It was widely reported by the news media -- such as in this piece from the Washington Post -- that installing the 1,100-square-foot vegetable garden on the White House south lawn cost about $200, not including labor. For the President and First Lady, that's probably petty cash. But the cost might deter America's low-income families from gardening.

UC Cooperative Extension can help Californians cut the cost of home-grown food. The UCCE Master Gardener program offers free gardening advice in many California counties. Information is available on the Master Gardener Web site and many county programs have free demonstration gardens and call-in gardening advice phone lines. A new, expanded California Gardening Web site will be launched by the Master Gardener program soon.

An article that ran over the weekend in the San Diego Union Tribune gathered frugal gardening advice from a variety of sources, including the local UCCE office.

Here are a few of the more novel ideas from the article:

• Don't buy fertilizer. Compost instead.
• Don't buy chemicals. Use integrated pest management.
• Use "found art" as garden containers, such as old sinks, troughs or tubs, tires, boots or buckets – anything with drainage holes will work.
• Grow your own herbs.  (Small quantities are expensive in the supermarket.)

The academic coordinator of the statewide UC Master Gardener program, Pam Geisel, recently shared some additional ideas with me for cutting the cost of gardening:

• Throw some 4-inch tomato plants within your existing landscape -- as long as it is in full sun and gets some water -- and you will have some tomatoes (total investment $2.50)
• Use recycled materials - wood for raised beds, old posts or pipe for trellises, newspaper as mulch, containers for seedlings, etc.
• Irrigate using a hand sprinkler instead of installing an expensive drip system (though it may cost you more in time, and water costs could be significantly higher if you forget to turn it off)
• Share tools at a community garden plot
• Grow from seed (though failure rate is pretty high)

A UC ANR programmer based at UC Davis and avid home gardener, Karl Krist, spent about $600 over two years to develop his vegetable garden, even though he used recycled wood to make planting beds, discarded barrels as containers, home-grown seedlings, free used coffee grounds from Starbucks and homemade compost. Because the garden is new, he doesn't have complete information yet on the impact on the family's food bill, but he says, they already are reaping the benefits.

"I do think of my garden as more than just a producer of food…it’s landscaping!" Krist said.