Growing your own to save

 

My husband and I are in the midst of a heated debate.  He disagrees with me
that growing your own produce is cheaper than purchasing it.

Besides the health benefits, and obviously the better tasting produce I
would be very interested in hearing everyone's thoughts on the subject.

Is it cheaper or more expensive to grow your own crops?

-M

 

GrlIntrpted wrote:


The initial expense for the home gardener is far more than what you'd
spend in the supermarket. This year alone, I spent $300 on hose and
timers, $1000 on two small greehouses, $50 on potting soil, $30 on
mulch...not to mention $40 in seed. There's no way in the world I'd
recoup those costs in the next ten years (and that's just this year's
investment). Last year I spent well over $1000 to build five raised beds
and fill them with good bagged soil.

A very frugal gardener could get away with minimal cost but some are
unavoidable. Seed, mulch, manure, fertilizer, pest control measures...
that expands with the size of the garden and I imagine you'd be cutting
it close in terms of cost. My neighbour (the one with the brown thumb)
is a frugal gardener - he just opens the ground, throws in seed and
walks away...but his costs already outweigh anything he'll get out of
his garden.

Like you said, I grow for the pure enjoyment of growing as well as the
better tasting produce. To me, that outweighs the cost.

   ..

Zone 5a in Canada's Far East

 


Yeah, but do you need to buy all these things? I manage to have a vegetable
garden without hose timers, greenhouses, etc. I don't buy mulch or potting
soil. I make compost in a worm box, using kitchen and yard waste I'd dispose
of anyway. Using compost means you don't have to spend as much on
fertilizer. $40 in seed also sounds like a lot of seed. Maybe you're buying
really fancy types or something? Or do you have a farm-sized spread? It
seems like every packet of seed has far more seed than I really need, and
the packets are something like $1.49 except they usually go on sale at the
local nursery for 50% the marked price around planting time. Pest control
measures? I'm not growing for the market, I'm growing for myself, so I don't
mind if there's a hole in my lettuce, and other than hand-picking slugs
(free), I don't spend any money on that, either.

Potatoes generally I don't bother to plant. Every year, even though I think
I've dug out every potato, I still get more that come up. This year I bought
one organic potato from the grocery, cut it up, and threw the pieces in the
ground, which is how I've introduced new types of potatoes into the garden
in the past. So this year I might have spent 50 cents on potatoes this year.
This year it was a purple potato, and I'm curious how it will hybridize with
russet-butter ball-yukon gold hybrids I've already got out there.

My big expense this year was buying new tomato cages. That was the first
time I bought tomato cages in 15 years. If every year I spend $20 on
something major like that, then maybe I spend $50, which seems like a very
high estimate, on everything. And I seem to get more than our family can eat
of tomatoes, squash, peas, etc., in the summer.


--
Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky
http://www.bicyclemeditations.org/
See the books I've set free at: http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky  

 

On Fri, 2 Jun 2006 08:14:57 -0400, "GrlIntrpted"


I think the actual produce is more expensive.   Especially if you
count your time as worth anything. [McDonald's is paying $10-12 an
hour in my neck of the woods.  If I needed grocery money, I could buy
a lot of produce for 4-5 hours a week-- and I could work in January,
when it is a bit frozen in my world.]

OTOH-  As hobbies go it is fairly inexpensive;  As a fitness regimen
it is cheaper than a gym membership & I have always taken more pride
and pleasure in a great tomato than in rippling biceps; it is handier
than running to the grocery store; and there isn't a grocer within 100
miles of me that carries the different varieties of peppers that I
grow, the types of tomatoes that I like, and my favorite purple basil.

Jim

 

Oh, man I love purple basil too. It's hardy, showy, and has a nice
decorative form and color in addition to a beautiful mild taste. I
tried it on a whim this year but won't do without it in the future.