The cost of onions which is almost 3x the price of a chicken in my country has greatly surprised us consumers, especially me, a first-time mother who is learning to budget our daily foods and meals. These high energy prices made me think that it would be wiser to have my own garden in order to save some pennies and serve healthy food on the table every day, and besides, we have a small space lot in our backyard at home, so a garden is a GO.
The idea of this "small garden" has been on my mind for a couple of weeks now. I was arranging my schedule for this and at the same time searching for the right planting resources (I was torn between buying seeds or the ready-to-transplant seedlings) to get it done just one time. Thankfully, we saw this small-scale transplant vegetable grower along the streets that made me choose to have the latter- buying vegetable transplants.
This small-scale garden was easy to spot, it's just that, I didn't pay attention to this one every time we pass the street. Well, thanks to the spike in the prices, here we are now, exploring this little garden and checking what vegetables we could buy so we could save in the coming days.
For the whole time, we thought that this garden only sells ornamental plants and fiber & clay pots as these have been always displayed outside the garden. Little did we know, that it has a small vegetable garden at the back too!
My mother saw these seedlings on the streets so we hurriedly parked and inquire inside about the vegetables.
When we learned that those transplants are for sale, we asked if they had other vegetable transplants aside from the displays. The gardener happily showed us his humble garden full of newly grown seedlings.
Various healthy vegetables greeted our eyes. There are tomatoes, pepper, eggplants, papayas, cabbages and so many more in different sizes. Some were newly planted, while others are ready for transplanting.
Some of the seedlings are planted in individual pots, while others are in big containers. I was imagining buying all of those.
The small ones or the younger ones are still in big pots and containers waiting to be transferred to their pots. But before that, they should be pricked out first.
These healthy cabbages look attractive.
There are also spring onions but I wonder why are they not so healthy. Though I was looking for onions, I didn't buy these because I have plenty of them in my school garden. hehe
Going on, I was amazed at how the gardener made this simple greenhouse for his plants. I was thinking of maybe making like this too at home. Let's see.
Time to buy!
The vegetables are not just healthy but they come at a very low price too. At first, we only plan to buy 5 transplants of each kind we liked, but we ended up buying more!
We bought a couple of papaya transplants, a bunch of eggplant seedlings, and tomatoes.
| Vegetables | Quantity | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Eggplants | 20 seedlings | 10php/0.18USD |
| Tomato | 6 seedlings | 10php/0.18USD |
| Papaya | 6 seedlings | 30php/0.55USD |
We paid 440Php (8.01USD) in all.
I was happy and fulfilled with our purchase. Although 440.00 pesos is a little expensive for me, I believe that growing my vegetables will actually save me a lot of money on groceries in the long run. And the BONUS thing there is, we will be eating healthy and fresh produce every day!
After we purchased them, I was very excited to plant them in our garden. It's been a while since I had my last garden, and I just miss having it again. I am a firm believer in the saying that goes "Gardening adds years to your life and life to your years".
On our way out, I also took a picture of the ornamental plant's display. Who knows I'll be buying a few of them too someday.
The lovely ornamental plants in different species.
Aren't these pots beautiful and creatively done? It has a lot of designs!
“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” – Audrey Hepburn
As I will plant these vegetables I brought, these will be planted with care and hope. A hope that these will grow and feed not just my family but also my neighbors who need them.
And as I take care of this every day, this will make me look forward to beautiful tomorrows. A beautiful tomorrow of fresh and healthy produce on my table and a tomorrow that will remind me of my wise investment today.
That's it for my #FridayMarket story initiated by the lovely 