01The rule of two ledgers
I've kept a garden and a grocery column side by side for forty years, and they're the same book. The canning shelf is a bank account with screw lids on it — you make the deposit in August so the withdrawal in January doesn't hurt. When the benefit check comes up short, you don't spend your way out; you harvest your way out. Same arithmetic, dirt instead of dollars.
02Can it or plant it — Houston zone 9a
- Okra — keeps fruiting into October. Pick every two days or it toughens. Freeze whole; no blanching needed if you use them within the month.
- Southern peas (crowder, field) — harvest dry, shell, freeze. The humblest bean pays the most per square foot.
- Sweet potatoes — dig when leaves yellow. Cure 10 days in the shed, not the fridge; 85 °F, high humidity, and they'll keep till spring like money in the mattress.
- Collards & mustard — sow the first week of September for a November table. They shrug at mild cold and only sweeten with it.
- Turnips — the green and the root both pay. Sow thick, thin hard, eat the thinnings.
The first week of September is the hinge of the whole Houston year. The summer crops are toward the back door, and the fall cool-crop window opens for six weeks. Miss it and you're buying collards in December at full price; catch it and the garden feeds you past New Year's on pennies.
"Feed a garden in the morning and it will feed you at supper." — my grandmother's rule
03What it costs, weighed out
Here's the honest arithmetic behind the tool, so you can check me and check the store price by price. These are the pounds I budget when the ledger's tight:
- Okra — a 3×6′ block, mid-summer to frost, yields 18–24 lb. At the store that's $2.79–$3.49/lb fresh. Your block is worth about $58 of groceries.
- Sweet potatoes — four slips, one summer, gives 10–15 lb. Store-shelf sweet potatoes run $1.50–$2/lb. Your row is worth $24–$30.
- Collards — one 6′ row, planted twice, gives 8–12 lb of cleaned greens. At $2.29/lb bunched that's $20–$28.
Add the garden to a short benefit check and the ledger stops leaking. That's the whole craft: the soil deposit. Ten dollars of seed and a morning's work in September becomes twenty weeks of greens and roots you don't hand a dime to the store for.