Top tips for cost-saving crops

Anyone who’s been growing organically for a while knows you don’t need to spend a fortune and it’s possible to grow cost-saving crops. And if you’re new to organics, once you know your way around the patch, you’ll discover countless ways to slash costs and come out well ahead financially.

Growing your own way to lower grocery bills

A healthy, productive organic garden runs on systems and habits, not endless purchased inputs.
Compost is the big one. Where possible, increase your compost production. It’s the foundation of healthy soil, productive crops and lower gardening costs. Use what you have access to: food waste, grass clippings, cardboard, newspaper, plant prunings. Anything that was once living can be used to make compost. If you’re short on ingredients, ask your neighbours for their grass clippings, rake up the leaves on the footpath, collect the coffee grounds from your nearest cafe or chemical-free wood shavings from the local workshop. Once you start looking, you’ll realise there’s plenty of free organic matter out there.

Make use of preloved materials for creating garden infrastructure. Galvanised mesh panels (the kind used for fencing) make excellent permanent trellising for anything that climbs, such as beans, peas, cucumbers and vine tomatoes. We have several of these set up in our patch supported by star pickets, and we get all the materials for next to nothing from the local tip shop and online trading sites.

PVC electrical conduit cut to length and bent over to form hoops, can be set up in vegie beds as a frame to support shadecloth or pest exclusion netting. It costs very little and will outlast most things you’d buy purpose made.

You can make your own seed-raising mix to save money. Blend equal parts homemade compost, worm castings and coarse sand with five parts coco peat and you have a cheap mix that’s just as effective.
Some crops are practically designed to save you money. Leeks, beans, peas, tomatoes, cucumbers and Asian greens are so prolific and it’s easy to save their seed for the next crop. Let them go to seed and you’ve got them for life.

Best value crops to grow at home

herbs silverbeet zucchini eggplant salad greens bok choy wombok broccoli climbing green beans snow peas cucumber sweet potato

Learn about the many practical ways to make your garden work harder, so you can spend less. It’s all in our Spring 2026 issue available at your local newsagents, selected supermarkets and online.