Gardening Is the Best Recession-Proof Hobby to Start Now, According to Experts

When budgets are tight, society has historically turned to gardening to help make up the difference. During World War I and World War II, victory gardens grown in backyards and raised beds helped families save money while providing fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs. The same idea reappeared during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many people used gardening not only to supplement savings, but to provide their own food during supply chain issues.

Along with the benefits of low-cost produce, gardening is also a relaxing, mindful hobby, enriching your life and not just your wallet. Whether you’re thinking about planting your first garden or looking to add more edible plants to an existing plot, there’s never a bad time to take up this recession-proof hobby.

How Gardening Can Save You Money

Depending on your plant hardiness zone, there are plenty of fruits, veggies, and herbs you can grow in your backyard (or even on a windowsill) and therefore cross off your shopping list. Gardening is a low-cost hobby to start, especially if you grow plants from seeds. Once you've cultivated your crops, you can end up saving hundreds of dollars on groceries.

“Gardening is one of the few hobbies that actively lowers your grocery bill while raising your quality of life,” says Eric Croak, CFP and president at Croak Capital. “You're not adding new costs, you're replacing recurring ones. If you grow $20 worth of lettuce each week for six months, that is $480 straight out of the grocery budget and back in your hands."

The more food you have the capacity to grow, the more you can save. And as costs climb each year, starting your garden now can not only help you save money right away, but also guard against future price increases.

“A modest 4-by-8 raised bed can kick out enough greens, tomatoes, and herbs to shave $60 off a weekly grocery bill during peak months,” Croak says. “That's $240 a month during the season, maybe $1,000 a year. Compare that to food inflation at 4% to 6% per year, and suddenly, your backyard becomes a hedge against grocery volatility. In which case, you are actually buying food at last year's prices, every year.”

While a larger garden can mean more savings, it’s also more work to maintain and may not be realistic for everyone. But you can still save on a small scale with just a few low-maintenance plants. According to Lauren Click, founder and executive director of Let’s Go Compost, a windowsill herb pot can replace $2–$4 per week in store-bought herbs.

You won’t just get to reap the benefits during the summer, either. You may have tried canning foods like tomatoes before, but with a pressure-canner, you can also preserve most of the extras from your garden for year-round recipes, like green beans, corn, potatoes, and more. With a little planning, you can enjoy your garden-fresh produce (and extra spending money) even in the middle of winter.

Low-Cost Ways to Start Gardening

While gardening can save you money in the long run, it might seem costly to start the process—but it doesn’t have to be. A dedicated veggie garden in your backyard is convenient, but if you don’t have the time, space, or extra funds to get a garden started right away, there are other ways to start growing your own food in a budget-friendly way.

“Gardening isn’t expensive to start, and it should never be a privilege to grow your own food,” Click says. “Contact local garden clubs, seed swap groups, libraries, and your county extension office. Many offer free seeds, discounted tools, composting bins, and training programs.” Your local library could even offer garden tools to check out for free.

And don’t toss your grocery scraps right away—many of them can be repurposed and regrown into plants that will keep producing food for you, and others can become low-cost compost (cutting purchased fertilizer from your garden costs).

“You can even regrow food from scraps, like green onion bulbs, lettuce scraps, and carrot tops, which are great for pesto,” Click says. “Maximize your return. Use food scraps to make broth, then compost the leftovers to make fertilizer. That gives you three uses: food, broth, and soil. Composting cuts trash costs and eliminates the need to buy bagged fertilizer or potting soil over time.”

Click also recommends recycling containers you already own if you want to grow produce in pots, or checking local Buy Nothing groups to see what others are giving away. Just make sure you know what your container is made of before using it to grow food.

“As a note, remember to be safe and cautious when reusing items to garden in," she says. "Items like tires, paint cans, and non food-grade plastic should never be used to grow plants in—for food use or not. Instead, look for items like a forgotten terracotta pot; natural cloth, like cotton, for grow bags; and similar natural items.”

How Gardening May Help You Relax

Cost savings aside, it can be relaxing and even empowering to work in your garden and grow your own food.

“Gardening lowers grocery bills, reduces waste, and provides some protection from price spikes—while it has also been found to reduce your anxiety and stress, which, in turn, could have indirect cost savings over time from a health perspective,” Click says.

“Recessions bring stress. Prices climb, wages stall, and people panic-buy things they don’t need,” Croak adds. "Gardening flips that script. It’s calming. It’s productive. You’re replacing anxiety with agency, which has actual value. Mental bandwidth is a real resource, and people underestimate how much of it gets freed up when you feel like you're doing something useful with your hands.”

And while gardening can help protect your peace of mind when budgets are limited, the simple act of pulling weeds or plucking a home-grown tomato off the vine might help you relax. Listening to music or an audiobook or getting the whole family involved can turn it into a way to take time for yourself or bond with loved ones. Whether you choose to start small or plant a full garden bed, you can start harvesting the benefits any time.