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6 foods that are so much cheaper to grow than to buy it's not even funny

Gardening isn't always easy, but it's definitely worth it for these crops.

Photo credit: Canva

Certain fruits and vegetables are particularly cost-effective to grow yourself.

Some people are born with a green thumb and love the idea of having a garden full of all kinds of produce. Others of us struggle to keep basic houseplants alive and feel overwhelmed by the idea of trying to grow our own food. Anyone who's tried to grow a garden knows it's not as simple as just throwing some seeds in the dirt and waiting, and if you don't really enjoy it, gardening can feel like it isn't really worth the time or effort.

However, there are some fruits and vegetables that are worth trying to grow, even with some initial cost and time investment, simply because growing them is so much cheaper than buying them. That's not automatically true of all produce, but for these six foods, if you succeed in nurturing them to harvest, you can save a bundle vs. buying them at the supermarket. (Yes, even when they're on sale.)

vegetable garden, grow your own food, plant a garden, save money, produceGrowing your own food can save money, especially with certain crops.Photo credit: Canva

Tomatoes

There's nothing like a fresh tomato right off the vine, first of all, so that's a reason to grow your own tomatoes all by itself. But tomatoes are fairly easy to tend and cost approximately six times less to grow than to buy by some estimates. And that's even if you include some initial cost for soil, a pot, and a starter plant. If you already had a garden plot and grew from seed, it would cost you even less.

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Tomatoes can be frozen or canned to make a large harvest last longer than the growing season and then used in sauces and soups. Baby or cherry tomatoes can be frozen whole and roasted in the oven straight from the freezer.

Zucchini and other summer squash

Have you ever had a friend with a zucchini plant who tried to give you zucchini every time you turn around in the summer? Once these famously prolific plants start poppin', they don't stop.

You can grow zucchini in a bed or in a pot. You can also grow it vertically, like this:

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Zucchini's cousin, yellow squash, is similar. Before you know it, you've got squash coming out your ears. You can give it away, but you don't have to. You can slice it up and freeze it for soups or stir fries after the harvest comes to a close.

Peppers

If you buy bell peppers, you know they can be on the spendy side, especially if you buy organic ones. Growing your own can save a pretty penny, though, especially once you get a garden plot or container established for them.

One gardener demonstrated how a successful crop of pepper plants in his raised bed can save approximately $320 a year, and that's including initial startup costs. Savings would be even greater in subsequent years since most of those costs aren't recurring.

@geekygreenhouse

How much money can you save by growing your own bell peppers? #gardening101 #gardeningtips

Peppers can be frozen fresh to be used in cooked dishes later. (Are we getting the hint that a large freezer is a necessity when you have a garden?) And the grow-your-own savings goes for all kinds of peppers, not just sweet bells. Poblanos, jalapenos, serranos, chili peppers—you can have a whole array of pepper plants right at your fingertips.

Lettuce

Salad lovers, rejoice, because growing your own leafy greens can be a big boon for your diet and your pocketbook. Romaine lettuce in particular is a fast-growing green that replenishes in just a week or two, so if you have a few of these babies planted you'll be eating fresh salads on the regular through the spring and summer (and into fall as long as the weather holds).

Lettuce is a comparatively easy crop to grow, so don't be intimidated if you've never done it.

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To harvest lettuce, you can cut off the largest, most mature leaves to eat, leaving the interior of the plant alone so it will keep on growing. Another method is to slice the whole lettuce plant straight across, as long as you leave the "crown" in the center so it can keep regrowing.

With lettuce, unfortunately, you don't get the ability to freeze for later, but having fresh salads for many months of the year makes up for it.

Cucumbers

If you enjoy the fresh, crisp crunch of a cucumber, growing your own is where it's at. While how much you can save will vary depending on where you live, where you shop, and how successful. your crop is, a cucumber patch can yield a ton of cucumbers, especially if you learn some tricks specific to cucumber growing.

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One of those "tricks" is to regularly harvest your cucumbers. The more you pick, the more the plant will produce—nifty, eh?

Another tip is to keep them watered well. Cucumbers are largely water, so they do require a lot of water to grow. Just don't get the leaves wet—keep the watering at the base of the plant.

Fresh Herbs

This might be the most cost savings you'll see in a garden, especially if you use a lot of fresh herbs (which you should—they're so good!). Have you ever bought fresh herbs in those little plastic clamshells at the store? They're usually $2 to $3 each for just a handful of leaves or sprigs, and they don't stay fresh for long. An herb garden can save you tons and provide a nonstop source of fresh flavorings.

Basil, oregano, rosemary, and mint are particularly easy to grow and you can even grow them in your kitchen.

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But a full-fledged herb garden is even more fun. Cilantro, parsley, holy basil, chives, dill, thyme—there are so many herbs you can grow yourself. In fact, you may find yourself using more herbs if you grow them since you won't have to spend money on them at the store and they need to be harvested in order to keep growing. Aromatic, healthy, delicious, and cheap—win, win, win, win.

And you can dry or freeze excess herbs to use for cooking later as well. So much winning.

Growing your own food isn't always easy, but learning how to garden crops that can save you big money is definitely worth the time and energy investment to try.

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Heroes

See 9 stunning vertical farms that could solve the planet's food crisis.

For as long as most people can remember, horizontal farming has been the only way to go.

But now, farmers are discovering that while horizontal fields of crops are beautiful, they might not be the best use of space.

As roots spread out across the ground, they leave a lot of unused real estate overhead. So what's stopping us from stacking our crops like densely-packed cities? Well, sunlight, for one. And gravity. Soil too.

But once that's all figured out? Perpendicular planting could be a much more efficient way to grow food.

What does vertical farming look like? Here are nine farms that are going above and beyond with their indoor produce systems:

Photo via Kirsten Dirksen/YouTube.

1. VertiCrop

VertiCrop was the first big company to kick off the vertical urban farming trend, stacking shelves upon shelves of delicious greens that could produce up to 20 times the crop yield with only about 8% of the water of a comparable horizontal garden setup. Time magazine even named it as one of the world's greatest inventions in 2009.

Though the company had some financial trouble, they definitely set a high bar for the power of this kind of sustainable farming.

Photo by Valcenteu/Wikimedia Commons.

2. Growing Power Aquaponic System

This aquaponic system takes advantage of the existing symbiotic relationship between plants and animals.

The pump pulls water from a five-foot-deep pool to feed multiple layers of plants — in this case, watercress and tomatoes — then drips back down into the pool again, where the fresh oxygen helps to feed the tilapia in the tank below. It's like a little self-contained and portable ecosystem! (Also, the fish poo works as fertilizer.)

Photo by Ryan Griffis/Flickr.

3. Wigan UTC Hydroponic Vertical Farm

This is believed to be the world's first educational vertical farm, where curious students can study, train, and experiment in farming progress.

At Wigan, a British university, the setup boasts a rotating soilless conveyor belt system, temperature and lighting controls, and even a state-of-the-art kitchen where students can actually start to develop recipes for the future (which may or may not include the delicious aquaponic fish they're raising as well — mmmm, space salmon).

Photo via Wellcome Trust/YouTube.

4. DIY Windowfarms

These vertical windowfarms are catching on in major cities where everything is already stacked up tall and tight — 'cause hey, if it works for people in a city, why can't it work for plants? There are plenty of online communities offering tips, tricks, and instructions, but the basic idea is that you can set up rows of recyclable drip-water systems in the comfort of your own home. All you need is a window, some old plastic bottles, and string.

Photo by SparkCBC/Flickr.

5. The Land at Epcot Center

That's right, even the mouse himself is getting in on the vertical farming action. And they're actually doing lots of cool research and experiments too! Plus, sometimes they make hydroponic mouse-shaped pumpkins.

Photo by Paul Goings/Flickr.

6. Bright AgroTech Zip Farm

These innovators found a cool new way to make their vertical farming even more vertical. They're not just stacking horizontal flowerbeds upright: They use zip ties to create vertical planes that grow crops outward.

Photo via Bright AgroTech/YouTube.

7. Green Sense Farms

Whoa, is that pink?! Green Sense Farms uses specially-made red and blue diodes to amplify the actual light rays that help plants grow. 'Cause who needs a full spectrum of colors when two of them can do the job even better?

Photo via The Good Stuff/YouTube.

8. Pasona Group Urban Farm

While vertical farms are great for making optimal use of space, what do you do in a place as densely-packed as Tokyo, where there's no room to build from the ground up? Simple: Start growing food in office buildings, like the folks at Kono Designs have done.

Not only does it produce some delicious crops, but employees are generally happier with the fresh oxygen in the air and the affective lighting. It's like being outdoors, but in an office!

Photo via Kirsten Dirksen/YouTube.

9. AeroFarms

Last but not least, built inside a former laser tag arena just outside New York City, AeroFarms is known as the planet's largest indoor vertical farm to date, with the ability to grow 75 times more crops per square foot while using 95% less water.

Their system relies on an aeroponic mist instead of standard soil and uses concentrated LED lights, and — oh yeah — it's also being used to provide affordable food to underserved communities. Win.

Rendering from AeroFarms. Used with permission.

Vertical farming doesn't just look cool — it's solving some serious planetary problems, and not a moment too soon.

This kind of urban agriculture is innovative and beautiful, which is great. But it's also a major step forward in addressing our impending food and population crises.

Between climate change and our rapidly increasing influx, some estimates suggest farmers will need to nearly double their crop output by 2050 if our civilization expects to survive — all while more than a quarter of our available farmland is already falling apart.

And while that sounds like a scary situation, these vertical farms are making sure we move upward and onward, so these kinds of problems can go right over our heads.

Learn more about the future of our plants and our planet in the video below:

Heroes

How an app for tractors is actually changing lives for some farmers.

The plight of farmers has never been more real.

Erosion caused by drought. The increased scarcity of water ... caused by drought. Lack of resources, from equipment to information. Ever-increasing energy costs. Increasingly unpredictable weather. The list goes on and on.

Image via iStock.

According to Tech Times, drought conditions and heat waves caused by an ever-warming planet have led to a 10% drop in worldwide cereal harvests in the past 50 years alone and could result in as much as a 30% loss in total global crop production by the year 2080.

With fewer resources, financial support, and social safety nets to lean on, the harsh reality is that underdeveloped countries will face the greatest setbacks as the effects of climate change continue to increase.

"People who are socially, economically, culturally, politically, institutionally or otherwise marginalised are especially vulnerable to climate change," reads a 2014 report by the UN's climate panel.

Image via CIAT/Flickr.

In countries with agriculturally based labor forces like Nigeria, these hardships often force farmers to outsource their labor in order to harvest what few crops they have.

Those who can't afford to pay for seasonal labor, however, are left with little choice but to underuse their land and lose out on the potential income that comes with it.

Image via South African Tourism/Flickr.

While something as simple as a tractor could be a huge help to addressing their financial woes, it's also something that many farmers can't afford because of said financial woes. Not to mention that most commercial banks in Nigeria charge a 30% interest rate and require loan repayment within a year.

This is exactly the kind of fiscal dilemma that apps like Hello Tractor are hoping to solve.

The brainchild of founder/CEO Jehiel Oliver, Hello Tractor is a revolutionary mobile app that connects tractor owners with nearby farmers in marginalized areas of sub-Saharan Africa for the purposes of renting out their equipment and skills.

With a simple SMS text message, a farmer in need can send a message requesting tractor services to the app, which will then connect to the nearest Smart Tractor (a tractor embedded with Oliver's low-cost GPS/telematics system) using local and cloud-based data to connect them.

Image via iStock.

Hello Tractor's system provides a quicker and cheaper alternative to hiring manual laborers and is off to a promising start.

According to TakePart, "Since Hello Tractor launched in the summer of 2014, farmers who participated in the beta period saw their yields increase by 200 percent using a machine that’s 40 times faster than manual labor."

Can't afford to rent a tractor? Hello Tractor's got your back on that, too!

In parts of the developing world with few banks and fewer credit unions, getting access to enough capital to buy a bag of fertilizer presents a difficult challenge in and of itself, let alone renting a tractor.

"The farmers operate on small plot sizes, which means they don't make enough money to invest in a big piece of machinery," Oliver told Fast Company/Co-Exist. "There also aren't bank loans for farmers, so it's pretty difficult to finance a tractor."

While one of Oliver's Smart Tractors can be rented out for just $75 per hectare (roughly 2.5 acres) farmed, Hello Tractor also takes things a step further by connecting farmers to microfinancing companies that can offer lower interest rates as compared with the nationally backed banks.

Hello Tractor is also opening huge doors for female farmers in Africa.

Image via iStock.

A report published by the World Bank last year found that farm plots harvested by women yielded 13% to 30% less crops per hectare than those produced by men. The biggest reason for this disparity lies not in the skill level of female farmers but the "more than unequal access to inputs [and] unequal returns to the inputs they have."

Hello Tractor, on the other hand, is using the anonymity of its users to narrow the culturally fueled wage gap between men and women.

"Uber has made it easier for a black man in New York to hail a cab. You request something through the cloud with no face, and that request is paired with the closest car. It sort of circumvents racism," Oliver told TakePart.

"The same is true of Hello Tractor: When they arrive with that tractor, you’re going to still want that service. This was our way of circumventing the negative gender stereotypes that exist in Nigeria — and they’re really entrenched here."

Image via iStock.

An app helping to end both poverty *and* inequality in the parts of the world that need it the most? Talk about a game-changer.

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