Growing Your Own Vegetables To Save Money

PALM DESERT – Heirloom tomatoes are just one of Brian Desborough’s specialties he grows at the Santa Rosa garden.

“I’m growing butternut squash, you can store these at room temperature for weeks,” says Desborough.

This is one of nearly 200 plots in Palm Desert’s community garden program.A program so popular, there has been a waiting list for the past three years. The American Community Garden Association estimates there are about 18,000community gardens in theU.S. and Canada, and that number is expected to grow. Jose Aguiar, a vegetable and small farms advisor for the University of California, says one of the many reasons people grow their own veggies, is because its therapeutic.

“It’s nothing better than coming out and spending a couple hours moving the soil, moving the vegetables around, watering, trimming them, nothing better than that and the added benefit is you get to pick your own vegetables which are always the best because they are fresh,” Aguiar says.

“Some people are using it as a food supplement. Instead of spending their money on food at the grocery store, they plant so they can grow their own food for the table,” says Frankie Riddle with the city of Palm Desert.

What was once a hobby for many gardners across the U.S. Has now become serious business because what they grow here can mean big savings at the grocery store.

“Buying and growing from seeds is just absolutely very cost effective. On a scale of when you buy them on the market you’ve got to pay the market price, but when you grow your own you get an abundance and you get to grow what you want to grow. We grow everything that we eat,” says David Recupero, an amateur gardner.

“With heirloom tomatoes you’re paying about $5 a pound and I’ll get about, from these few plants I’ll get about 100 pounds of tomatoes…very often I save my own seeds anyway so at the most I’m spending about $10,” Desborough says.

And they all agree that nothing tastes better than food you grow with your own hands.