I have read that many on this site are looking to provide a healthier baby food option for their toddlers, and if you are all anything like me you would prefer to do it for less money whenever possible. For a while my wife and I were clipping coupons trying to get half-price jars of food or other savings, but it wasn't making that big of an impact on our budget and was moving us farther away from healthful, organic baby food.

That is when we found the joy and countless benefits of growing and preparing our own healthy, nutritious ORGANIC baby food, and all without a yard to speak of! We used some pots and planters and even a window-sill and started to grow our own produce from seeds bought on-line. Add a baby food processor and we were on our way to FREE BABY FOOD for life! In just about an hour a week, we could harvest, process and store our own baby food for the whole week, and if I really broke it down to cost per serving, it would be a fraction of a cent per serving.
Since then, we now have a home with a yard, and have planted a small in-ground garden which provides food for our newer baby and also for the whole family, and still for just about no cost.

I recommend visiting: The Ark Institute
for all of your gardening and baby food growing needs.
They also have specifically designed packages for parents and other groups, including those for first-time gardeners with little or now experience!

thanks to all!
Jason
on behalf of The Ark Institute, my favorite organic gardening resource for my family.

$100 for 40 packets of seed seems a bit expensive. And that looked to be the best priced of the lot.

Even then, the seed is certainly the least part of the cost equation. To produce a reliable food supply, you'll need to either do some extensive container gardening or make raised beds. We're estimating that before we fill our new beds with a soil mix, we'll spend upwards of $250 for each 12'x4'x2' bed. They'll be built to last, but had better for the money and time we'll be putting into them.

Enjoy growing your food. I hope you contribute more participation that just plugging a commercial site.

I didn't say it was totally free, rather that you can stop paying for baby food in the stores and cut your expenses. I found that that seed cost is approximately the same as (or less than) I would pay at the garden centers at the retail stores here, and here you get exponentially more seed than the commercial/retail packets.

Especially important for me and my wife was that I had recently been laid off and we were having to cut every corner in our budget, so this was a wise investment.

I started with those attic-storage-containers sitting on my patio, and total initial investment after the seed package was about $60 for start-up (buying a couple new containers and also potting soil to mix with soil I dug up from the woods), then minimal to keep going. It is a small investment that reaps large rewards.

True, if you want to get into self-reliance gardening, you need to expand but don't need to do it all in huge expensive raised-beds. When containers can't keep up, simply go in-ground if you have a yard. Raised beds are helpful but not required.

I also look forward to continued interaction on this site - it's nice to be able to stop scouring the other parenting sites and swapping "daddy" for "mommy" in all the posts or articles...

Jason

Obviously, we are big fans of locally grown and organic foods for kids from the time they are in diapers. And we also favor gardening and growing your own food -- visiting farms and farmers markets. All good things.

I would encourage you to continue to share your own personal experience with this process. A little linking is okay, but make sure you are judicious about it.

Cheers.

Thanks, I will do. I was trying to start off with something fun and useful to offer the group.
I understand, and look forward to the rest that this site has to offer, and what I can possibly offer to it.

Here is an option for a cheaper raised garden: ana-white.com/2010/05/hack-natural-rusti...dar-raised-beds.html