First and foremost, it is wise to cultivate what you really use of vegetables - and also utilize the cultivation area well. Perhaps potatoes, which are relatively cheap in the store, can make way for more expensive vegetables, like tomatoes? A garden of 800 square meters can more or less provide for a family of two children with vegetables for a whole year. Few have so much space available, but even if you grow on a smaller area, you can earn a lot.
1) Tomatoes
Tomatoes are often expensive in the store, but still easy to grow yourself. A healthy and fresh tomato plant produces on average 1 kilo of tomatoes, and a family with two children will easily have tomatoes for the whole year with around 40 tomato plants. Then there will also be enough to freeze for stews, lasagna, and everything else delicious you can make with tomatoes. There are three main groups of tomatoes: tall tomatoes that need support, bush tomatoes, and hanging tomatoes (bush tomatoes with hanging growth). Bush tomatoes can be grown indoors year-round with plant lighting, so you can have a steady supply of fresh tomatoes. Piennolo are fantastic Italian tomatoes that can be stored throughout the winter, these can sometimes cost several hundred kroner per kilo, so there can be a lot to save by growing them yourself.
2) Chili and bell peppers
Even if you may not use large amounts of paprika and chili, they are usually expensive to purchase. Growing chili is a fun hobby, and as a home grower, you have the opportunity to grow many exciting varieties that you would never otherwise have access to. There are mild and sweet varieties, but also super strong ones - like 'Trinidad Scorpion', perhaps the world's hottest chili. Chili takes a long time to develop and should be sown early in the year if you want to harvest your own chilies the same year. Plant lighting is necessary to speed up the seeds early in the year, and a plant light can also be useful in several other contexts, both for cultivation and for winter-tired indoor plants. Chili plants can be overwintered indoors and provide early harvest the following year. With a little luck, the plants can live for several years. It is easy to become self-sufficient in chili, since you can harvest a lot from one plant and since you rarely use very many chilies at once.
3) Cucumber
The price of cucumber has fluctuated for many years, sometimes it is cheap, other times almost double the price. Cucumber is perhaps our most beloved vegetable, after the tomato. Most varieties of cucumber thrive in greenhouses, but there are also outdoor varieties that you can grow in your garden, hanging cucumber plants, and self-pollinating varieties that are suitable for indoor cultivation. If you want, you can grow cucumbers indoors all year round, as long as you use plant lighting. Under the right conditions, a cucumber plant can produce as much as 40 to 50 cucumbers per plant. The closely related squash also provides huge yields and is great as an ingredient in many dishes, such as lasagna and meat sauce. Different types of winter squash can also be stored for a long time.
4) Salad
Salad is super easy to grow yourself, both indoors and outdoors. To have a continuous supply of fresh salad, you can pre-cultivate plants and then transplant them into the beds where you have harvested. Spinach is another option, which can also be frozen. You can benefit a lot from growing lettuce and leafy greens in various forms, such as the often expensive arugula. To extend the season into the fall, winter salad is a great tip.
The vegetables we have mentioned here are of course just some of the ones you can benefit from, there are many others that can also help keep the household budget down. Garlic is one example, but also berries like strawberries and raspberries and various types of fruit. Whatever you choose to grow, it can bring a lot of joy to life.