Gardening doesn't have to be that expensive, or difficult. For one, go to Whole Foods and buy yer organic produce, then save, dry and plant yer seeds, then save the seeds from yer produce and plant that the next year and the next year and the next. You can also plant beans and grains from seeds in the organic bulk section. But you need to use organic produce/bulk seeds, because conventional produce seeds may have been zoted too badly to work. The organic produce seeds work great, and all you spend is the money to buy the produce you were gonna buy in the first place.

Secondly, go to Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening site at http://www.squarefootgardening.com and/or get his book. This is a very easy way to garden. Yes, you may have some upfront costs in getting compost, vermiculite or perlite and peat moss or coir (a more environmentally-friendly alternative), but this is a one-time investment. Start yer own compost pile, and you save even more. And you don't need an expensive composter to compost -- take a big plastic container, poke holes in it and put yer vegetative garbage in it, water and stir it every day and you are set with compost. Or, if you can't afford compost, peat, etc., and don't want to wait for yer compost to gel, google lasagna gardening, which uses layers of all kinds of stuff -- newspapers, regular soil, vegetative garbage, etc. Or check out Mittleider gardening, which is also suppose to be easy and relatively inexpensive.

Thirdly, when starting out, stick with very easy things to grow like herbs, tomatoes, greens, potatoes and malabar spinach (the easiest thing in the world to grow). Once you get the hang of that, grow more difficult things like squash, eggplants, grains.

Fourthly, if ya don't have land, get containers or build a square foot garden with a bottom and grow it on yer deck, or check out some cheap hydroponic alternatives (contrary to popular thought you don't have to spend a lot on hydroponics either) -- check out Hydro U at http://www.simplyhydro.com/hydrou.htm. Also good for you Northerners to grow year-round, regardless of freezing temps and snow. You can also make inexpensive cold houses to put over yer vegetation in winter, or build a greenhouse.

Yes, it does take some time, but not that much, and it is very enjoyable. Like me, you might even get addicted to it. And you have healthy, tasty food and you know that it came from your own hands, not through the hands of folks that have been in all kinds of places you'd rather not even think about!

Furthermore, you are not dependent on Whole Paycheck, Walmartay or yer local grocery store chain grocery store to provide you with sustenance. I'm a pretty optimistic person, and I like to think that everything is going to be OK with our economy, but you never know. I'd rather be able to provide myself with most of my own food than depend on a grocery store to provide it to me, or provide it to me at a highly marked-up price. I'm not totally there yet, but my intention is to grow as much of my own food as I possibly can.

So don't listen to the naysayers -- get busy and start growing yer own food! You'll have a lot of fun doing it, too!

Alright, since there seem to be a lot of people out there who want to dump on the idea you can save money gardening, let me repeat what I wrote earlier:

I live in the midwest. I garden on the lawn of my house, which I did not buy with gardening in mind. I save seed. Not counting the first year--which was laden with start up costs--I now spend about $100 / year on vegetable gardening materials (including the odd new seed). I spend 4 hours a week gardening, mostly early a.m. hours in the early spring.

In return, I got: more beans than we can possibly eat; ditto squash; ditto tomatoes; ditto hot peppers; 20lbs of new potatoes (of 3 lbs of seed); 35 heads of garlic; a forest of basil and other herbs; an endless supply of kale and chard. Rhubarb. Tomatiillo. And of course the convenience of being able to eat without shopping many days: "What's for dinner?" "Let's go pick something."

If you enjoy it, in my experience, it's worth it, financially as well as physically.

PS: Note that much of the best farmland in the country lies under snows six months a year. I should also say I don't can--too much trouble for me. If my goal was subsistence I'd have to quit my job. But to save a little money and eat well over the summer, the garden works.