"cloud dreamer" wrote in message
...
GrlIntrpted wrote:
Is it cheaper or more expensive to grow your own crops?
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.
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