Does your garden ACTUALLY save you $ ?

[SKR8PN]

This was the first day of my wife's all to short vacation, and she spent every minute of it weeding and mulching the garden.
I, on the other hand, spent most of my day in the shop working on customers cars, helping my farmer friend out by moving hay and grain wagons for him(while his wife and brother did the bailing,HE was running the combine) THEN in my spare moments, I worked on the greenhouse project. You have no idea how much I envied my wife, spending her entire day in our garden........

 

[Wifezilla]

I am actually rather intrigued at those who are trying to downplay or discourage people growing their own food.

We've also had people try to talk us out of getting out of debt or preparing for disasters.

 

[FarmerDenise]

We were sitting in our comfy lawnchairs sipping or rather spooning our smoothies and thinking how lucky we are. We were looking out over our garden. Everything is coming up, full of potential!!! The peaches are turning red, our smoothie made with homegrown berries.
We are feeling smug in the knowledge that our own homegrown food is grown by our labor with the help of our animals. Our land has not been depleted of neccessary nutrients. Our food has not been handled by who knows how many people, who may or may not have washed their hands after a visit to the bathroom, our food is as fresh as can be, has no poisons put on it, picked at optimum ripeness. FIL brought us some peaches yesterday, from the store. We couldn't believe that people actually eat that stuff, they were hard and not too flavorfull, unripe by our standards.

Neither of us has had a job in 5 years. We are surviving, because we grow and process our own food. And we are healthy most of the time. We have to be, we have no insurance.

There is nothing like sitting in your garden, and enjoying the fruits of your labor, in every sense of the word.

And I dare anyone to come and take it from me. I got a gun and know how to use it!

 

[Wifezilla]

Our food has not been handled by who knows how many people, who may or may not have washed their hands after a visit to the bathroom

Well, if the farm the produce came from was staffed by underpaid immigrants, I can bet there was no bathroom involved other than the dirt on the ground

 

[Farmfresh]

Does your time have no value, your hard work free and you NEVER have a crop fail? I am recently retired so my time isn't worth a lot, but I have spent the last 25 mostly sitting on my butt and the old joints ache and muscles underused are often sore. Maybe 30% of what I try to produce actually ends up on my table and is not great quality and strictly depends on the weather. I'll admit to being a pestimist (who can't spell) but is your life really so rose colored?

My time is of the greatest value, all of us have such a limited amount of time on Earth. Given that limited amount of time why wouldn't I want to spend every moment of it doing something as worthwhile as raising my own garden and tending my own animals?

I have lots of pain in my life on a daily basis, with severe arthritis and neuropathy. Spending as much of my time as possible tending my homestead not only keeps me moving by mentally motivating me, it keeps me as flexible and strong as is possible. My hard work is not free - it pays me in less pain and a healthier life.

Every year my garden has certain successes as well as some failures. The successes usually far out weigh the losses. The food I produce for my self and my family is far higher quality than any I can buy at the store and I never have to worry about pesticides or e Coli contamination recalls. I grow the foods we love to eat. Preserve those foods just how my family uses them, so we have far less waste. Any trimmings or failed crops are not total losses either, since they become animal feeds and are utilized to help produce protein for my table.

I am not always an optimist either, but very often when I am resting after a days garden work and watching my hens scratch happily about the yard the whole world does seem pretty rosie at that!

 

[pioneergirl]

I agree....not to mention the peace of mind and SKILLS. I don't need to know how to do a spreadsheet on EXcel, or whatever all that mess is with the high tech stuff. I need to know how to feed my land to give me food. I told my son

"Take care of the land, it will take care of you. Treat your garden right and you will live."

I think those of us who are able, both with land and in the physical sense, do everything we possibly can to learn the skills necessary to have our own food, and our own peace of mind. Be a pesamist if you will, question our motives, or our ideas, but we are happy and healthy.

 

[VickiLynn]

Besides the financial savings of garden vs. store-bought produce, there are so many more benefits that are hard to quantify:

Health - After a few hours in the garden, we sleep better and gardening therapy is a great stress-reducer, and our chemical-free produce is less likely to make us sick, and we are getting more fruits & veggies in our diet. Our fresh, perfectly ripe veggies are more nutrient-dense, plus we get free vitamins from the sun while tending the garden and it provides a good workout. So less sleep meds, headache meds, stomach meds, dr. appointments, trips to the gym

Social - Quality family time growing and processing food, as well as having something to share with others. We know a family that is struggling. They have their pride, and would never accept a bag of groceries from us, but would gladly use an armload of garden produce.

Environment - We get our produce about 25 steps from our house, so thats helping reduce the carbon footprint. We also use less gas because we dont make so many 20-mile round-trips to the grocery store.

Free storage - I have no place to put store-bought bulk potatoes or carrots, but the garden will keep them for me until I need them.

Educational - My son is learning:
Science (life cycle of plants, weather, nutrients plants need, how to store food properly)
Math (X amount of seeds at 4 apart will make a row how long?)
Problem-solving (Where do we put the corn so it doesnt shade the beans?)
Respect for the earth
Patience
Dealing with disappointment (the watermelon plants died - so deal with it and move on)
Skills that he may need to survive someday
How good a really fresh vegetable tastes - so hes eating more of them.
(OK, DH and I are learning this stuff, too)

For our 2010 Garden:

Seeds, plants, tools: $156
Freezing, canning, dehydrating supplies: $89
Benefits of having a garden: Priceless

 

[reinbeau]

Benefits of having a garden: Priceless

This about boils it down for many of us - the value of the garden to some of us is an intangible, call it good will, that intangible that's accepted in accounting practices as a line item on the balance sheet.

 

[Jaxom]

There is something to be said in pride in workmanship. Even if you could do something for less. Knowing you personally made, grew, fixed....you just can't put a price on this.

 

[Icu4dzs]

Hello all,
I opted not to use "Quote" this time because it is really quite clear this topic has "beaten ~gd into being a "dead horse"".

The whole purpose of being self sufficient is embodied by the garden. No doubt that folks can buy things imported from all over the world at the store. They are picked so that they will get to the store in time to not be rotten. On the other hand, they are never quite ripe and as so many have pointed out, farming methods and personnel in other areas may not be as fastidious about their hygiene.

Since ~gd has only recently retired, he will soon find out that work got in the way of all the things a person wants to do in order to be self sufficient. He just needs time to readjust to the life of a retired man. I did it but got pulled back into work because of what I do and the shortage of them in this area. Otherwise, I'd much rather be working on my farm making all my life completely as self sufficient as possible.

Once my power system is up and running, I will be much more comfortable if TSHTF because I will be able to store food better and pump the water out of my wells.

We'll see, huh?
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