Cutting costs through gardening

We ran a story this morning by 10 On Your Side reporter Lindsey Ward about a Salem woman who came up with a creative way to cut costs. Creative, especially for a woman living in the middle of a city. She’s growing her own vegetables and recently started raising chickens to cut back on the increasing cost of eggs. Her savings plan has neighbors crying fowl.

It got me thinking. Granted, I don’t live next door to her or even in her neighborhood but what a great idea. It had me thinking about my late grandfather who had a farm in North Carolina. They raised and grew everything they needed. I watched my grandmother milk her cows, even tried it myself. I remember watching her make butter. For sure, this “city girl” never appreciated what they had, how they lived until my adult years.

Now, the chickens in Salem weren’t like the ones on my grandfather’s farm… they were not running all over the place. She has them in what looked like a small bin, a confined space. She apparently even did research to pick a breed that didn’t make a lot of noise.

Whether you want to go to this extreme or not, or whether you want or don’t want chickens near your home—it’s certainly a sign of the times, a sign of how people are trying to be more self sufficient. On a much smaller scale, we planted our own tomatoes last year for fun. I expanded to herbs as well this year. Part of it was just to see if I could, but now with the current salmonella scare and increasing food costs, I have more reasons to try out my green thumb.