Let’s face it, buying vegetables at the store can be a drain on your budget, but growing your own fresh vegetables can help you to feed your family healthy foods without dipping too far into your wallet. If you are interested in growing your own vegetables to save money and feed your family quality foods, then cheap vegetable gardening should interest you. If you take advantage of the following never fail secrets to cheap vegetable gardening, you will be surprised at the amount of money you save.

Watch the Water

You don’t want growing a vegetable garden to make your water bill go sky high. There are ways to get around this gardening expense. The first way is the most obvious. Take advantage of the rain. Not only is rain free, it is better for your plants than the water that comes from your hose, because it is full of nutrients that your plant needs.

Cheap vegetable gardening begins with studying the weather so that you always know when a storm is coming and won’t water before it gets there. You can even use rainwater during the dry spells if you invest in a good old fashioned rain barrel. By having water drain from your gutters into a rain barrel instead of onto the ground, you can save the water and then use it to water your plants during those days when no rain falls.

Watering by hand is also a great way to reduce the amount of water you use in the garden. Because cheap vegetable gardening conserves water, hand watering makes sense. When you use a hose or a sprinkler you water lots of places in your garden where there are no plants growing and you risk wetting blossoms, fruits, and leaves, which can lessen your harvest.

Start Your Own Seeds

If you want to practice cheap vegetable gardening, start your own seeds instead of buying more mature plants at a nursery. You can buy a packet of seeds for less money than one plant would cost you and that packet can often make 30 plants. If you plant more than you need, you can always give the extras away, expand your garden, or even sell the seedlings for enough money to get back the cost of your seeds.

Share the Wealth

Because there are so many different varieties of vegetables, work out a trade system with your gardening neighbors. Most gardens yield much more than one family can eat. Instead of giving away your extras, trade them for things you didn’t plant. Give your neighbor your extra zucchini in exchange for some eggplant or trade different varieties of tomatoes so you can taste different kinds without having to buy them yourself.