The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Welcome and General Discussion => Topic started by: Arktinkerer on July 26, 2015, 09:10:09 AM
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What do you grow that has the highest return for your money/labor/space?
I'm thinking herbs right now. Good seasonings can add so much flavor to even bland foods purchased at the supermarket and they are expensive to purchase and easy to grow.
Tomatoes need more care but can certainly be a high return for input.
Lettuce is pretty high return as well.
Garlic--especially elephant garlic-- is easy but my crop is failing this year due to too much water in the early season.
Potatoes are easy, can grow in a container, don't take much space, but don't really cost a lot.
Squash and melons take a lot of room for little return.
Carrots don't have a great return if you look at just the root but if you use the tops for pesto they aren't bad. Can be planted among the other plants to save space.
What do you grow that gives you the most bang for your buck (and time!).
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I'd love to have enough land for strawberries/blueberries/raspberries someday.
I don't know if the return is great per sq foot, but man oh man are they good when they are fresh.
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Certainly didn't mean to discount the joy that comes from fresh produce! Or those special varieties. Peppers aren't really a "high return" item but a variety of (moderately) hot peppers really makes my season.
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I'd love to put in berries someday, too. The quality difference between home grown and store bought is big with tomatoes. I also grow herbs because it's so handy to grab them as needed.
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Rosemary for bread, thyme for eggs and potatoes, peppers because picante es bueno. I've got a lot of onions scattered around, because you can stick them in with other stuff. I'm going to try turnips in the fall. Love them mashed with a little butter and salt, and the greens as well.
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Any type of hot peppers. I have four plants and they'll produce many more peppers than I can use fresh. The rest will be frozen or converted to pepper jelly.
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Raspberries and blackberries - easy to grow, abundant, expensive at the store.
Asparagus - by the end of the Spring, I'm pretty tired of eating asparagus, but it is basically care free where I am (the usual weeding and clean up - but no pests or diseases).
Herbs of all kinds, but especially fresh basil.
Tomatoes - I don't get hit with a lot of pests or disease on my tomatoes, so they pretty just grow like a weed. Have to keep them watered regularly in the Summer. I have about 8 plants in a 4x8 raised bed. I picked about 10 pounds of tomatoes today alone (and that's after discarding 10-12 tomatoes because crows have been eating them this year). I like cherry tomatoes best for bang and versatility in recipes.
Cucumbers - The last couple of years I've been growing asian and english cucumbers, instead of the standard American variety. They have been fantastic - some of the best cucumbers I've ever had, and not readily available in stores.
Things I don't do anymore: Strawberries (well, they're there, because they don't stop coming back, but the animals eat them all), potatoes (unless I find sprouted potatoes in my cupboard, then I toss them into the garden - otherwise too cheap, and prone to disease where I am), garlic (always successful, but so cheap to buy). I will probably give up on squash when I run out of seeds - too many pests in my area - it's a constant fight.
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The highest return crop is not legal in my state.
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Swisschard and kale always keep producing well past first frost where im at. Potatoes are always a winner. Zucchini is usually a hog for space but can achieve some big growth in a reasonable time. Asparagus is great like others mentioned. Peas can be grown up fences at the gardens edge to save room.
Im missing a bunch but those are all my favorites.
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The highest return crop is not legal in my state.
Ha!
I've read that you should always grow what you'll actually eat and not necessarily what saves the most money. But at the same time if you're limited on space/time then you really have to pick and choose. You're right on point with the herbs. If you have space start fruit now because it can take years before it's ready. Look into square foot gardening for getting the most produce out of the least space and to cut down on weeds.
If you're just starting out you can swap seeds through the mail or do SASE for seeds. I joined the "Great American Seed Swap" on Facebook and trade through the mail. I'm probably over sharing since this isn't what you asked. Let me know if you want more ideas/sources for cost and space effective gardening.
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Definitely herbs. We need to grow more of them. I cringe paying the inflated store prices, but the taste is better than dried for most uses.
Tomatoes. We have 80 plants this year, in 6 raised beds, with varieties staggered to keep them coming longer. There is nothing like a home grown tomato. This year we also planted Ambrosia cantaloupes in the tomato beds. They help keep the weeds down & are so delicious.
We dry or freeze what we don't eat or give away to friends.
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Salad mix. It's $5 for 288g I think. One row has put salad in my bagels for the last 6 weeks or more.
Asparagus - next year we should get a decent crop.
Courgettes/zucchini are prolific if you can keep the vine borers out. I'm struggling with that.
Snap peas/mange tout are easy.
Kale is easy! And expensive!
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The highest return crop is not legal in my state.
Somehow I knew this would come up...
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I find fruit trees are very high return. They don't take much work and give you an enormous crop.
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If you like okra, it's super easy and prolific. I planted 4 plants one year and couldn't keep up. Got so sick of eating okra though that I haven't planted it since. I plant cucumbers and tomatoes every year. I planted beets this year that were delicious and definitely going to plant more of those, but I need more room. Love to plant any greens...salad and chard of both good ones and easy. Going to expand my beds this fall so I have more room. Cukes and tomatoes have taken over this year even though they haven't been as prolific as in years past. I also have blueberry and raspberry bushes. I relocated the blueberry bushes this year and working on the raspberry bushes which aren't getting enough sun where they are. Delicious when they do produce...I have high hopes with those for the future. Going to plant a pear tree this fall.
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Peppers. Grow three colors in 2 five gallon pots. At end of season prune back and take in for the winter. Put bushes out after last frost. Should yield 50 peppers per pot. Smallish but tasty and lasts from may till November around here.
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I say peppers of all types. They're pretty expensive at the grocery store, and they freeze well for up to six months. Herbs too, especially basil, which we love. Sugar snap peas are great to grow because -- like peppers -- they're expensive to buy and easy to grow.
Tomatoes, not so much. Home grown tomatoes are available everywhere for $1-1.50/lb. Not much point in growing them when I can get a 20 lb box of "canning tomatoes" for $10 at the farmer's market. Same for corn; it's .20/ear now.
Strawberries are a big pain, and you can always get them from the pick-your-own place. Blueberries require much less effort and are so expensive to buy!
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Haven't seen anyone mention butternut squash. I plant them and they grow with zero tending. Sometimes they even volunteer from discarded seeds. In the fall, I walk around and pick them up. They store in the pantry till the following year with no preservation needed. They are rediculously expensive at the store. Given how easy they grow, I can not figure that one out. I imagine some of the other winter squashes are similar.
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I've narrowed it down based on a few considerations: freshness (what doesn't store well and should be eaten straight from a garden if possible), cost, and what will the kids seek out to eat from the garden.
For these reasons we grow a lot of peas and raspberries - they line the path to the house and everyone eats them coming and going. We also grow tomatoes even though I also buy canning tomatoes that are cheap. Cherry tomatoes straight from the vine taste way better - same with the June-bearing and ever-bearing strawberries and blueberries. Figs and herbs are also a hit.
Next year we won't grow squash, peppers or some of the beans we grew this year. I can buy these fairly cheaply and the quality is not much higher than the store.
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Fresh herbs have been mentioned, but I have to bring them up: if all you've got is a windowsill, the returns on that are still really high. A little packet of fresh basil at the grocery store is 2$ around here, and it's in season!!
If you can manage it: lettuce, kale, swiss chard, green onions. All easy to grow and semi-pricy to buy.
If you've got more space: blackberries, raspberries, blueberries. Especially blueberries, since they lack the thorns and require less maintenance, so they're easier to keep in a standard yard. :)
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Japanese eggplant. Asian eggplant.
Horrible, bruised, ugly EXPENSIVE in the store...like candy from the garden and in containers because I'm inundated with rabbits as usual. They even climbed up into them and ate two big plants to the ground (which are coming back, slowly) so now the damn things are caged.
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It depends on what you like to eat and what prices are like in your area.
We grow enough tomatoes to keep us supplied with sauce, etc., all year (and we eat a lot of it).
Fruit is definitely a winner, but trees take more tending than vegetables, and if you don't care for them at the right time, you can have broken branches and other problems. We do mainly plums and peaches. They do tend to come all at once, so you need to have a way to deal with that.
Basil and other herbs are probably best in terms of cost saving, but they are low volume.
Fresh peas--regular, snap, or snow--have a short season, but they are SO DELICIOUS and you cannot get them in stores.
Leafy greens are very good.
We don't grow onions, garlic, or potatoes because they are so cheap, and our space is limited--although we've done potatoes a few times, and they taste *really* good.
Broccoli is not cost effective. Even though it's supposed to do well in my area, it just doesn't grow well for me, and for just one tiny head per plant, it's not worth it. Same with cauliflower and cabbage (unfortunately, because I love them all).
Generally, we prefer to grow plants that keep producing all season, like toms and beans and peppers.
Strawberries grow well but were a complete bust because the bugs and birds got ALL of them.
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Raspberries - in a bed by themselves along the side of our garage. Water is supplied via a soaker hose hooked up to a rain barrel. Froze 44 quarts of berries last year and probably ate almost that many fresh.
Asparagus - $4-5 a pound at the farmers market. We harvested about $250 worth at that rate. A bit too much for us but we have happy friends and neighbors!
Potatoes - plant enough to eat fresh thru the summer and fall. Same with green beans
Romaine lettuce and cabbage - salads and coleslaw spring - fall. Start both in the house and transplant outside in the spring and later in the summer for a fall crop.
Onions - buy sweet onion plants. The most expensive thing we plant but well worth it. Will be harvesting in another few weeks then freezing them. Sweet onions don't keep well once out of the group so freezing is the way to go.
Cucumbers - a dollar worth of seeds keeps you in cucumber for several weeks.
Tomatoes - have two cherry tomato plants for fresh eating and four Roma paste tomatoes. They produce like crazy and keep us in tomato products all winter. Last year we planted six Romas and found that was too much. The tomatoes are peeled, chopped, and froze.
Peas - snap peas are good producers. Always freeze a few packages for the winter. Plant lots of English peas just for the pleasure of eating them raw right out in the garden.
We didn't plant carrots or beets this year. They require thinning and are always a hit or miss crop. Would rather devote space to known producers.
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Fruit and nut trees for extended return - they require a little work each year, but depends on the variety how much, and the return is huge.
Berry bushes - hig return year over year
Herbs for seasoning and medicines
Crowder peas and/or butter beans for high protein, long keeping. Also set nitrogen in the soil so the space is better after growing them than before. I would have starved to death as a child if it weren't for home grown butter beans.
Squash, yellow crookneck, zucchini, or pattypan for pure bulk of food. Shred and eat all winter. Plant with some of the crowder peas Three Sisters style.
Kale, spinach, collard greens. The collards will last almost all winter here if there's no ice storm.
Tomatoes and peppers, though they're a pain because you have to grow them in a different place every year on a three-year rotation. But six or eight Roma plants will make enough tomatoes to last the winter for one person, dehydrated. Multiply by people in the household.
I don't grow potatoes or sweet potatoes anymore because they're so cheap. Ditto onlins and garlic.
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One of the things I'm learning about gardening is to go with the flow. My wife really likes eggplant and she keeps trying to grow it. After losing 4 out of 5 plants year after year and getting just one or two eggplants to show for it I think its time to give up on that!
Other things are just so easy, we really don't care--other than this year, the garlic came back every year. Lots of it. No work involved at all other than harvesting. And we used it all or gave it to friends.
Carrots I almost gave up on. This year we are actually doing well. Now that we know what works, we will stick with it.
Wife tried to do raspberries year after year. She prefers them to blackberries but the blackberries will pretty much grow wild around here. Why do all the work when something so similar will grow with ease?
Lettuce in the heat of the summer is the same--bolts every time. So now I will only grow it in early spring and fall. We will grow other plants that have edible greens in the summer.
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Vegetables such carrots, potatoes, and onions are always cheap in fall...why bother growing onions or potatoes when you can buy a 20 pound bag of onions for $4, or 50 pounds of potatoes for $10.
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Re:Why bother with potatoes - Many potatoes keep well through the winter and if you crop rotate and compost your soil well they should be more nutritious than anything you can buy at the store.
I've also got to second the cucumbers, I love fresh pickles :)
If you grow an abundance of tomatoes you can easily wash and crush them yourself to jar and keep them in the basement without needing refrigeration, you'll have badass sauce all year long! Something like this for example http://www.food.com/recipe/crushed-tomatoes-canning-252833
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If you grow an abundance of tomatoes you can easily wash and crush them yourself to jar and keep them in the basement without needing refrigeration, you'll have badass sauce all year long! Something like this for example http://www.food.com/recipe/crushed-tomatoes-canning-252833
We've canned before. I want to try sun drying some and also making tomato paste. Fire-roasting before canning is also on my list of things to try.
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Fruit and nut trees for extended return - they require a little work each year, but depends on the variety how much, and the return is huge.
Berry bushes - hig return year over year
Herbs for seasoning and medicines
Crowder peas and/or butter beans for high protein, long keeping. Also set nitrogen in the soil so the space is better after growing them than before. I would have starved to death as a child if it weren't for home grown butter beans.
Squash, yellow crookneck, zucchini, or pattypan for pure bulk of food. Shred and eat all winter. Plant with some of the crowder peas Three Sisters style.
Kale, spinach, collard greens. The collards will last almost all winter here if there's no ice storm.
Tomatoes and peppers, though they're a pain because you have to grow them in a different place every year on a three-year rotation. But six or eight Roma plants will make enough tomatoes to last the winter for one person, dehydrated. Multiply by people in the household.
I don't grow potatoes or sweet potatoes anymore because they're so cheap. Ditto onlins and garlic.
Could you explain the pepper/tomato rotation thing? I have one of each growing in a half barrel....the pepper isn't happy but it's producing? I thought it might be I'm overwatering a bit with a soaker hose. The tomato plant is thrilled and has fist sized ones on it now, still green though.
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Indeterminate early producing tomatoes, squash/zucchini, cucumbers, kale and chard - endlessly producing (until frost), very little upkeep (rotation, as noted, BT on the kale, and that's about it), high production, delicious and healthy!
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Fruit trees are pretty damned awesome.
We've got two pear trees in the back yard. They need a little pruning in the spring and fall but other than that require no fertilizer, no insecticide, and no watering. Usually get 50+ lbs of pears from them in September, and they provide some backyard shade year round.
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If you grow an abundance of tomatoes you can easily wash and crush them yourself to jar and keep them in the basement without needing refrigeration, you'll have badass sauce all year long! Something like this for example http://www.food.com/recipe/crushed-tomatoes-canning-252833
If you have room in your freezer, you can freeze tomatoes whole in ziplock bags. When you need them, let them thaw a bit, then use them as you would use canned tomatoes (i.e. for cooking, not for salads). It's almost no work at all.
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Haven't seen anyone mention butternut squash. I plant them and they grow with zero tending. Sometimes they even volunteer from discarded seeds. In the fall, I walk around and pick them up. They store in the pantry till the following year with no preservation needed. They are rediculously expensive at the store. Given how easy they grow, I can not figure that one out. I imagine some of the other winter squashes are similar.
Oh yeah, we are still eating last year's spaghetti squash. I got like 20 big ones off of one plant. Sadly, my seedling died this year, so no more spaghetti squash this year.
Potatoes - yeah, russets are cheap as dirt, but lovely organic new potatoes are not, and I'm finding that I always miss a few when harvesting, so the next year they just come up on their own, so great ROI, because the I = absolutely nothing.
Kale - just keep cutting leaves off and it keeps on growing.
Beets - use the roots and the greens. A few beets go a long way.
Shallots - easy to grow from seed, expensive in the store. Should be able to store and use over a decent time period. Leeks - also expensive to buy, low maintenance and easy to grow.
Green onions because we use them pretty much every week, and they take up very little space in the garden and can be harvested over a long time period.
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here, we find herbs (sage, thyme, and mint are all going bonkers and actually lived through the winter), fresh basil, tomatoes, green beans.
I care more about time required vs likelihood of succeeding.
I did not plant squash this year, which I regret. I think it would have been excellent.
We have wild blueberries, raspberries, and TONS of wild blackberries (an invasive weed in this region) on roadsides and trails in the woods around here, so I would not plant those. But I guess they have a good return on investment since they are free, except for the cost of scratching the hell out of your arms while picking them.
We also have a lot of apple trees that people plant against their fence lines and then don't necessarily eat. I think we can forage some this year.
I understand garlic does very well here, but I'm going to wait to plant it until the fall when the beds are otherwise empty.
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It depends on what you are going to do with it. If just for your use, plant what you like to eat. If for resale, visit local farmers market and find out what sells best in your area.
We grow and can most of our vegetables, along with strawberries, grapes, peaches, plums, apples, watermelon. We also raise our own grass fed beef, and pastured eggs. We don't sell any except calves, I figure the money we save plus the nutrition value is worth it even if I didn't make money from selling calves.
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For me I really love herbs, too expensive in stores. Parsley, chives, cilantro and basil are my favorites.
A few months ago I tried growing spring onion in a glass of water on the window sill. They grew very well. Only let them re-grow twice before I bought new ones. Now, I have some in a pot and cut them one inch above the soil so they will continue to re-grow.
Recently put in a dwarf peach tree, I am looking forward to this producing.
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Peppers and herbs. both are fairly prolific and ungodly expensive at the grocery store. Additionally, tomatoes- the 4th of July variety has a very good yield and is great for canning (think of how many cans of diced tomatoes you use for soups!). This year $1 worth of seeds, homegrown compost and an existing water barrel have resulted in 56lbs of tomatoes from 7 plants. which translates into 20 pints of diced tomatoes (so far), a bunch of dried tomatoes and a crapload of BLTS.
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Roma and paste tomatoes for canning. Peppers both hot and bell for making salsa and canning. Potatoes for the wonderful flavor, way better than store bought. Acorn squash and butternut squash because we love it. Broccoli and cauliflower because we like it and it can get expensive to buy. I blanch and freeze it. Also, green beans because they are easy to grow and produce a lot of beans. I also freeze them.
We can our pears from our 2 trees and the taste is so much better than canned pears from the store. Basically, I grow food for the great taste, not so much to save money. Also, it is great exercise to get out and weed.
Miss Prim
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Could you explain the pepper/tomato rotation thing? I have one of each growing in a half barrel....the pepper isn't happy but it's producing? I thought it might be I'm overwatering a bit with a soaker hose. The tomato plant is thrilled and has fist sized ones on it now, still green though.
All the nightshade family are susceptible to certain diseases/pests (viruses, fungus, hornworms), so you have to make sure to give each planting area a two-year rest so the diseases don't get really concentrated and make it impossible to grow things there.
Nightshades include: tomatoes, peppers, okra, tomatillos, tobacco, eggplant.
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Have friends and neighbors who enjoy gardening.
Thankfully accept the bounty when the excess of whatever is currently ripening has overwhelmed them.
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Could you explain the pepper/tomato rotation thing? I have one of each growing in a half barrel....the pepper isn't happy but it's producing? I thought it might be I'm overwatering a bit with a soaker hose. The tomato plant is thrilled and has fist sized ones on it now, still green though.
All the nightshade family are susceptible to certain diseases/pests (viruses, fungus, hornworms), so you have to make sure to give each planting area a two-year rest so the diseases don't get really concentrated and make it impossible to grow things there.
Nightshades include: tomatoes, peppers, okra, tomatillos, tobacco, eggplant.
And potato.
Every fall, as it gets cool and damp, the same blight that caused the Irish potato famine finishes off our tomatoes.
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I think there's some confusion here about what "highest return" means. People keep mentioning prolific foods like potato and onions and tomatoes for canning, but these are the very foods that you will never turn a profit on because they are so cheap to buy. You can buy these foods from your grocery store for barely more than the cost of the water you're putting on them at home.
I think berries and herbs are more likely to break even, just because they cost so much more to buy. But even those take time and effort.
I have a decent sized garden this year, but it's made me realize that the most economical way for me to acquire any vegetable I want is to walk down the street and buy it from my local produce section. Unless your crop truly grows unattended, unfertlized, unweeded, and unwatered. Some kinds of fruit trees maybe?
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I think there's some confusion here about what "highest return" means.
Agreed. And it is further complicated by the fact that some people enjoy gardening as a hobby and would do it regardless of the yield and other people consider gardening a job.
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All the nightshade family are susceptible to certain diseases/pests (viruses, fungus, hornworms), so you have to make sure to give each planting area a two-year rest so the diseases don't get really concentrated and make it impossible to grow things there.
Nightshades include: tomatoes, peppers, okra, tomatillos, tobacco, eggplant.
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I'd never heard that. I keep putting them in the same big pots, which are now not working as rabbit protection anyway. Thank you.
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On the nightshades, there's two divergent schools of thought. One is the rotational school. But there's a large chunk of "old timers" that say tomatoes, in particular, get better the longer you grow them in the same spot. Several professional growers have concurred with this, most notably Eliot Coleman. He rotates his field tomatoes IIRC but is experimenting with growing his hothouse tomatoes in the same soil year in, year out. In his latest book, I think he was going on 10 years in the same spot and definitely noticed improved quality.
That said, if you DO get something like fusarium in the soil, it's a nasty bugger and doesn't require a plant host, so all of a sudden you're limited to non-solanums or varieties resistant to the particular fusarium race (more available these days than 20 years ago). My parents basically gave up on veggie gardening when the one spot in their yard sunny enough for vegetables became totally infested with fusarium and they didn't currently have a resistant variety to the particular race.
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On the nightshades, there's two divergent schools of thought. One is the rotational school. But there's a large chunk of "old timers" that say tomatoes, in particular, get better the longer you grow them in the same spot. Several professional growers have concurred with this, most notably Eliot Coleman. He rotates his field tomatoes IIRC but is experimenting with growing his hothouse tomatoes in the same soil year in, year out. In his latest book, I think he was going on 10 years in the same spot and definitely noticed improved quality.
That said, if you DO get something like fusarium in the soil, it's a nasty bugger and doesn't require a plant host, so all of a sudden you're limited to non-solanums or varieties resistant to the particular fusarium race (more available these days than 20 years ago). My parents basically gave up on veggie gardening when the one spot in their yard sunny enough for vegetables became totally infested with fusarium and they didn't currently have a resistant variety to the particular race.
Interesting. May also depend on the area - with our humidity, it's rare for us to go a year without a blight of some sort, though this has been the first time I had real issues with fusarium (no more Mortgage Lifter here this year, sadly).
But I tend to rotate everything as much as possible. It's just I'm more limited in location than I've ever been here in the woods with the topsoil disturbed by construction. Oh and the deer, which means I have to grow near the dogs.
I'm fascinated that he's getting good hothouse results, though. Do you remember anything about the theory behind it?
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I'm fascinated that he's getting good hothouse results, though. Do you remember anything about the theory behind it?
Can't remember if there was any theoretical explanation for it, or if it was just a "what old timers do" type of thing and he decided to run with it and see what happened.
Edit: And I don't own any of his books, so I can't try to look it up.
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I think there's some confusion here about what "highest return" means.
Agreed. And it is further complicated by the fact that some people enjoy gardening as a hobby and would do it regardless of the yield and other people consider gardening a job.
Disagree. Like I said, plain russet potatoes are cheap, and not worth growing, but go see how much organic fingerling potatoes are vs. how easy to grow. So basically no, it's not necessarily the cheapest possible way to get calories, but it's a mustachian way to eat fancy-pants food, like the gorgeous heirloom beefsteak tomatoes I picked this morning that would be like $5 apiece at Whole Foods. I find my garden getting cheaper to run every year though, because I'm able to save more seeds, start more from seeds, take advantage of volunteer plants, all my infrastructure is built, the soil gets better so less need for watering, etc. I don't buy fertilizer because I have an endless supply of horse shit. FWIW, our lawn takes more water per square foot than the veggie garden, so I don't really factor water into the equation. We'd have something growing there regardless; might as well make it edible.
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Nightshades include: tomatoes, peppers, okra, tomatillos, tobacco, eggplant.
And potato.
Every fall, as it gets cool and damp, the same blight that caused the Irish potato famine finishes off our tomatoes.
Right. Thanks for the amendment. :)
On the nightshades, there's two divergent schools of thought. One is the rotational school. But there's a large chunk of "old timers" that say tomatoes, in particular, get better the longer you grow them in the same spot. Several professional growers have concurred with this, most notably Eliot Coleman. He rotates his field tomatoes IIRC but is experimenting with growing his hothouse tomatoes in the same soil year in, year out. In his latest book, I think he was going on 10 years in the same spot and definitely noticed improved quality.
Very interesting. I'll have to look up his stuff. The rotation issue is one that keeps me from planting tomatoes very often in my suburban front yard.
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I think there's some confusion here about what "highest return" means. People keep mentioning prolific foods like potato and onions and tomatoes for canning, but these are the very foods that you will never turn a profit on because they are so cheap to buy. You can buy these foods from your grocery store for barely more than the cost of the water you're putting on them at home.
I think berries and herbs are more likely to break even, just because they cost so much more to buy. But even those take time and effort.
I have a decent sized garden this year, but it's made me realize that the most economical way for me to acquire any vegetable I want is to walk down the street and buy it from my local produce section. Unless your crop truly grows unattended, unfertlized, unweeded, and unwatered. Some kinds of fruit trees maybe?
Well, really you should compare homegrown to organic prices at the store (unless one uses a ton of pesticides on their home garden, I guess, but most home gardeners I know don't usually do that). I grow my own zucchini, yellow squash, and bell peppers precisely because the organic prices at the store are stupid expensive ($2.50 for a tiny organic zucchini!). I spent about $50 in gardening supplies this spring and I've already harvest at least that much in produce based on organic prices at the stores, and it's only August. And what I do buy at the store is organic, so for me it's an apple to apples comparison.
And you could also factor in the "hobby" aspect of gardening. My DH's hobby is toy trains, he easily spends more on that than I do on gardening, and you can't have a side of toy train with grilled chicken breast for dinner!
For me, at best is saving me money overall in our budget, at worst it's a cheap (and tasty!) hobby.
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Also, some of us are lucky enough to not pay for water (in Quebec, there's no water tax at all. In our specific case, our house is hooked up to a spring - bathing in spring water sounds so luxurious... ;)) So, assuming you compost and/or (in some cases) have some chickens or livestock so there's fertilizer, and the water is free... all you're really buying is seeds and time. Kinda lowers the investment.
Berries and fruit trees basically need to be bought, so the investment is higher, but the ROI is still pretty great.
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It also depends on how you define "return." The return on my vegetable garden includes the vast difference in quality and flavor between store produce and home-grown. Sure, I could buy conventionally produced tomatoes at Safeway for less, but they taste like crap. Better quality tomatoes cost considerably more, and they still aren't as good as I can grow. "Farmer's markets" around here are quite expensive (it might be different in other areas). Fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, fresh tarragon, properly ripened fruit, homemade jam are all things we really enjoy.
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Berry bushes - self sustaining and productive. Especially raspberries - controlling them is more of an issue than maintaining them.
Kale is a constant winner. We grow a few varieties and they go forever in our area.
Green beans.
Peas of all varieties.
Fennel (easy, grows well).
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Raspberries are frighteningly easy. I'm not exactly sure why people aren't sneaking around leaving them on their neighbors porches. I bought 3 canes a few years ago, and I have enough raspberries for the year, by way of the freezer, plus a couple of batches of jam, plus I give them away.
Herbs, especially basil, because fresh herbs are quite expensive here.
Grapes, which have proven to be extremely easy to grow.
Asparagus, if you've got the room.
And don't compare potatoes to bags of grocery store potatoes - what do little new potatoes cost at your local market?
I grow tomatoes because they are easy and I can can/freeze/dry enough for the year in a suburban yard.
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Awesome thread. We just started this year and learned:
Kale is ALWAYS gonna be a part of our rotation. So easy, and we do greens shakes every day. At $2.50 a bunch for organic at the grocery store this is a good one.
Carrots. Suck ass. Take forever, don't yield much.
Peas. Need a lattice of some type to grow on and don't yield a super large amount.
Blackberries. We have a bush along one side of our fence in the backyard. Do not water it, do not fertilize it, trim it or do a damn thing to it. But it keeps us in blackberries all summer, haha!
Next year I'll be doing peppers since the organic ones are stupid expensive ($5 pepper? Fuck off!) and tomatoes for the same reason. I think it'll look like:
Kale
Peppers
Tomatoes
Peas
Which answers the OP from my POV.
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I am sad. I bought 30 raspberry canes last year. They all died. I tried to grow kale. It didn't like me. Okra? Well, I've tried it several times, but it just doesn't do anything (I think I got one pod once - and I always plant at least 6 plants of anything except zucchinis). However, zucchinis, tomatoes, beans, carrots (sometimes - they either all come up, or none) - now you're talking! I guess it depends on where you are, but even here, some people seem to do well with things I only dream about, whereas I can do well with things they have trouble with.