Ask the A2K Gardeners

The answer is no. You do not save money. You just get the fun of growing things and eating them.

Joe(I like going up to the roof and picking Basil for the pasta, even though I can buy it by the fist full up the hill at the market)Nation

now see, where I live, herbs are lots cheaper to grow than to buy. and lots better.

my herb garden will happen sometime next week. I have the spot, and my veggies are all potted. I just need to finish the arbor and work the soil...

that working the soil bit can be expensive if you don't have good soil to start off with - amendments aren't always free

I've been composting in a coupla spots on the property. sometimes even on purpose.

mine is nice and sandy to start with, so it's easier here than lotsa places...

I'm on the edge of the ancient lake bed so lotsa sand - spading in tons of compost helps somewhat.

Nothing except $ seems to help if you've got clay instead of soil.

gram has clay.

I bring her new soil when we mess in her gardens.

she's has mostly gone to hanging baskets, other than the perennials I have managed to get in.

her dianthus is rocking this year. verra bright and cheerful...

WELL, time to revive this thread and talk about fall gardens. (If anyone hasnt planted fall veggies by now, if you live in zone 8 or higher, you still can. However, today I planted garlic and spinach for next spring and summer harvest. Spinach will be ready by March and will be good until it bolts in June. We do successive picking cause we eats a lot of it.
Garlic is a tricky thing thatneeds all winter to set root and then will only set bulbs by the amt oif root fibrils its sent out. SO this last year we had a beautiful crop and Ive saved some of the big corms for seed cloves. I am planting my garlic even earlier this year(by almost a month and a half) so Ill see if we get even bigger bulbs.
Never plant garlic in spring or the most youll get is a few mesly cloves p[er plant and using the fall planting scheme. You can get corms with more than 50 cloves each.
garlic likes moist soil like other alia.

I have very heavy topsoil here, and it bakes and gets really hard and a lot of clay. I've been reading a lot about layering beds, with straw, compost made from ash, newspaper, coffee filters and grinds, even sheet rock -dry wall, mulch, soil, autumn leaves, manure... The point is, instead of digging, and turning, you layer, building up. It keeps the soil light, weed free and nourished. I couldn't believe the results of doing this to one bed this year.

Spinach will do okay when temps get below freezing? I didn't know that. Hmmmm... I just might be able to grow some winter spinach in Albuquerque!

spinach doesnt grow in winter, it gets its roots started now and then gos dormant . In spring, because the roots are already set, its ready to go and will give you really early spinach . Spinach can take all sorts of brutal weather, its more like a perennial grass than a green
You should not wait too much longer because you need a few weeks before a frost to get em going (spinach actually germinates in the cool better than in warm soil). Itll keep growing until the ground actually freezes. SO GET GOING