[Easy and Low-Maintenance] Money-Saving Home Gardening Techniques to Turn Your Balcony into a Self-Sufficiency Hub

Hello! It's Chaso-sensei! 🧑‍🏫
When you feel like "vegetables are expensive...", the peace of mind that comes from having food on your balcony is immeasurable. This time, I will introduce some of the most cost-effective vegetables that even lazy people can keep up with, which are "fine to leave mostly unattended". If you set them up at the beginning, you can just leave them alone, so building a system is important! 😄
You don't want to go out on the balcony during this cold season or the hot summer, right? Leaving them alone is fine!
I only water them occasionally, like when I'm hanging out the laundry.
Of course, sometimes they wither, but most of them survive, so it's no problem!

1. Recommended for the lazy! The 3 best vegetables to profit from by "planting and forgetting"

Once planted, these are the kings of cost-effectiveness because you can harvest them repeatedly by picking the "outer leaves" as needed or cutting them while leaving the base.

Each of these is not a big deal, and they are herbs or lettuce that you might not even bother buying. Just picking them from the balcony will significantly level up your cooking!
The flavor is totally different because they are freshly picked! Green onions and such don't have much presence, but when freshly picked, the aroma is perfect! 😄

2. Turning trash into food with "Regrowing"

If you utilize the "roots that would otherwise be thrown away," you can get vegetables for practically free.

Daikon radish leaves

Just soak the cut-off top part in water or bury it in soil. It's perfect for miso soup ingredients or furikake.
If you soak the base of the daikon with leaves in an empty tofu container, they will sprout up! 😄

Carrot leaves

They are cute enough to be ornamental, and their parsley-like flavor makes them a great accent for cooking.
Just like the daikon, if you put them in an empty tofu container, they will grow.

Pea sprouts (Toumyou)

After eating the ones you bought at the supermarket, if you soak them in water in a plastic container, you can harvest them again in 1-2 weeks.
These are famous, right? You can even find special goods for them at 100-yen shops.
As for me... I don't like the taste... so I don't do this one... 😂

3. "Loose" rules for success

"Not trying too hard" is the secret to continuing to save money for a long time.

"Occasional watering" is fine

It's enough to water them when the surface of the soil is dry. If you over-pamper them, the roots will rot.
🏸 I give them the leftover water from my water bottle after badminton or 🎾 tennis practice.

Make full use of 100-yen shops

Planters and soil can be found at 100-yen shops. Keeping initial costs down is the key to maximizing cost-effectiveness. If you are not used to it, start small.
If you do it on too large a scale, it becomes a hassle, and the damage is greater when you get discouraged.
Bugs might get on them, so it's easy to get discouraged 🐝
If you take measures against bugs 🐝 with the following, you'll be all set! 👌
This was seriously god-tier. Seriously, no bugs will get on them. No need for pesticides or management costs! It's god-tier! 😂

Kitchen to balcony direct access

If you have them on the balcony, the moment you think "Oh, it needs more color" while cooking, you can procure them in a few seconds.
This ease of use, while the quality is at its best, the quality is good, and management is easy.
It's all good things! 😂

Summary

Balcony gardening is the ultimate "household budget defense strategy." It reduces your trips to the supermarket just a little bit and cuts down on food waste.
Above all, the taste of freshly harvested vegetables you've grown yourself is exceptional.
I don't put much effort into it at all... I occasionally let things wither, but for a year now, I've been growing green onions endlessly from a single 100-yen purchase of half-price onions (with roots attached).
Shiso grows automatically every spring, and green onions grow year-round... The amount varies quite a bit depending on the season, but it helps with saving money and improves your quality of life, so I highly recommend it! 😄
Many of you probably know this since the money-saving YouTuber Gamaguchi does it every year. It's at the end of the video below.

I personally like thick green onions because they are satisfying to eat. You can also grow garlic infinitely in things like plastic bottles 😄
Sunny lettuce is delicious when you pick it and eat it every morning 😄
Thank you for watching 😊