GrlIntrpted wrote:

My husband and I are in the midst of a heated debate. He disagrees with me
that growing your own produce is cheaper than purchasing it.

Besides the health benefits, and obviously the better tasting produce I
would be very interested in hearing everyone's thoughts on the subject.

Is it cheaper or more expensive to grow your own crops?

-M

You've had a whole lot of different answers.

Last fall, I calculated that if I were to buy all the vegetables, fruits, and
herbs that I grow, I'd have to pay more than $1,000 ... and that was in
regular pesticide-treated grocery store stuff, not organic produce which costs
up to twice as much. I'm not even counting the tons of tomatoes I give away
each year in this estimate.

I'm a cheapo organic gardener with a suburban backyard, so I'm not planting
fields. But I get really good yields with a very basic approach. I do as many
of my own seed starts as possible, use my own seeds, our own compost in the
garden beds, and spray with a dilute pure castille soap solution (that we use
ourselves) for soft bodied pests like caterpillars and aphids. A big bottle of
Dr. Bronner's concentrate costs about $10 ... and I've had mine for personal
and garden use for over a year. I bought some diatomaceous earth for $7 that
will be enough to keep bugs out of the house and hopefully keep the ants from
climbing the fruit trees to tend their aphids all season. Diamtomaceous earth
is good for hard shelled bugs, and is completely safe for people and pets ...
just don't inhale it.

We freeze our excess plum tomatoes, peppers, black currants etc and they see
us through until the next harvest. We store the garlic and shallots in a cool
dark part of the basement. If you have a chest freezer, that's where the
savings come in because you can grow enough to enjoy all year round.

Over the years, I've bought a lot of 8 ft. bamboo poles, which I've had for
about 7 years and store for the winter. I also bought tomato cages 10 years
ago, most of which are still OK. When starting a new bed, I sometimes buy
topsoil - 6 huge bags for $10 at the superstore.

I invested in a couple of rain barrels a few years ago. They cost $70 each and
save on water costs. If I add up all I've spent on supplies directly related
to food crops in the last 10 years, it doesn't come close to what I save in
produce in one season.

Besides, it's not about cost, it's about knowing what went, or didn't go, into
the food, and the taste.

Some people have talked about the time involved, and how much your time is
worth. I say it depends on your attitude to gardening. I find it therapeutic,
so it's way cheaper than what I'd have to pay a shrink.

EV

GrlIntrpted wrote:
My husband and I are in the midst of a heated debate. He disagrees with me
that growing your own produce is cheaper than purchasing it.

Besides the health benefits, and obviously the better tasting produce I
would be very interested in hearing everyone's thoughts on the subject.

Is it cheaper or more expensive to grow your own crops?

-M

Like many things... it can be done pretty cheaply, or pretty costly.
If you don't get too fancy, and study up a bit you can do it pretty
cheaply. One way to ensure it is cheaper is to grow only items that:
A) Are expensive to buy, or B) the quality of home-grown is far better.

Also consider thay you can grow organic, or at least with no pesticides
or herbicides. So if you are inclined than compare with the cost of
organic produce.

For example:
Tomatoes...you can't go wrong. Expensive in the store and the quality
of home grown is so much better they don't compare.

Sweet Corn... I don't grow it because I can buy pretty darn good sweet
corn for as cheap as 6 ears per dollar in season. It takes up a lot of
space, you are not saving any money and may just be feeding the
racoons.

Zuchini... expensive to buy. Easy to grow, and produce like mad. Same
with cucumbers.

(etc)
GF

we definitely save with spinach-a bag of baby spinach for salads is
$2.50 and has an expiration date, unlike fresh-picked as you need it-so
easy to grow.

i turned my mom on to spinach salads-she had never had one. use wishbone
raspberry or cranberry salad dressing, add pecans and feta cheese mmmm!

i grew up forced to eat cooked spinach which i detest and was greatly
surprised as an adult to learn there are methods of prep for vegetables
like spinach, broccoli, and cauliflower other than cooking the hell out
of them :-)

On Fri, 2 Jun 2006 08:14:57 -0400, "GrlIntrpted"
wrote:

Is it cheaper or more expensive to grow your own crops?
----
During my first few years of gardening I kept good records of all
my costs and time spent gardening, from seeds indoors to harvest.
For my time, I paid myself $5/hour do do the analysis. I typically
harvested about 100 pounds of vegetables over the entire season.

In summary, grocery store vegetables cost about $2 to$4 per pound.
To grow mine at home, it costed me about $8/pound which includes
all my expenses and paying myself $5/hour for all the time spent.

Now several years later, after doing the above analysis, I hardly
spend anything because I have all my gardening equipment and
accessories. I compost leaves and use just a little bit of chemical
fertilizers. So I'm sure that I'm closer to the grocery store prices
per pound, but even at $8/pound I'd keep gardening.

---pete---