Author Topic: Vegetable garden, anyone?  (Read 8186 times)

Retired To Win

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Vegetable garden, anyone?
« on: April 21, 2015, 06:52:37 AM »
My wife has done vegetable gardens in the past.  And now she's gearing up to do a big one.  But I'm not sure how well such gardens pay off.  I've never tried to analyze the costs of doing a garden compared to the savings from not buying vegetables at the grocery store.  Has anyone got any feedback on this?

In respect to something similar, my wife last year undertook the raising of chickens, both for meat and eggs.  Well, the jury is still out on the meat part, but the verdict on the eggs is not that great IMHO.  Her hens are cranking out an average 12 eggs a day.  I eat one egg a day and she seldom eats any.  Regulations in my state and county prevent us from roadside marketing the eggs.  So she is ending up donating the eggs in batches to the local food pantry for the needy in exchange for receipts that I hope will turn into itemized deductions on our tax return.

To me, my wife's chicken ranch is basically a hobby.  Could the vegetable garden turn out the same?  I would appreciate your feedback and/or experience.

Thanks.

pocketchange1

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #1 on: April 21, 2015, 07:10:25 AM »
I believe the Vegetable garden you can come out ahead if you have some sort of long term preservation method in mind. (Canning/Jam's/Freezing etc). Also starting from seeds is a real cost saver vs. buying an already established plant. I think I break even most years on my tomatoes/peppers.

mikesinWV

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #2 on: April 21, 2015, 07:18:54 AM »
Vegetable gardening is quite inexpensive and can definitely save you a good amount of money.  Packets of seed can sometimes be as low as 99 cents. 

I noticed you are in Virginia.  I live in WV and buy eggs from someone in Virginia for $2.25 a dozen.  I see all sorts of road signs of people selling eggs down there.  Do they have a license?  Pay taxes?  I don't know for sure but definitely double check to make sure you can't sell them as you stated. 

asauer

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #3 on: April 21, 2015, 07:32:49 AM »
I have a large veggie/ fruit garden and here's how I make it pay off:
1. Analyze what are the foods we eat the most?  For us it's: onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, greens, carrots, herbs, beets, winter squash
2. Analyze what are our highest veggie cost drivers? It's onions, greens, peppers, mushrooms, winter squash and herbs

Where the two meet is how we determine what to grow and in what quantity.  Last year we spent $100 on the garden (beds, soil, seed etc) and saved $600 on groceries.  We produced 100lbs of food, most of which can store very well.  So our grocery bill was about $30/week for 20 weeks.


KBecks2

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #4 on: April 21, 2015, 07:44:20 AM »
Question #1 -- Do you eat vegetables? 

coppertop

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #5 on: April 21, 2015, 08:23:45 AM »
We eat great quantities of vegetables, and it pays off for us to have a garden in several ways.  One way is that because we know we do not use pesticides or weed killers, we have healthy produce without the organic price.  Another way is that we can just walk into our back yard and pick our dinner right off the plants.  A third benefit is the exercise and fresh air.  A fourth is the nutrition we get from eating so many wonderful plants.  A fifth is knowing that we are contributing to our own wellbeing by harvesting our own food.  I could go on and on.  We will grow and harvest a vegetable garden as long as our health allows it. 

CommonCents

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #6 on: April 21, 2015, 08:35:47 AM »
I have a large veggie/ fruit garden and here's how I make it pay off:
1. Analyze what are the foods we eat the most?  For us it's: onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, greens, carrots, herbs, beets, winter squash
2. Analyze what are our highest veggie cost drivers? It's onions, greens, peppers, mushrooms, winter squash and herbs

Where the two meet is how we determine what to grow and in what quantity.  Last year we spent $100 on the garden (beds, soil, seed etc) and saved $600 on groceries.  We produced 100lbs of food, most of which can store very well.  So our grocery bill was about $30/week for 20 weeks.

+1
Also consider what grows well in your climate.
Don't start too big - better to start smaller and add to it than becoming overwhelmed by time/upfront costs. 

ETA: I'd emphasize the only grow what you eat part.  It seems that's a large part of the problem with the chickens, so I'd try to avoid that trap.
« Last Edit: April 21, 2015, 09:25:43 AM by CommonCents »

spokey doke

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #7 on: April 21, 2015, 09:01:56 AM »
Check out the book: The $64 tomato

http://www.amazon.com/The-64-Tomato-Fortune-Existential/dp/1565125576

I think one CAN make this economical, or you can be a spendypants - just like most things.

In addition to the recommendations above, we consider what we can easily and cheaply buy that is about as good as home-grown (onions are one example).  We also don't have chickens, since there are tons of local folks producing and selling their extra eggs in town at reasonable prices, so we choose not to replicate their efforts (despite being drawn to the idea).

Composting, seed saving, seed exchanges (or seedling exchanges) can make a big dent in costs

We are in a cold climate, and getting dialed in with cold frames or a greenhouse has made growing greens all year around possible, and that is a big plus...but again, there are super cheap ways to do this and also very spendy ways.

A mustachian should be able to do this economically.
« Last Edit: April 21, 2015, 09:23:29 AM by spokey doke »

Prairie Stash

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #8 on: April 21, 2015, 09:16:12 AM »
Chickens like to eat weeds, greens and bugs. You can help cut the cost of raising chickens by remembering them in your garden plans.

If you have potato beetles its awesome watching them, it's like candy for chickens. I use to laugh at them going berserk trying to find more bugs to eat. They wouldn't touch the plants unless they were hungry and out of bugs.


theknitcycle

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #9 on: April 21, 2015, 10:07:25 AM »
Growing vegetables is totally worth it!  We focus most of our time and garden space on things that we love to eat, but that are either disappointing (tomatoes), expensive (snow peas), or hard to find (unusual varieties/colors of common veggies) at the store.  Starting from seed brings the costs down once you're set up for it, plus by starting more than we need, we can select the best and strongest of the lot to keep, and build community (and sometimes discover new varieties we like) by giving or trading our extra starts to neighbors.  In your case, you could maybe skip the seed phase and the buying stuff from the nursery part by trading surplus eggs to neighbors for vegetable starts.  I know we'd love to have a deal like that if we lived close to you!

I don't worry much about trying to calculate a dollar value -- since tending the garden is one of my favorite ways to spend an afternoon, how much of the cost counts as food and how much as entertainment?  And in figuring out savings on food, do I compare our produce to the normal supermarket stuff (which we would actually buy) or to the much more expensive local organic farmers' market stuff (which is a more fair comparison nutritionally)?  And if I'm only giving our garden veggies credit for saving money vs the same quantity of conventional supermarket stuff, but in reality they're more nutritious and having them at hand encourages us to eat more vegetables than we otherwise would, shouldn't they get some credit for saving on healthcare expenses down the road?

Too much math for me!  But yes, absolutely, completely worth it. 

grantmeaname

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #10 on: April 21, 2015, 10:32:10 AM »
Check out the book: The $64 tomato

http://www.amazon.com/The-64-Tomato-Fortune-Existential/dp/1565125576
+1, I really enjoyed this book even though I don't really garden. It's well worth a look!

sol

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #11 on: April 21, 2015, 10:50:19 AM »
To offer a contrary opinion, our local master gardners suggest that private home food cultivation will never compete on cost with large scale agriculture.  You pay too much for water, don't have enough land, don't get tax breaks or price supports, and can't reduce costs by using heavy machinery because your scale is too small.  If it was really the most efficient solution, everyone would be doing it.

But they still recommend it, on the basis that it has other benefits besides saving money.  If you look at it like a hobby, an enjoyable way to spend your time, it can be very rewarding.

This is my first year food gardening, and the strawberries and tomatoes are doing great.  The asparagus is still struggling to get established and the verdict is still out on the broccoli.  And I have six blueberry bushes going but it will be a couple of years before we really know if those are working out.

grantmeaname

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #12 on: April 21, 2015, 10:59:18 AM »
To offer a contrary opinion, our local master gardners suggest that private home food cultivation will never compete on cost with large scale agriculture.  You pay too much for water, don't have enough land, don't get tax breaks or price supports, and can't reduce costs by using heavy machinery because your scale is too small.  If it was really the most efficient solution, everyone would be doing it.
Maybe it's like homebrewing, where if you take out the logistics and taxes and don't pay yourself for your time it can be similar in cost or a little cheaper to the commercial alternative. Thinking of it as a hobby you don't lose much money on is probably a productive way to go.

ABC123

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #13 on: April 21, 2015, 11:01:58 AM »
Someday, if I am ever able to quit my full time job, I would love to have a huge garden.  For now, I stick with tomatoes.  They are easy to grow, and the kiddos and I really like them.  I don't know that I save all that much money, but I think it is a good lesson for the kids to get just a small view of where food comes from.  I don't want them growing up thinking that stuff just magically appears in the grocery store.  I buy the little plants rather than seeds.  I tried planting some seeds in previous years, various different veggies, and they just didn't grow all that well. 

Mississippi Mudstache

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #14 on: April 21, 2015, 11:34:03 AM »
To offer a contrary opinion, our local master gardners suggest that private home food cultivation will never compete on cost with large scale agriculture.  You pay too much for water, don't have enough land, don't get tax breaks or price supports, and can't reduce costs by using heavy machinery because your scale is too small.  If it was really the most efficient solution, everyone would be doing it.
Maybe it's like homebrewing, where if you take out the logistics and taxes and don't pay yourself for your time it can be similar in cost or a little cheaper to the commercial alternative. Thinking of it as a hobby you don't lose much money on is probably a productive way to go.

"A hobby you don't lose much money on" is probably a perfect way to describe a home garden. I worked for 3 years as a county extension agent, and I've tended a garden nearly every summer of my life. It's fairly difficult for the home gardener to approach the costs of commercially-grown produce purchased in-season. I once owned a "free" tiller that my neighbor gave me, but I ended up spending more money trying to keep it running than it was worth. I ended up down-sizing and focusing on vegetables that gave us the most bang for the buck. That will be different for everyone, depending on what you like to eat, what you can get cheaply at the supermarket (or farmer's market), and what grows well in your region.

We found that in the South, it's hard to find a better bargain for your garden than peppers. Peppers are fairly easy to grow, and prolific producers from June until you get a hard frost (usually around Thanksgiving). We grew tons of bells peppers, banana peppers, and poblanos. Bell peppers are our favorite, but banana peppers are the heaviest producers and equally sweet when allowed to ripen. We didn't do much in the way of hot peppers - usually just one jalapeno plant and one cayenne plant - because a little goes a long way.

If you like squash and zucchini, these are tremendously easy to grow and huge producers, easily one of the best "bargains". They don't ship well, so they are expensive to buy at the supermarket. Make sure to get them in the ground early, because powdery mildew and squash borers will wreak havoc later in the season. Ditto with cucumbers (although they have fewer problems with insects). Our family, unfortunately, doesn't care much for squash/zucchini/cucumbers, so we never planted too many of these.

Tomatoes are another bargain, if you like to eat them fresh. I am a weirdo and only eat cooked tomatoes. My wife is the only member of the family who eats them fresh, so I always planted some for her and gave away the rest. I love my own tomato sauce, but canning your own tomatoes is an exercise in torture if you are as anal as I am and insist on ridding the sauce of all of the seeds. Plus, canning generally negates any cost benefit, once you figure in the cost of canning supplies and the energy to boil the sauce for hours on end. I just buy tomato sauce.

If you really want an efficient way to preserve your own harvest, freezing is the way to go. Legumes and sweet corn freeze really well. The problem is, they are difficult to grow in significant quantities on the cheap (ie, without a tiller and plenty of land). I usually just hoe up a short row to plant green beans, because we all love fresh green beans. Canning your own green beans will result in a fine product, but one indistinguishable from the cans that they sell at the store for $0.69.

Kale and broccoli are favorites at our house, and in our garden. Others cole crops are easy as well, but those are the only two that we eat. It's nice not having kale go bad - I just pick a few leaves when I'm in the mood. When we buy it, we always seem to waste some. Really, though, I don't think you're saving much, if anything, by growing your own cole crops. They are typically pretty cheap to buy, and unless you are growing your own from seed (which I recommend), the plants themselves can be expensive.

Veggies that generally don't make financial sense to grow yourself: Dirt-cheap stuff like Irish potatoes, carrots, onions, sweet potatoes. Not saying you shouldn't do it, just saying you're not going to do it more cheaply than you can buy it, unless you're growing on a very large scale.

TheRedHead

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #15 on: April 21, 2015, 11:47:01 AM »
We have hens as well (strictly for eggs) and we eat eggs only on weekends. My husband sells our surplus eggs at work for $5/dozen and we have more takers than we have eggs. Why don't you ask around neighbors/friends/coworkers and see if anyone is interested in buying eggs? They're SO much better than anything you get from a store.

We have a veg garden as well - raspberries and tomatoes mostly. Definitely save money by picking our own raspberries versus buying them at the store and with the cost of organic tomatoes being what it is, we definitely come out ahead on those. But that's not why we do it - it's for the joy of walking outside and picking our dinner just like keeping hens is for the joy of collecting eggs and having chickens.

MayDay

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #16 on: April 21, 2015, 11:54:56 AM »
I'm a big gardener.  In the summer we buy virtually no vegetables.  We also freeze, can,and dry a bunch of extras.  But you can only save however much you were spending on vegetables in the first place. M

I love doing it, love the variety you can grow (hat is no available anywhere except whole paycheck) and think it tastes a million times better.  At this point I can't ever stop gardening, because grocery store vegetables taste disgusting and I won't eat them.  Grocery store tomatoes?  Ewwwww.  Never. 

Also, as a PP said, if you have the chickens anyway, veggie gardening and chickens are symbiotic.  And around here people sell their eggs like crazy, not "officially" but they develop neighbors and coworkers who buy them. 

the lorax

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #17 on: April 22, 2015, 01:38:52 AM »
not sure if this has come up already in this thread but growing herbs can be very cost-effective. Obviously depends on what you can grow in your area and what you would actually use in cooking. This summer I had tons of basil (grown from seeds that I got for free), coriander and parsley all from seed, and then we also have rosemary and bay that are perennials. Fresh herbs are usually fairly expensive to buy and I normally find I end up using part and then chucking the rest so having them growing in the garden is definitely worth it

Dances With Fire

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #18 on: April 22, 2015, 03:57:05 AM »
For those who want a "HUGE" garden, I would be careful about how big of a project that you want to take on. The time, physical work, weeding, watering, harvesting, and even costs can quickly turn a rewarding hobby into a lot of hard work.

Start small, with "high-value" crops that you already use.

I posted last year about our 200 sq. Ft. garden which yields about $400-$500 per year.

Keep your plantings small and enjoy a hobby that pays for itself....Good luck.

Trifle

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #19 on: April 22, 2015, 05:54:21 AM »
Depending how you approach it, gardening can save you money on the vegetables you eat, be a major life-enhancing activity, or a combination of the two.  I know gardeners that don't enjoy it much (complain about the work, the weeding, etc), but strategically grow things that are expensive in stores -- peppers, berries, tomatoes, and so on.  Then there are people like me that just love doing it for its own sake.  For me, gardening is a key life activity, sort of like biking is for MMM.  If you garden, many other things automatically fall into place. 

It is easy to garden cheaply.  You can save your own seeds, create your own compost from kitchen scraps, make your own cold frames from wood scraps, etc.  It is the ultimate mustachian activity.  We have a 500 sf garden and we grow what we eat, regardless of whether it is cheap in the store. We spend very little on the garden, because we keep seeds from the previous year and just keep it going continuously. (You can only do this with some varieties of plants -- open pollinated ones).  We grow a lot of potatoes, onions, beans, and kale, plus smaller amounts of lots of other things.  To use the garden for maximum effect you must have a plan for preserving -- freezing, canning, cool storage, or drying. 

I would start small with things that you love to eat.  See how much garden work you like/can take on, and gradually increase it as you are able. 

We also have four chickens and I agree with you -- for small production it does not save you any money.  When we first got them we joked about the $100 egg we were eating for breakfast.  HOWEVER -- we get a lot of joy out of them, and it is very satisfying to know you are eating an egg that comes from a bird allowed to live a good life.  It's important to right size your flock.  The general rule of thumb I have heard from chicken old-timers is one bird per person in the family.  We have four birds for a family of four, and we STILL end up giving some eggs away.  Sounds like your family could get by with two or three hens tops?  In the meantime, despite your local laws I'd find a way to sell those eggs -- at work or whatever.  Plenty of people will gladly pay $2-3 per dozen for home produced eggs.   

Good luck! 

MoustacheDArgent

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #20 on: April 22, 2015, 10:14:54 PM »
This is my second year of gardening and it definitely is NOT a money saver. 

crazylemon

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #21 on: April 23, 2015, 02:20:14 AM »
Depends what you grow. For us (UK) the things that work well are soft fruit. We get huge numbers of blueberries which would be a fortune in supermarkets. The only effort is picking them and watering now the bushes are established (in pots so that can be put under glass when fruiting to prevent birds eating the lot. But our water costs are about 0 because we collect enough rainwater. Raspberries are similar although sadly ours died.

Other things which are nice and probably cost neutral include things like salad where you can grow a varied amount, the same amount of variety being massively expensive to buy. Obviously not going to be much/at all cheaper than just iceberg.

Herbs are obviously worth it compared to buying fresh if you use any sort of volume.

But my end goal once I own my own home would be to try and cultivate a forest garden, probably not going to be a money saver though unless very clever about it!

RetiredAt63

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #22 on: April 23, 2015, 05:59:43 AM »
If you do it right, a garden is a long-term investment. This means you cannot put all the start-up cost on the yield of the first year.  It also means you can start small, see how things go, and expand the next year.  Do it long enough and you don't have to mow your lawn any more, it is gone.  And your ornamental plantings will have lots of edibles in them, or plants that are pretty and attract beneficial insects, instead of just being pretty.

That said, approach the garden planning like any other mustachian idea.  Hit the library and read everything you can find.  Scrounge for materials. Try different methods and equipment and see what works for your unique situation. DIY as much as possible, which means things like starting your own tomatoes instead of buying big plants at the store.  That also means buying plants at the store if the seeds are expensive, don't have good germination for several years, and you only need a few plants (for me that is English cucumbers).

And as others have said, figure out ahead of time which crops would be most valuable to you, whether it is things that are super expensive at the store, or things that just have huge taste differences.  Don't grow things that the family does not eat.  Until you have lots of experience, don't grow things that have animal problems (sweet corn and raccoons are a bad combination for the gardener).  Learn about potential problems so you can avoid them - things like netting for strawberries so you get more than the robins and chipmunks.

And think of your time and timing.  Gardening is time intensive and needs good weather for the actual gardening activities - the gardeners I hang out with do not golf.  The golfers I know do not garden.  The two activities happen in the same season and the same weather - the perfect time of day for gardening is the perfect time of day for a round of golf.  So if you are out sailing, kayaking, hiking, or whatever, you won't be gardening, and the garden will be a weed-infested reminder that you had other priorities.  Nothing wrong with having other priorities, just recognize the fact.

And if you go for it, join us over on the gardening thread in Throw Down the Gauntlet.  ;-)

Dances With Fire

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #23 on: April 23, 2015, 06:24:46 AM »
If you do it right, a garden is a long-term investment. This means you cannot put all the start-up cost on the yield of the first year.  It also means you can start small, see how things go, and expand the next year.  Do it long enough and you don't have to mow your lawn any more, it is gone.  And your ornamental plantings will have lots of edibles in them, or plants that are pretty and attract beneficial insects, instead of just being pretty.

That said, approach the garden planning like any other mustachian idea.  Hit the library and read everything you can find.  Scrounge for materials. Try different methods and equipment and see what works for your unique situation. DIY as much as possible, which means things like starting your own tomatoes instead of buying big plants at the store.  That also means buying plants at the store if the seeds are expensive, don't have good germination for several years, and you only need a few plants (for me that is English cucumbers).

And as others have said, figure out ahead of time which crops would be most valuable to you, whether it is things that are super expensive at the store, or things that just have huge taste differences.  Don't grow things that the family does not eat.  Until you have lots of experience, don't grow things that have animal problems (sweet corn and raccoons are a bad combination for the gardener).  Learn about potential problems so you can avoid them - things like netting for strawberries so you get more than the robins and chipmunks.

And think of your time and timing.  Gardening is time intensive and needs good weather for the actual gardening activities - the gardeners I hang out with do not golf.  The golfers I know do not garden.  The two activities happen in the same season and the same weather - the perfect time of day for gardening is the perfect time of day for a round of golf.  So if you are out sailing, kayaking, hiking, or whatever, you won't be gardening, and the garden will be a weed-infested reminder that you had other priorities.  Nothing wrong with having other priorities, just recognize the fact.

And if you go for it, join us over on the gardening thread in Throw Down the Gauntlet.  ;-)

+1 Great advice 63...A couple of items we may have forgot to mention. Raccoons, chipmunks, robins, rabbits, (we have a lot this year!),deer, voles & moles, just to name a few. As well as squash borers, tomato horn worms, cabbage worms etc. And if you haven't heard of some of these pests or others and how to deal with them, start reading as much as you can now to avoid problems later this summer.

Retired To Win

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #24 on: April 23, 2015, 09:26:31 AM »
Question #1 -- Do you eat vegetables?

YES.  Every day at dinner.  Multi-component salads.  And our side dishes are almost never starch; always a vegetable (broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, cabbage, squash mostly).  And I personally eat a lot of celery as snacks and sandwich sides.

Dr. A

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #25 on: April 23, 2015, 09:39:00 AM »
Disclaimer: I am NOT a gardener. Though I am going to try to grow some stuff in the back of my apartment this year for fun, and with the thought that I will do a bigger one some day when I've got a yard of my very own.

The book linked below gives a lot of advice on how to approach a garden with the intent of making it as economical as possible. The overall argument is that if you try to do a scale-model commercial farm in your back yard, you will end up with a very expensive hobby. However, if you work smarter-not-harder and adjust your techniques to take advantage of the things that are not efficient at the commercial-farm level, then it can potentially be cost-effective. Is any of that true? I dunno, but I think it would be fun to try some day.

http://www.amazon.com/Mini-Farming-Self-Sufficiency-Brett-Markham/dp/1602399840/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1429803059&sr=8-1&keywords=mini+farming

Axecleaver

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #26 on: April 23, 2015, 10:04:14 AM »
A lot of great advice in this thread already. I got into gardening because of quality - I had taught myself to cook, and I couldn't find top shelf ingredients, so I grew my own. I've been gardening as an adult for about 15 years, and it's my most treasured hobby. When I retire, this is how I plan to spend most of my time. Gardening can save you money, but there are significant startup costs, so ease into it.

Grow the things that are truly wonderful fresh - lettuce, basil, spinach, radishes, tomatoes, and peas are all great candidates. The difference between a vine-ripened heirloom tomato freshly picked, and the mealy garbage you get at the store will change your life. In my neck of the woods (Hudson River Valley) we have bountiful local strawberries, sweet corn and potatoes, so I don't grow those (my commercial farming neighbors do it for me).

You can do well growing prolific vegetables, like cucumbers and zucchini. I love a summer salad of fresh zucchini, onions and tomatoes stir-fried with garlic and olive oil, and we eat this about 6x a week from June until the killing frost. For winter squash, they'll keep for a year if you take the time to wash the outsides with a mild bleach solution, which kills the bacteria.

Start with something manageable - a single raised bed 8' x 4' is a good start. Fill it with a 50/50 mix of topsoil and compost, you can probably buy a yard locally for about $30, plus delivery. If you can handle this, add another bed next year. By then you'll know your limits. A few tools - you can get these at garage sales if you need to - shovel, a sharp hoe, a tilling fork (spade fork) will get you started. Put chicken wire or deer fencing up to keep the beasties out.

Cpa Cat

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #27 on: April 23, 2015, 10:09:31 AM »
I suggest you try to trade your eggs for other stuff. Just post on Facebook or something, "Got extra eggs - anyone have anything they want to trade?" Also... you and your wife should eat more eggs. Maybe find a way to incorporate them into dinners?

Is gardening "worth it"? Hard to say. Not in the first couple of years, because there's a lot of trial and error and learning. As time goes on, though, you'll learn to stop wasting your time on stuff that doesn't work and focus on more lucrative items.

For example - I grow pounds upon pounds of raspberries and blackberries. Dollar for dollar, they are absolutely worth it. But if I weren't growing them, I wouldn't be eating 20 lbs of raspberries every year. I actually consider all of my perennial crops to be worth it - I have a variety of fruit trees (asian pears, apples and persimmons), plus asparagus and the aforementioned berries - and they are all great and fairly carefree.

But when they're in season, you do have to plan around them. By the end of asparagus season, I'm glad to see it go. There's only so many different ways I can incorporate asparagus into meals.

Fresh herbs are also always worth it.

But the rest of the crops? I don't know. I lean toward no. At best, I may break even. In a bad year, I lose money. BUT spiritually/mentally, my garden is a big bonus in my life.


Cpa Cat

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #28 on: April 23, 2015, 10:48:00 AM »
Also, regarding the chickens - as they stop laying, don't replace them. Clearly, for your needs, you want maybe 2-4 chickens. Consider picking up a couple of guinea hens if the garden thing pans out - they are known to be great pest control, but they won't lay. They make good chicken companions.


sequim

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #29 on: April 23, 2015, 10:54:47 AM »
I think the more of us who do not support large-scale agriculture, the better for our environment!  Veggie gardens benefit us in so many ways from the most obvious (better tasting, convenient, cheaper than supermarket organic) to more esoteric (think about the critters, bugs, bees who get value from them).

Not always cost effective especially if you are fighting a lot of negative elements like I did last season.  This was lack of light, too much rain, too many critters.  But wow, did I score with my Basil plants.  These are so expensive in the store as someone mentioned, herbs are expensive, and they are mostly easy to grow.  Other things with a big cost benefit are fruit (raspberries, strawberries) and fruit trees (peach, cherries, etc), and tomatoes.  Nothing in a store matches the taste of a home grown tomato.  Plus you can freeze, dry or can them and have the great taste all winter. Another thing to grow which is very cost effective versus buying in the store are mixed baby greens.  We eat lots of salads and the cost for good ones adds up.

I'm looking forward to having a hot weather garden this year when we move to Salt Lake the end of this May.  So that will be lots of tomatoes, peppers, melons.  Sure, gardens are hard work but there are ways to streamline tasks like watering and using drip irrigation that is timed. 

So maybe there are initial up front costs but these go down after each year of gardening.


hoosier

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #30 on: April 23, 2015, 10:57:28 AM »
I have a 3500 sq ft garden.  It is a lot of work, but it also saves a ton of $.  We freeze and can hundreds of lbs of food every year. 

Emilyngh

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Re: Vegetable garden, anyone?
« Reply #31 on: April 23, 2015, 11:29:56 AM »
Depends on what you grow, how you grow it, what you eat, how much you'd freeze and eat later, and what you really are saved from buying.   Just for perspective, we also have chickens and even though we eat a ton of eggs, we have at best broken even (really, they are just pets that give back some of their cost through eggs and the satisfaction of knowing they have nice living conditions).

As far as the garden:
Lettuce is our big money saver.   We eat a ton of salad, and when we don't have it in the garden we buy a huge $6 tub of organic lettuce a week.   For the cost of four seed packets, we have all the lettuce we can eat from May-June and then again in Oct-Nov.   So that definitely saves.

Our berry bushes take up a lot of room, but require the least work, put out a ton of fruit, and since we eat frozen berries in smoothies almost daily (that we'd otherwise buy which is expensive), they definitely save us.

Our tomatoes save us because we start them from seed and then freeze all of the extras for sauces throughout the year.   If we bought
 plants and only ate as much as we could fresh, we'd break even or lose here.

Cucumbers save because we grow from seed and use the extras during the peak of the season to make pickles that we would otherwise buy. 

Pumpkins take up a lot of space, but if you'd otherwise buy them for pies, jack-o-lanterns, fall decorations, etc, then they're worth it.   Same with cantaloupe and other melons, IMO.

Snow peas probably don't save us money because we don't otherwise buy them, but they are delicious and not expensive to grow, so they're worth growing to us.

I have found peppers to not be worth it, especially if buying plants, but not even worth their space if from seed, IMO, because I can buy them so inexpensively and the plants don't usually put out a ton.   Other things I have found to not be worth it cost-wise (b/c of their low cost at the store vs amount per plant if grown) include: broccoli, spinach, onions, potatoes, garlic, and carrots.

But, again, this all depends on how much room you have, how much money you'd have to put into having good dirt, keeping critters away, etc, and how much you enjoy gardening.   If you love gardening and will be out there anyway, then growing some plants that bring minimal savings might be worth it still.