Does a garden pay for itself ? Or is it cheaper to go to the grocery store.

how big you have to have to break even.

"DogDiesel" wrote:
Does a garden pay for itself ? Or is it cheaper to go to the grocery store.

how big you have to have to break even.

it depends on your soil. In the short term - NO, long term - YES!
However, it is not size that matters in cost to break even. A tomato plant
in a pot can save you money. So the more space you have the greater the
potential there is to save. The biggest cost in gardening is the cost of
time in which only you can put a value on.

If you have good soil to begin with, the cost is only a few tools and soil
amendments will not cost as much. Soil that is not very good will cost you
more for raised beds or lots for soil amendments. Seeds cost less than four
dollars a pack, a pack of seeds will last about four years in a dry cool
place. Buying plants ready for transplanting reduces the cost
effectiveness. If space is limited growing high cost foods like tomatoes
peppers and leaf lettuces are much cheaper to grow your own. Carrots and
potatoes are cheap at the stores and will not be as cost effective. If you
have lots of land, like around 2,000 square feet of good soil you can grow
lots of food for a family of four. One note: ninety percent of my seeds go
directly into the ground and only ten percent I start with seed kits.
Tomatoes and peppers I start with seeds indoors, all else is seeds directly
in the ground.

Gardening is like any other hobby or occupation, it does take some
knowledge and skills to be good at it. The more you learn and the more
skilled you become and the cheaper your gardening cost will become. Learn
how to seed save, learn to make your compost and learn how to build your
own soil so no need to buy them.

Gardening is also more than just vegetable gardening. I find gardening is a
great physical and mental workout. Good for the soul to get out in the yard
and make it look beautiful that helps the mind get away from the problems
and ugliness of the world.

--
Enjoy Life... Nad R (Garden in zone 5a Michigan)

In article ,
"DogDiesel" wrote:

Does a garden pay for itself ? Or is it cheaper to go to the grocery store.

how big you have to have to break even.

"One of the most important resources that a garden makes available for
use, is the gardener's own body. A garden gives the body the dignity of
working in its own support. It is a way of rejoining the human race."
‹ Wendell Berry

--
Bill S. Jersey USA zone 5 shade garden

On Feb 14, 3:38*am, "DogDiesel" wrote:
Does a garden pay for itself ? Or is it cheaper to go to the grocery store.

*how big you have to have to break even.

The taste of a ripe tomato from your yard is worth more than money,
it
is a mouth treat you can't put a value on. And being able to go to
the
garden for a salad, lettuce, spinach leaves, and maybe sweet pea pods
is a delight. You know what has been sprayed or not sprayed on it,
and
the freshness there is no substitute for.
We buy plants for tomatoes, and seed for the rest. We're always way
ahead of the game.
Nanzi

On Mon, 14 Feb 2011 03:38:32 -0500, DogDiesel wrote:

Does a garden pay for itself ? Or is it cheaper to go to the grocery
store.

how big you have to have to break even.

It all depends on how you look at it. Do you spend money on entertainment.
Maybe you find gardening fun, so the cost of say, buying a tomato plant
and using water, can be though of as entertainment money. Then every tomato
you pick is pure profit. Also it depends on how you garden. If you spend
100 dollars building a raised bed, and buying soil, you will probably not
get 100 dollars of tomatoes in the first season. If you just use homegrown
compost, and build you planters out of salvaged wood, then the cost of a
tomato plant and the water needed is probably much less then how much would
spend buying as many tomatoes as you harvest. Also your time is valuable.
If you hate gardening then you will spend valuable time gardening. If you
like gardening then you get quality time when you garden. Would you prefer
to garden for an hour, or watch tv for an hour?

In article ,
"DogDiesel" wrote:

Does a garden pay for itself ? Or is it cheaper to go to the grocery store.

how big you have to have to break even.

Factory farmed produce is definitely cheaper, in the short term, at the
store than you can grow yourself (economy of size).

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
by Michael Pollan
http://www.amazon.com/Omnivores-Dile...als/dp/0143038
583/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206815576&sr=1-1
(Available at better libraries near you)

BIG ORGANIC * 179

³The organic label is a marketing tool," Secretary Glickman said. ³It is
not a statement about food safety. Nor is 'organic' a value judgment
about nutrition or quality."

Some intriguing recent research suggests otherwise. A study by
University of California‹Davis researchers published in the Journal of
Agriculture and Food Chemistry in 2003 described an experiment in which
identical varieties of corn, strawberries, and blackberries grown in
neighboring plots using different methods (including organically and
conventionally) were compared for levels of vitamins and polyphenols.
Polyphenols are a group of secondary metabolites manufactured by plants
that we've recently learned play an important role in human health and
nutrition. Many are potent antioxidants; some play a role in preventing
or fighting cancer; others exhibit antimicrobial properties. The Davis
researchers found that organic and otherwise sustainably grown fruits
and vegetables contained significantly higher levels of both ascorbic
acid (vitamin C) and a wide range of polyphenols.

The recent discovery of these secondary metabolites in plants has bought
our understanding of the biological and chemical complexity of foods to
a deeper level of refinement; history suggests we haven't gotten
anywhere near the bottom of this question, either. The first level was
reached early in the nineteenth century with the identification of the
macronutrients‹protein, carbohydrate, and fat. Having isolated these
compounds, chemists thought they'd unlocked the key to human nutrition.
Yet some people (such as sailors) living on diets rich in macronutrients
nevertheless got sick. The mystery was solved when scientists discovered
the major vitamins‹a second key to human nutrition. Now it's the
polyphenols in plants that we're learning play a critical role in
keeping us healthy. (And which might explain why diets heavy in
processed food fortified with vitamins still aren't as nutritious as
fresh foods.) You wonder what else is going on in these plants, what
other undiscovered qualities in them we've evolved to depend on.

In many ways the mysteries of nutrition at the eating end of the food
chain closely mirror the mysteries of fertility at the growing end: The
two realms are like wildernesses that we keep convincing ourselves

Omnivore¹s Dilemma 180

our chemistry has mapped, at least until the next level of complexity
comes into view. Curiously, Justus von Liebig, the nineteenth-century
German chemist with the spectacularly ironic surname, bears
responsibility for science's overly reductive understanding of both ends
of the food chain. It was Liebig, you'll recall, who thought he had
found the chemical key to soil fertility with the discovery of NPK, and
it was the same Liebig who thought he had found the key to human
nutrition when identified the macronutrients in food. Liebig wasn't
wrong on either count, yet in both instances he made the fatal mistake
of thinking that what we knew about nourishing plants and people was all
we need to know to keep them healthy. It's a mistake we'll probably keep
repeating until we develop a deeper respect for the complexity of food
soil and, perhaps, the links between the two.

But back to the polyphenols, which may hint at the nature of that link.
Why in the world should organically grown blackberries or corn contain
significantly more of these compounds? The authors of Davis study
haven't settled the question, but they offer two suggestive theories.
The reason plants produce these compounds in the first place is to
defend themselves against pests and diseases; the more pressure from
pathogens, the more polyphenols a plant will produce. These compounds,
then, are the products of natural selection and, more specifically, the
coevolutionary relationship between plants and the species that prey on
them. Who would have guessed that humans evolved to profit from a diet
of these plant pesticides? Or that we would invent an agriculture that
then deprived us of them? The Davis authors hypothesize that plants
being defended by man-made pesticides don¹t need to work as hard to make
their own polyphenol pesticides. Coddled by us and our chemicals, the
plants see no reason to invest their sources in mounting a strong
defense. (Sort of like European nations during the cold war.)

A second explanation (one that subsequent research seems to suppport)
may be that the radically simplified soils in which chemically
fertilized plants grow don't supply all the raw ingredients needed to
synthesize these compounds, leaving the plants more vulnerable to
attack,

BIG ORGANIC * 181

as we know conventionally grown plants tend to be. NPK might be
sufficient for plant growth yet still might not give a plant everything
it needs to manufacture ascorbic acid or lycopene or resveratrol in
quantity. As it happens, many of the polyphenols (and especially a
subset called the flavonols) contribute to the characteristic taste of a
fruit or vegetable. Qualities we can't yet identify, in soil may
contribute qualities we've only just begun to identify in our foods and
our bodies.

Reading the Davis study I couldn't help thinking about the early
proponents of organic agriculture, people like Sir Albert Howard and J.
I. Rodale, who would have been cheered, if unsurprised, by the findings.
Both men were ridiculed for their unscientific conviction that a
reductive approach to soil fertility‹the NPK mentality‹would diminish
the nutritional quality of the food grown in it and, in turn, the health
of the people who lived on that food. All carrots are not created equal,
they believed; how we grow it, the soil we grow it in, what we feed that
soil all contribute qualities to a carrot, qualities that may yet escape
the explanatory net of our chemistry. Sooner or later the soil
scientists and nutritionists will catch up to Sir Howard, heed his
admonition that we begin ³treating the whole problem of health in soil,
plant, animal and man as one great subject."

So it happens that these organic blackberries perched on this mound of
vanilla ice cream, having been grown in a complexly fertile soil and
forced to fight their own fights against pests and disease, are in some
quantifiable way more nutritious than conventional blackberries. This
would probably not come as earthshaking news to Albert Howard or J. I.
Rodale or any number of organic farmers, but at least now it is a claim
for which we can supply a scientific citation: J. Agric. Food. Chem.
vol. 51, no. 5, 2003. (Several other such studies have appeared since;
see the Sources section at the back of this book.)

Obviously there is much more to be learned about the relationship of
soil to plant, animals, and health, and it would be a mistake to lean
too heavily on any one study. It would also be a mistake to assume that
the word ³organic" on a label automatically signifies healthfulness,
especially when that label appears on heavily processed and
long-distance


THE OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA 182

foods that have probably had much of their nutritional value, not to
mention flavor, beaten out of them long before they arrive at our
tables.

p.269

The fact that the nutritional quality of a given food (and of that
food's food) can vary not just in degree but in kind throws a big wrench
into an industrial food chain, the very premise of which is that beef is
beef and salmon salmon. It also throws a new light on the whole question
of cost, for if quality matters so much more than quantity, then the
price of a food may bear little relation to the value of the nutrients
in it. If units of omega-3s and beta carotene and vitamin E are what an
egg shopper is really after, then Joel's $2.20 a dozen pastured eggs
actually represent a much better deal than the $0.79 a dozen industrial
eggs at the supermarket. As long as one egg looks pretty much like
another, all the chickens like chicken, and beef beef, the substitution
of quantity for quality will go on unnoticed by most consumers, but it
is becoming increasingly apparent to anyone with an electron microscope
or a mass spectrometer that, truly, this is not the same food.
--
- Billy
³When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a communist.²
-Archbishop Helder Camara
http://peace.mennolink.org/articles/...acegroups.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth...130964689.html

DogDiesel wrote:
Does a garden pay for itself ? Or is it cheaper to go to the grocery
store.
how big you have to have to break even.

It depends on the situation.

If you are buying most or all of your inputs (as in balcony container
gardening) in terms of the price per kilo of the produce that you can grow
compared to a supermarket you are probably losing money growing your own
unless fresh produce prices are consistently very high in your area.
However if you factor in quality, freshness, personal enjoyment etc you may
not be losing at all. Even the balcony gardener can be in profit on some
items if they are clever. Herbs are an obvious choice, if you like your
food and use fresh herbs often then the overhead of having a pot of rosemary
(and basil in summer) will over time more than cover the cost of buying by
the bunch in the supermarket. If you forget to water it for a month and it
dies probably not.

If you are not buying many inputs and those that you do buy are in bulk then
financially you are much closer to breaking even or making a profit.
Planting from seed will save you much compared to always buying seedlings.
Picking up manure on a neighbour's paddock is cheaper and better than buying
sacks of fertiliser and getting cuttings for free from a neighbour or garden
club is infinitely cheaper than paying someone else to strike them and sell
you a little pot. Using an old gate from the garbage dump for a trellis is
much cheaper than buying new materials.

Saving on your plot will happen most often if you start with good soil and
access to cheap water and you are able to (and prepared to) source things
like mulch, manure etc locally. This is easier in rural and semi-rural
regions but if you get off your arse and go looking you can find resources
in cities, for example local riding stables and local government bodies that
give away or sell mulch cheaply. Those who find the capacity to grow their
own food important will take this into account when selecting where they
live.

Size is an issue for fixed costs. You are going to need certain equipment
(eg a spade) whether you are planting 5 square metres or 50. Such fixed
overheads remain more or less constant up to the size where there needs to
be more than one person working on the plot at any given time or where
manual operations must give way to mechanisation. This size is going to be
larger than most home gardeners need or want. Aside from such overheads
running costs are going to be pretty much in proportion to the area that you
are working.

Your skill is another factor. Choosing the right crop in the right season
in the right place and giving it the right treatment will make the
difference between a poor crop (or none at all) and a good one. The excess
can be sold at "farmer's markets" or exchanged with neighbours.

So yes the garden can pay for itself if you put in the effort and it will
also save you gym fees. It can also give you experiences that you can never
buy in the supermarket. A good cultivar of peach ripened on the tree will
knock your socks off, you haven't tasted asparagus until you have eaten it
really fresh, the humble cabbage is sweet only for a few days after it is
cut. None of this is possible with supermarket food.

David

DogDiesel wrote:

Does a garden pay for itself ?

If they did everyone would do them. Gardens are for fun or for lack of
choice to anyone not in the farming business. And there's the point
where the profit is made - There are people in the farmers market
business who do indeed garden for a profit. Some of them for a very
small profit because they are in it as a profitable hobby.

"Nanzi" wrote in message
...
On Feb 14, 3:38 am, "DogDiesel" wrote:
Does a garden pay for itself ? Or is it cheaper to go to the grocery
store.

how big you have to have to break even.

The taste of a ripe tomato from your yard is worth more than money,
it
is a mouth treat you can't put a value on. And being able to go to
the
garden for a salad, lettuce, spinach leaves, and maybe sweet pea pods
is a delight. You know what has been sprayed or not sprayed on it,
and
the freshness there is no substitute for.
We buy plants for tomatoes, and seed for the rest. We're always way
ahead of the game.
Nanzi


Yea, I didn't mention last years tomatoes and lettuce were the bomb. People
were asking me for tomatoes and lettuce last year. And my eggplants made me
some great Thai curry vegetables. I got a lot more work to go this year.
And a whole lot of digging.

Thanks,
Diesel

"jellybean stonerfish" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 14 Feb 2011 03:38:32 -0500, DogDiesel wrote:

Does a garden pay for itself ? Or is it cheaper to go to the grocery
store.

how big you have to have to break even.

It all depends on how you look at it. Do you spend money on
entertainment.
Maybe you find gardening fun, so the cost of say, buying a tomato plant
and using water, can be though of as entertainment money. Then every
tomato
you pick is pure profit. Also it depends on how you garden. If you spend
100 dollars building a raised bed, and buying soil, you will probably not
get 100 dollars of tomatoes in the first season. If you just use
homegrown
compost, and build you planters out of salvaged wood, then the cost of a
tomato plant and the water needed is probably much less then how much
would
spend buying as many tomatoes as you harvest. Also your time is valuable.
If you hate gardening then you will spend valuable time gardening. If you
like gardening then you get quality time when you garden. Would you
prefer
to garden for an hour, or watch tv for an hour?


Neither. Id prefer to eat for an hour. Then take a nap.

Doug Freyburger wrote:
DogDiesel wrote:

Does a garden pay for itself ?

If they did everyone would do them.

If they had the space, the time, the soil and water and the skill.

Gardens are for fun or for lack
of choice to anyone not in the farming business. And there's the
point where the profit is made - There are people in the farmers
market business who do indeed garden for a profit. Some of them for
a very small profit because they are in it as a profitable hobby.

True, you aren't going to be paying yourself a high hourly rate.

D

On Tue, 15 Feb 2011 14:45:56 -0500, DogDiesel wrote:

"jellybean stonerfish" wrote in message

to garden for an hour, or watch tv for an hour?


Neither. Id prefer to eat for an hour. Then take a nap.

I graze while I garden.

On Feb 14, 3:38*am, "DogDiesel" wrote:
Does a garden pay for itself ? Or is it cheaper to go to the grocery store.

*how big you have to have to break even.

Money-wise, my garden doesn't come close to breaking even; although if
people like Marjory Wildcraft are correct, that might change in the
next few years...

http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=cWVtaY3Zdpc

http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=xBWHeR2ar1Q

http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=kT5Bi-RrpVQ

http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=OOEj23RwXIE

As many others have posted there is a lot of satisfaction from growing
your own food, and the flavor can't be beat. Personally, I just feel
better out in the sun, rain, dirt, air. Leave the phone and the
computer in the house and feel like I am really doing something
important pulling weeds and picking stones. I know that all the
world's problems and bullshit is still all around me, but I just don't
care - perhaps it's all an illusion that somehow I am still connected
to the larger galactoplasm, but it's a good illusion. It's also a
really great feeling to give food away to folks who think it always
comes from boxes and plastic wrap who can't believe the taste of
'real' food. As far as the o.p asking about big you have to have to
break even? I have no accurate idea of what I spend in money or time,
so it would be hard to figure.
Chas

David Hare-Scott wrote:
Doug Freyburger wrote:
DogDiesel wrote:

Does a garden pay for itself ?

If they did everyone would do them.

If they had the space, the time, the soil and water and the skill.

If have plenty of 1st/2nd/3rd cousins who are construction workers in
dairy farming territory. They have plenty of space, soil and water plus
about as much time as anyone with a day job has. Some garden some
don't. The ones who garden do it for fun. The ones who don't tend to
apply their time and skill to hunting whatever is in season.

The acumen plants aftermath these compounds in the aboriginal abode is to defend themselves adjoin pests and diseases; the added burden from pathogens, the added polyphenols a bulb will produce. These compounds, then, are the articles of accustomed alternative and, added specifically, the coevolutionary accord amid plants and the breed that casualty on them.