Grow A Recession Garden

Real estate prices may be slipping, but the back section of your landscape can be worth its weight in, well, food and fuel. With gasoline prices soaring and food costs not far behind, the number of Americans planning to have their own backyard landscape of fruits and vegetables this year is up sharply. Even the White House has a recession garden.

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Gardening groups, seed sellers, and local nurseries are all reporting hikes in the number of people buying vegetable seeds and starter plants. It's a trend that started slowly several years ago, spurred by concerns about food safety, food quality, and global warming, say garden mavens. But this year's gasoline and food price spikes have had "growing" effect on the backyard garden movement.

Food is expensive because it is controlled by fuel prices on both sides. The rising price of gasoline means that shipping costs more. Forget the Chilean produce we shouldn't eat because its carbon footprint is the size of a clown shoe. Even the local produce we eat has to get here -- in a truck that runs on gas -- from up or down the highway. As if that weren't problem enough, the ethanol craze has farmers planting corn for cars not people. Less supply, stable demand: You get the expensive picture.

To be sure, food safety (especially the spinach scares), a rising demand for locally grown organic food, and taste are big factors in the garden movement. Even a small vegetable garden can have an impact on a household budget. You get more bang for your buck out of a seed packet.

So, rather than just buying a decorative or ornamental, people are looking at fruit trees so they can have sustainable agriculture in their own backyard. People are more inclined to get their hands dirty and have the profit of their work as opposed to just an ornamental type of planting. With proper planning, a bit of gardening skill and a few hours weekly communing with the soil, you can still produce enough crops to help feed your family, save some money and have fun while you're doing it. At the same time, you'll reap the nutritional benefits of eating the freshest produce available and the satisfaction of turning a boring yard or abandoned bathtub into a produce factory.

First off, be sure you select the right plants. Key criteria for cash crops include the ability to bear a lot of fruit in relation to the amount of work put into them, and the ability to grow in the space you have available. A simple pot or sunny spot in the yard will suffice for anyone living in an urban condo or an suburban subdivision. Inexpensive lightweight resin pots are available at many of the big-box stores.

But more than anything, vegetables and herbs need plenty of sun. A little care and some regular watering will go a long way too. Read the tags on the plants and follow the directions for how deep and far apart plants and seeds should be planted.

If you have enough yard, you don't need to dig a whole new bed for vegetables. Many vegetables, such as bright lights Swiss chard, beets, lettuce and others, have attractive foliage that look beautiful mixed in with flowers. Other good choices are tomatoes and peppers because both produce a lot of fruit with little effort.

A category that doesn't produce much bulk nutrition, but which could save significant grocery money, is herbs. Herbs are easy to grow in pots, and some herbs can be grown in the same pot as tomatoes and peppers.

Finally, the experts recommend throwing in some perennial plants for top economy. Perennials, which come back year after year, include some herbs, such as chives and mint, and fruit bushes, such as raspberries.

Once you taste home-grown tomatoes and basil and cucumbers, you're not going to go back and buy a store-bought one. The taste is so much better, and the nutrition is there, too.