For more information, try looking at one of the self sufficient websites on the internet to get a little bit of inspiration.

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