Here we are in 2025. I am not a big New Year’s resolution person. I have never really made resolutions like lose weight, etcetera. I do set goals for myself for the year. These are things that I want to accomplish; such as, cleaning out the garage or painting the guest room. My yearly aspirations also always contain garden goals. This may be building a new growing area, trying my hand at growing something new, or saving my pennies to make a gardening wish list purchase. The past several years my garden goals have included increasing my household’s food security and reducing our reliance on the grocery store. Honestly this goal evolved not only from financial restrictions but also that I utterly detest going to the grocery store. I would much rather spend the entire weekend in the garden or canning/freezing produce than an hour at the store. Does this mean that I grow 100% of our food? Absolutely not. What it means is I concentrate my efforts on the foods that we love to eat that I can grow in my climate and that will benefit our food expense bottom line the most.
For example, I like to drink peppermint tea. The last time I looked a box of 15 tea bags at the grocery store cost about $7. If I drank a cup of tea every day, that is approximately $168 dollars per year. For peppermint tea! Do you know what the ingredients are in a box of peppermint tea? Peppermint. That’s it. Mind you I have a pot of peppermint on my patio. I cut it and use it fresh for cooking in the summer season. It was about this time of the year last year that I picked up the box of tea at the store, held it in my hand, then thought to myself, “This is ridiculous!” Thus one of my garden goals for this past growing season was born. Goal: grow as much peppermint that I estimate I would consume for a year and make the effort to harvest and dry it. I added 2 more pots of peppermint in my garden and did several harvests which I dried laid out on a towel in my kitchen. VIOLA! Without much effort I have peppermint tea that not only tastes way better than the box that has been sitting on the shelf at the store for who knows how long, but is also healthier because I know 100% that it was grown organically, and I saved myself $168. I am certain that the rapidly rising cost of food is on everyone’s minds at the moment. This article does not have enough space for me to address the topic of food security and our broken food system. What is my point you ask and where is the second best piece of gardening advice in all this jabber?
My second best piece of gardening advice is to grow what you love to eat. Radishes are easy to grow but if you do not like to eat radishes what is the point? Growing food that you will not eat is a waste of your time and money. Before the garden season starts, evaluate what do you eat the most? Where do you spend your grocery store dollars? Herb and spices are some of the notoriously costliest at the store and also some of the easiest plants to grow.
Do you love basil? Rosemary? Rutabagas? Or maybe it is Radishes?
Grow what you love.
Here’s to growing all the things,
Shannon
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