My name is Mimi Scarlett.
I'm a mom to three and the blogger behind Unlikely Martha.
A few years ago, I started gardening and now I have a plentiful
yield that helps my family save thousands of dollars on groceries.
We are based right outside of Atlanta, Georgia.
I've been a hobby gardener for around nine years.
Ever since I was a child, I always enjoyed being outside.
And then when we bought a new house and I was like, "I want space for a garden."
It took a few years for us to build it out to the level that I envisioned
it, but from day one, this is just very, very peaceful to me.
I understood that this garden, it was going to be an investment,
but if done properly every year after that, maybe I could spend $30.
I think that first year I must have spent about $25.
I got about two bags of dirt and I'd grab some pots from Dollar Tree and some seeds.
I did a lot of researching cost-effective ways to get us started.
I always say before you go and make that huge investment, just make sure that this
is something that you're passionate about.
I absolutely think that a container garden can be started for $25.
Some people only have one space for that.
I just think that there's just a little bit of ease of use like lettuce
and herbs and things that you just want to have ready to grab. So the
bare minimum and you'll need pots.
You will need dirt and you will, of course, need seeds. And you need a water
source and some type of fertilizer.
I learned the hard way. My lettuce died even though I was watering them.
So the second year is when I took to YouTube and Pinterest.
So after I kind of took time to learn what type of weather
certain things can tolerate that's
when I started to see my yield grow year after year. My goal is
always whatever the vegetables in season is to freeze enough of it
so that we'll have that during the off season
so we don't have to buy it from the grocery store.
Another tip I have is that
when you buy seeds, buy heirloom seeds because you can recollect the
seeds, and reuse them. I'd always
tell people, research how many plants you need per person in your family
to grow however much food that you need to get through the winter.
For each person in our family, we needed four plants per person.
At the beginning of the season, I bought seeds for 99 cents a pack,
which means that the plants were basically pennies on a dollar.
So over this season, I saved about a hundred dollars.
My biggest piece of advice is spend your budget on your dirt
and spend it on weed barrier.
Then you want to pay attention to the materials
you're building it out of.
I built a couple of our beds with Cedar wood and it was very expensive.
However, those beds are indestructible and if you have deer and rabbits, you're
definitely gonna need some fencing.
Just use what you have until you can get to that point where you know that you're
in love with this and you're ready to make that huge investment.
We probably spent close to 800 to a thousand dollars.
The bulk of our expense was in the wood, but we don't have to do that part again.
I really think it's like looking at what you eat
and trying to figure out how much of this do I need to grow.
If you know you love spaghetti, grow a bunch of tomatoes and learn
how to make your own tomato sauce.
It may not be that you're trying to replace this item fully in your
grocery bill, but maybe cut it in half.
From when I first started gardening to now, I think I
probably have saved about $1,100.
I see, "Hey, I only spent, you know, $20 this year on seeds, but
I've saved over a hundred dollars."
So now that kind of gets me thinking, "where should I put a
decent, upfront investment that will save me money on the backend?"
We've taken that in account with energy saving appliances and
things that cost a little more on the front end, but definitely we'll
see lower energy bills. Financially,
I'm a saver
and I try to pass that down to them as well.
I hope that my kids see the level of dedication that I give to my garden.
That little itty bitty seed that I spent pennies on has now yielded
these vegetables that they eat.
They start to make that correlation of investment. An analogy to
not only the food we eat, but other areas of your life as well.
You have to understand that nobody just started with a thriving garden.
You won't
succeed every year.
So just keeping in mind that a lot of this is out of your control,
but just give it your best.
I think now I'm at the point where I really don't have to invest money anymore
so that is the best feeling ever because I see like, "I'm going to make this
investment and I won't have to make it again for another two or three years."
I absolutely think that this is something that's so easy to
grow it in your windowsill
and I just feel like it's a
sense of empowerment of saying that you can still control what you
eat, even though your environment may not support you in that area.
You can't have a say.
I can grow it myself.