"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
Brooklyn1 wrote:

Not
growing so much is an excellent idea regardless where you live, who
needs all that extra labor just for the luxury of being able to show
off all your give-away crops. It's best to grow only what you can
use. Contrary to what so many think the home vegetable garden over
time offers no savings, it's a big expense, it's strictly a hobby...

I can see that it could be like that if you buy all your inputs or cost
your time and don't have much to show for it. I buy very few inputs and
don't cost my time so I am way in front year after year. For some there
is real joy in giving or spreading their bread upon the waters so a
neighbourhood dividend is not a luxury.

And for us, we get a real joy out of eating really fresh food and where we
know the inputs.

even farming professionally is a huge gamble. With a home vegetable
garden over time you will have a few good crops but they need to be
weighed against the years when crops fail, and usually there will be
more bad years than good.

And for you the glass isn't half full, it isn't even half empty, your
glass is near empty all the time. Don't assume that everything is as bad
as you see it, other people live different lives in different
circumstances and they are not all as grim as yours seems to be.

And I also find that things tend to even out over time. If I have a good
year with one veg and a not so good year with another, it doesn't really
matter. If I'd decided to plant only a few of any one vegetable or even
only one or two varieties of vegetables, I would have missed out because the
conditions for whatever didn't do well coul dhave had an impact on my only a
few veg/varieties.

In a way you are fortunate that you need to
do a lot of irrigating, what do you think happens to crops when it
rains nearly every day.

Some of my best crops were when I lived in a dry inland climate (no fungus
and few bugs) and had access to plenty of water at no direct cost.

Yup. I prefer inland growing - less humidity and good strong ehat when it
des event ually arrive. At the rate this summer if goign though I wont'
have tomatoes for at least another month and probably more like 2 months.
This is not going to be a tomato glut season.