‘Bang for your buck is seeds’: Calgarians part of growing trend to cut food costs

Garden centres are seeing more seed sales as Calgarians grow their own food to save money.

More Calgarians are digging into ways to cut food costs by gardening, driving up demand for plots and planting supplies.

“When groceries go up, people start to grow their own food for sure,” said Colin Atter, who owns Plantation Garden Centre.

He said that he has heard from garden centres in B.C., where they’re much further ahead in the growing season -- and the trend is growing in popularity almost to levels last seen in the pandemic.

“Bang for your buck is seeds,” said Atter saying seed sales are strong at his shop.

A lot more green thumbs seem to be popping up throughout the city.

“We’ve got a waiting list this year. We’ve never had it like that before,” said Julia Hinman president of Inglewood Community Garden.

Plant what you’ll eat: experts

Starting costs can add up -- so when gardening to save money experts suggest you start small, choose what grows well in your area and plant what you’ll actually eat; especially high-yield crops like tomatoes, greens and zucchini.

“(It’s) probably still cheaper to go to the store for some things but certain things like potatoes and carrots that store quite well, we’ll still have them in December,” said Laurens Philipsen who has had a plot in Inglewood Community Garden for a couple of years.

You can even get your hands dirty and take home some of the harvest for free through a Calgary non-profit that converts vacant urban lots into communal growing spaces.

“Anybody can join, there’s no minimum time commitment and we grow everything together and we share everything together,” said Jack Goodwin, the co-founder of Vacant Lots Farm Club.

More than 120 volunteers have signed up this growing season to help garden vegetables, fruits and flowers on a five acre piece of land in Country Hills intended for a future school.

Families are expected to spend nearly $1,000 more on groceries this year, according to Canada’s Food Price Report, and rising fuel surcharges to transport food could drive prices up further.

“There’s more and more people skipping meals to feed their kids, so from a purely practical point of view access to food in a cost-effective way has never been more important,” said Goodwin.

Planting is priceless

Aside from the value of what you grow, the act of planting itself is priceless.

“Slowing down, taking time… honestly it’s like a respite,” said Hinman who adds that the nutrition of the food you grow yourself also outweighs what you typically buy in the store.