Does Your Garden Save You Money?

[soil]

How long does it usually take to establish rasberries and aspargus to be at the point where it keeps producing without watering, fertilizer, etc...

[organic mommy]

I have not taken the time to break it down dollar by dollar from a baseline of what I was spending on store-bought produce then and what I am spending now, nor have I recently priced up what I produce (and not buy) to see what I am saving, but I am certain that I am saving. Even at times when I am not selling produce for profit, I am still saving money as I am able to harvest and produce meals for my family of 6 for about $2 total, on average.

It's easy to find affordable seed, and if you can find the non-hybrid, non-GMOs then you can continue to use your own saved seed indefinitely, so the seed purchase could theoretically be a one-time investment.
And as long as you are not farming a large spread, irrigation can be done by hand and hose so there is little other infrastructure costs involved. Sure, one can spend a fortune on beds and irrigation and high-end soils, but it's really not necessary, if you ask me. I have gotten by with minimal cost and commercial product use for years with explosive gardens that overwhelm my ability to use it all - that's where market and trade comes in, and we get back to the point.

When I have extra harvest, I work out deals with local poultry farms and dairy farms and even some cattle ranchers to swap out for their wares, so I save money on those things which I do not grow.

I also take extra veggies and make great stews and soups and sauces which I freeze and store for the lean times, and combined with some uncooked pasta storage, I have enough food to last my family about half a year in case my garden fails one year for some reason.

It is also great to use the berry gardens for profit - last month my berry plants were spitting out about 7 gallons per day! And considering the $3 - $5 per pint you may pay at a fresh market or chain store, you can imagine the sales I generated!


By the way - raised beds are not a cheat, they are a great way for an aging person or anyone with back problems to harvest more easily (not as much bending/squatting).

Best wishes to all!

Organic Mommy

"Peace on Earth and Good Will Toward (Wo)Men"
I am a proud supporter of www.arkinstitute.com - "sowing the seeds of self reliance"

[thebigtomato]

Awesome post Organic Mommy! Lots of good info in there. Thanks!

[kzhen]

Just a friendly note that I am not a professional and just garden for fun. I love home grown produce and have grown up seeing my dad tend to his garden day and night. I have recently picked up this hobby as well. Don't really see us saving money really, since we grow some of the basic fruits such as carrots, tomatoes, melons, etc. But I can tell you the taste difference is noticeable when you eat them!
Hope that helps

[thebigtomato]

Thanks for the feedback Kzhen

[kzhen]

Not a problem! Glad I can be of help.

[Mr Yan]

I asked myself this question this year and set about answering it. I logged all my expenses this year - $200 - and have been careful to weigh everything we have harvested and brought inside.

I have next to no good garden space without building it. My primary raised bed is built on/over a concrete pad. After that I have several DIY self watering planters (think OurEngineeredGarden blog or Earthtainer designs).

So far this season we have pulled 25.516 kg of veg, fruit, or herbs out of the garden for a price of $3.55 a pound.

I still have a lot in the yard including my experiments with a potato-tower, 12 sweet potato plants, and several butternut squash.

This year I hope to get close to parity with grocery store prices. Next year should be much more harvest for the seasonal cost as most cost this year is for container soil mix.

[AdamBorzy]

I spent so much in my gardening. I have to buy this and that, to name a few - pots, fertilizers, mulches, gardening tools, etc.
but all worth for every penny spent. Gardening for some ain’t just a hobby but doing it to earn a living.

[AnnClaire]

Hi all,

I am new to the forum, but not new to gardening. When I started, OGM had an article about "cardboard gardening" and that is what I started with. Well, the bermuda lawn had other ideas and actually invaded the 5 rows of compost on the cardboard, but I still grew enough corn to eat fresh 3x per week (family of 3) and put up enough to have corn on the cob each week in the winter. The tomatoes produced a bazillion between the slicers and the cherries. The peppers managed to outgrow the bermuda too, so we had awesome red and green bell peppers for cooking in the summer and I roasted and froze in oil enough to get through the winter using them 2-3x per week.

At the end of that season, I sat down and started doing research on the internet and thought about what worked and what didn't and why it didn't. But, being the queen of cheap, there was no way I was going to spend money to have the garden I truely wanted. Making my own compost in some wire cages I made from recycled decorative wire fencing was the first step that I had taken the year before (that is where the compost for the cardboard came from LOL), but I realized I would need MORE, MORE, MORE compost than what I could generate from my property. That was the birth of my raids for grass clippings in the neighborhood

So, now we are at the beginning of the next spring and I decided that garden weed barrier (the black plastic stuff with the white fuzzy back) would be an acceptable expense. <face palm> So, I bought a garden claw and got the spade shovel out and went to work on a 10'x10' garden bed ... many hours later of digging and pulling bermuda roots, I was ready to pull apart the compost piles and work that in to the new bed. There wasn't much color difference in the red clay soil after the compost, but there was plenty of organic matter and that was a great garden that year. My only problem was trying to lay the weed barrier on a day when the wind was blowing 30mph and not having enough bricks to form a line of bricks end-to-end around the edges of the plastic.

So, not only do I scrounge the grass clippings in the summer, and fall leaves in the fall, I will not pass up a pile of brick or rocks ;D Drives the old man absolutely CRAZY LOL I also bring in cattle panels, fencing, and anything else metal or plastic that I think I can use. Once you start looking, you would be amazed at what folks will throw away! I also scored a bunch of old railroad ties that had been leached in the weather. And, a few years ago, a internet-buddy talked me into not using the garden plastic and using solarized grass clippings as mulch. OMG, the savings in water, the health of the plants, and the reduction of heat-stress on the plants when it is 100+ every day for a month solid with no rain!

I now have the original bed at 12'x50' with chocolate brown soil (not the red clay I started out with!), another bed at 11'x40', and a third bed at 9'x21' all on my small little city lot. I have gone from opening a can or frozen bag 2x per week in the winter to opening at least one can or freezer bag of vegetable from my garden 4-5x per week. When I started in 1995, you could still find DelMonte cans on sale once a month 4/$1.00 or 6/$1.00 ... now you are lucky if you can find them for less than 75cents sale price. A gallon of milk back then was $1.25/gallon and now it is $4.00/gallon! Water each month back then was $30 when I watered the lawn each week and the garden 2x per day, now it is $65 per month with only watering the lawn once per month and mulching with grass and using soaker hoses.

The biggest savings from my garden is the peace of mind I get as that is "MY TIME" and no one bothers me when I am out there watering or harvesting LOL The hours of therapy I didn't need! The hours I didn't need to spend at the gym.

[justlovegardening]

Lower Your Food Bill

Stop paying for fresh food when you can
grow all you need for almost no effort.
Stop eating fresh food that you don't know about: Pesticides? Bacteria? Genetically modfied?
Start eating right and protect yourself and your family and put $5000 back in your pocket.

Food. It's the most the most important thing to all of us. I bet you didn't realise just how much you could save on your food bill each year. We researched and calculated the average family spends around $5000 per year on fresh food. That is a huge amount of money considering the average family earns less than $100,000 per year. That is almost 5% of your income you could save on your food bill.

Seriously. Control your food bill and you will get more control over your finances.

Consider this. If I told you all you needed to do was take half a day - ok let's say one full day, (considering most people will procrastinate) and less than $100 and you will be well on your way to reducing your food bill by around $5000 per year! After your half day of work (or full day) you only need to spend another few hours during the year checking over your vegetable garden and picking food from it. Then each year after that, your garden seeds itself and starts growing more food all over again with little effort from you.

If you're a seasoned gardener or you know one who has a vegetable garden I bet they'd tell you it takes a lot more work than that. Well I can confidently tell you, they have it all wrong. I know this fellow Jonathan White. Jonathan is a Horticulturalist and Environmental Scientist who has dedicated his life to working out how to produce food in the easiest possible way. This guy lives on a small farm and has a garden that produces all the food he, his wife and two kids need each year. Better still, he has proven his method has he has been doing this for years.

Let me tell you another thing about why you really, really need to get your act together and start growing your own food. Pesticides, Imported food, genetically modified food and bacteria.

Did you know they grow tomatoes in China, export them to Italy and then re-export them around the world as Italian tomatoes?

Do you remember the outbreak of E.Coli a few years back? That was a breakout of bacteria in baby spinach.

Are you aware that many foods sold are not clearly labelled as genetically modified? You'd never know. Some scientists say you have nothing to worry about and others say the process of life is so delicate and intricate that a small change in one part of the process can have dramatic changes in other areas and we might never know.

Did you know that most fresh food travels long distance - mainly by road - before it gets to your supermarket? If oil skyrockets again - which the so called experts predict - what effect on prices do you think that will have on your food bill? It may not be $5000 you save but could be anywhere up to $6000, $7000 or even more.

I highly recommend you get your hands on Jonathan's book and video package, Food4Wealth. It takes you through everything you need to know to get your own vegetable garden up and running successfully with the least amount of effort.

Just having Jonathan's book and getting you in this mindset is insurance against the volatility this world is throwing at all of us. Get control of your food bill starting today. Stop putting it off. In a year you'll either be thankful for finding out about this invaluable ebook and video package or you'll be kicking yourself that you didn't start sooner.