i don't know about you guys but grocery prices are getting out of control $300 for broccoli and potatoes this is nuts it's stupid it's crazy and so what we figured we'd do is Jacques and I are going to give you our takes as gardeners of over 10 plus years on the crops we grow at home that actually will save you money compared to buying them at the grocery store to break this down fairly we're going to look at it a few different ways how much time does it take to grow the plant how much effort does it take and how much does it cost to get started and to figure out the costs of the actual groceries themselves we went to prices for five different cities buffalo New York Cincinnati Ohio Houston Texas right here in San Diego California our hometown and then Jacksonville Florida so with that said Jacques let's kick it off some like it hot and some like it a little sweet and this summer classic is actually pretty expensive and you're looking at it right here it is the bell pepper ranging from anywhere from $3 to $4 a pound or 80 cents up to $2 per pepper this guy could really add up quickly at the grocery store which is why it's a great one to grow at home because the seeds are really cheap the plants don't really need that much once they're planted maybe a steak maybe a cage if you're feeling fancy and you can even grow those peppers out to whatever maturity and color you want a green bell pepper is a lot cheaper cuz it's harvested earlier so if you want to literally grow some money just let those green peppers turn red and you've doubled your money right there whether it's black blue rasp or straw these berries will save you a boatload of cash if you grow them at home in fact I was at the grocery store just the other day and I paid $9 for a little tin of I think strawberries and they weren't even organic so we're talking 24 cents to 67 cents an ounce and they usually come in those clamshells and sometimes you buy it and then it's moldy the next day but it's a little different as far as how each plant grows i have a tower of strawberries right here which to me is my personal favorite for home growing because number one you can grow them in small spaces like this number two they grow without a whole lot of issues unlike something like blueberries which needs an acidic soil and a lot more care and they don't spread like crazy like a raspberry or blackberry might so if you're looking to get started with a profitable home fruit strawberries would be my pick this spring along with growing foods here in the garden that help reduce my grocery bill I'm also prioritizing a different part of my health gut health which has been a problem for me in the past which brings us to today's sponsor Armor Colostrum armor Colostrum is a premium boine colostrum concentrate packed with 400 plus bioactive nutrients things like peptides antibodies whole food prebiotics and antioxidants all in their purest most absorbable form you can mix it with cool liquids or foods hot temps can mess with the nutrients or you can dry scoop it straight into your mouth which is actually great for your oral microbiome dental health and upper GI i usually take it in the morning to start out one or two scoops in cold water just like that super tasty and then throughout the day I'll throw another scoop or two in as a dry scoop just to up the amount of colostrum that I'm taking since colostrum is a whole food you can take as much as you need or want whenever it works for you no need to space it out and it's super easy to work into my routine while I love the Vine Watermelon flavor the new one that just dropped is the Sunold Apricot and I've been absolutely loving it they also have an Arctic chai and a performance product as well since I started taking Armor about four or five months ago now I noticed that my gut discomfort has decreased significantly of course this is my own experience but when you've had gut issues for years you will take any relief you can get from it i take it regularly and even in advance of any type of meal that I know usually affects my gut and sometimes I'll even mix it in with sparkling water and have it stag it with some of my other things I'm doing this year to focus on wellness thanks to Armor Colostrum for sponsoring this video if you want to give them a shot you can go to try armor. com/epic that's try a. com/pic or use the code epic at checkout for 15% off your first order and now back to the video what's red round juicy grows in clusters and costs $3 to $6 a pound it is the humble juicy cherry tomato what's crazy is that for $3 to $6 a pound you're not even getting any true tomato flavor you're just getting a little orb of juice because they're harvesting those tomatoes early and they're not growing varieties that taste good now it does take a decent amount of work to grow a vining or indeterminate style tomato like this you have to trellis and support it and prune it but if you don't want all that you could easily grow a determinate or bush style tomato that just needs a simple steak and sets all of its delicious bounty at once if there's one thing I don't get enough of in the garden it's head lettuce if you want to get ahead on your grocery bill this is the crop at $4 a head maybe $5 for two head lettuce is overpriced and you get really bad varieties at the grocery store it's like romaine iceberg that's it and if you want to pay for little gem you're paying $10 ahead cuz it's called a fancy lettuce so it couldn't be an easier crop to grow at home there's 20 30 varieties you could choose from from most seed vendors i've got a few right here and it's probably the easiest crop to grow on this list lettuce seed in the ground 3540 days all you really need to do is keep it well watered and not let it get blasted by sun and heat and you'll have a nice crispy head of lettuce that you can harvest all at once or you can harvest around the leaves and you can plant it on succession maybe a couple heads a week for a consistent supply of pretty pricey greens nobody likes dealing with a leak but what's even more frustrating is the price of leaks at the grocery store i personally love leaks but I've stopped buying them because for $3 to $4 a pound or two bucks for a single leak I'm not feeling it anymore so I went out got myself a seed packet and I'm able to start hundreds of leaks off a single packet and the best part is you know that little white part of leaks at the grocery store it's usually only this big and we could make it that big and if you didn't know the white part of the leak is the sweeter more tender delicious part so if you want to maximize that all you have to do is dig yourself a nice big hole and put the leak as deep as you possibly can and every part of it that's buried by soil and not receiving sunlight will turn white and extra delicious if it turns you on to light money on fire walk into a grocery store and buy some herbs at about $4.
40 per ounce herbs are the biggest ripoff at a grocery store especially when you consider how easy they are to grow rosemary thyme oregano basil all of the classic Mediterranean herbs can be started from seed but even if you buy them as a live plant from a nursery for the same price about $3. 99 to $4. 99 you'll get a plant that you can not only harvest from throughout the season but you can also propagate from it so what you can do is take a plant like this grab the tip and snip off a couple of the leaves down here leaving a little bit of stem put this back into the soil or into some water you'll get some roots coming out and you can take one plant and multiply it into many even extending it through your winter months to the next spring here in California we're well known for growing a lot of expensive specialty greens but not the kind that you're thinking about instead I'm talking about kale chard and everything in between and you might think it's kind of silly to say that growing kale will save you money but right here this is $3 worth of kale that I picked in seconds and these plants have been growing in my garden for 2 to 3 years but when it comes to saving money in the garden one of the favorite things that I like about growing kale and chard is that they continue to produce all year round so as soon as I remove all these leaves this will begin producing more and in a few days I got another $2 to $3 off the same plant and now these kales are basically money trees you might find it interesting that my next pick is something that is actually quite cheap at the grocery store when it's dried i'm talking about beans but I'm specifically talking about green beans $3 to $5 for maybe a pound or so at the grocery store but a pound of green beans isn't actually that many green beans and when there's so many varieties that you can plant from seed and it's probably one of the easiest crops to plant from seed of all time it's a crime not to grow them at home so what I like to do is go with bush beans personally so this is a Blue Lake pole bean if you want you can grow that you probably have to trellis it up and support it there's the Blue Lake bush bean and there's a bunch of other bush beans that you can try direct sew which means put it directly in the garden where you want to plant it about an inch deep wait a couple weeks and it'll pop up and for extra credit beans don't need as much nitrogen one of the major macronutrients that plants need to grow from the soil because they can actually synthesize it from the air in partnership with some bacteria it's a pretty fancy little thing and so to me coming out fresh beans hard to beat and so prolific you'll probably grow a double-digit dollar amount of beans this season picture this you're deep into summer and you've put up your no trespassing sign because your neighbor keeps coming by and leaving baskets of summer squash at your door but here's the thing summer squash is actually kind of expensive i just went to the grocery store and they were selling for $1.
