You should always feel free to grow a garden, but you shouldn’t necessarily expect it to be cheaper than buying food. Especially the first year, if you don’t live in a place where you can just dig up some dirt and chunk seeds in it. Even if you do you should make sure the soil isn’t literally toxic first, especially since it’s common to have a buildup of things like lead or arsenic from now-outlawed fertilizers that can be absorbed by plants.
My grandparents planted maybe half an acre? Of crops for 10 people, and it was supplemental, not a complete replacement. It also takes a lot of work and can go to shit if the weather is bad. You can account for some of this by planting a variety of crops, trying to head off drainage and shade issues before they start, and with supplemental watering. But don’t expect everything to be super productive every year, especially in the age of climate change. My sister had some plants not put out at all last year (peppers).
That’s the thing. Gardening is more expensive than buying food, in the United States and Western Europe, now, because the real cost of food production is heavily subsidized by our governments and we guarantee yields by throwing tons of fossil fuels and their derivatives at the soil of corporate megafarms. There’s a nonzero chance that’s going to change shortly - probably within a generation - for a ton of reasons including but not limited to little Donnie assassinating the supreme leader of Iran for shits and giggles.
Grow a garden even if it’s not economically efficient. Do it now, when you aren’t relying on it for food, and get the issues with soil and drainage and so on worked out now. Learn to save seeds and select the best growing plants each year so that, as your climate changes, the varieties you grow change with it. That way you’ll have the skills to do it later, when you really need it.
You should always feel free to grow a garden, but you shouldn’t necessarily expect it to be cheaper than buying food. Especially the first year, if you don’t live in a place where you can just dig up some dirt and chunk seeds in it. Even if you do you should make sure the soil isn’t literally toxic first, especially since it’s common to have a buildup of things like lead or arsenic from now-outlawed fertilizers that can be absorbed by plants.
My grandparents planted maybe half an acre? Of crops for 10 people, and it was supplemental, not a complete replacement. It also takes a lot of work and can go to shit if the weather is bad. You can account for some of this by planting a variety of crops, trying to head off drainage and shade issues before they start, and with supplemental watering. But don’t expect everything to be super productive every year, especially in the age of climate change. My sister had some plants not put out at all last year (peppers).
That’s the thing. Gardening is more expensive than buying food, in the United States and Western Europe, now, because the real cost of food production is heavily subsidized by our governments and we guarantee yields by throwing tons of fossil fuels and their derivatives at the soil of corporate megafarms. There’s a nonzero chance that’s going to change shortly - probably within a generation - for a ton of reasons including but not limited to little Donnie assassinating the supreme leader of Iran for shits and giggles.
Grow a garden even if it’s not economically efficient. Do it now, when you aren’t relying on it for food, and get the issues with soil and drainage and so on worked out now. Learn to save seeds and select the best growing plants each year so that, as your climate changes, the varieties you grow change with it. That way you’ll have the skills to do it later, when you really need it.