Sweet Peppermint Tea
yum_tea My budget being limited and food prices being ridiculously high, I'd like to try my hand at growing fruits and/or vegetables this year to save on grocery costs. My soil is...well, to be honest, I'm not so sure it's that great. A layer of sandy dirt covering red clay is what it is. With those conditions and the hot, humid Alabama summers to deal with, are there any plants that a newbie gardener can grow with relatively little cost (beyond time and personal labor)?
Don't underestimate that rich red clay you have there. Mix it with the sandy topsoil and add compost or other organic material and you will have an ideal growing medium for almost anything you can think of.
Easy plants to grow: top of the list is cherry tomatoes. I particularly recommend the varieties Sungold, Sweet 100, and Sweet Million, they produce more delicious tomatoes than you will believe. Radishes were unbelievably simple to grow, draw a line in the dirt, sprinkle seeds thickly, water. They like to grow very close together, and you could have radishes within 2 weeks of planting, but do it soon, the ones I've grown did better in the cooler months. Lettuces were as easy as radishes and the method was the same. You might see about finding some warm-weather tolerant varieties, as lettuces often bolt when the weather turns warm. I live in MD, and our heat and humidity are no joke.
The only fruit I can think of which might produce for you this year is strawberries, and if you don't plan on gardening after this year, even planting those would be a waste. Most fruits I know of come from bushes or trees and take years to mature and become productive.
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