Does your garden ACTUALLY save you $ ?

[VickiLynn]

Good idea Bee....one guy told us that with the amount of potatoes we planted, which is approximately 5lbs, should yield us 600lbs....yes, I typed that correctly....600lbs of potatoes. That is on average, so I'll be anxious to see if he's right.

I'm going to dust off my scale now.....

Wow! That's amazing!

 

[reinbeau]

I don't know if this has been mentioned (I didn't read all five pages) but my garden gains are way over whatever costs I may incur - in the peace and pleasure I get out of working the soil, and in the wonderful, fresh meals I am able to produce as a result. Nothing gives me more pleasure and satisfaction than walking out my front door to my herb garden, or out my back door to the veggie garden, and picking whatever I want to make right off the plants. I've never given it a thought whether or not it 'saves me money' because it's just something I'm compelled to do. But maybe that's just me

 

[FarmerDenise]

It's been nearly 5 years since I lost my job. SO doesn't have a job either. You bet our garden pays! We live off it. We have our animals and they live off it too.
We do have another source of a little bit of income, but there is no way we would live the life we do, if we didn't have our garden. We sell a bit and we preserve a lot.
Instead of going out to the movies, we watch our critters. There is nothing better than sitting under the peach trees watching the chickens, the goats, the dog, the cats and the wildlife, or watching the corn grow.
And nothing more satisfying than sitting down to a homegrown and home cooked meal.

And we have enough to share. Yesterday a friend who lives in a tent stopped by. He has beer for breakfast. He is a good person. He just won't give up his beer I ducked inside and put a dozen eggs to boil. As he was leaving I was able to give him a dozen hard boiled eggs and I knew this friend would eat today. I couldn't have done that, if I didn't have my garden and the chickens.

 

[Wifezilla]

One thing I have noticed is that my income from selling hatching eggs is really offsetting my outgo on dirt and stuff for my new grow beds.

 

[Beekissed]

I don't have a real scale suitable for weighing produce, so I'm going to purchase a hanging fish scale and attach a pre-weighed bucket to it so that I can weigh my produce as it comes out of the garden and write it down right then.

 

[Farmfresh]

Most of my large plastic mixing bowls have their weight written on the bottom of them in Sharpie marker. Makes weighing much easier for me.

 

[vfem]

Well I'm very late to this, as Wifezilla had showed at the beginning she has a google doc she's using and I'm weighing my produce and tracking costs in a spread sheet too. Along with that we have a group on TEG and BYC tracking along with us. I would like to see numbers just for one year... it feels almost moral to me to know. Not that I should HAVE to track it, but the evil corporate companies out there trying to tell us what we buy from them, and what it is worth and why we should spend that... I feel we should know the luxury of doing for ourselves and not having to be out spending to do it.

Plus I'm adding one last thing to my tracking system of what I grow, what it weighs and what that costs... as I am also tracking what I weigh and what my garden does for my waistline inside and out! LOL



http://www.theeasygarden.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=27660

 

[Wifezilla]

Ooo! Good idea!

 

[vfem]

Definitely saves me from joining Weight Watchers!!!

 

[~gd]

Absolutely!! I spent $50 on seeds this year....I don't use fertilizer, this is my second year having it, and its even bigger this year. 60 x 100. I'm still eating veggies I canned from the last garden, and it has probably cut my grocery bill in half, if not more. I've made ketchup, pasta sauce, stewed tomatoes for stews, plus the other veggies for stuff. I have compost, and super good soil naturally, so I don't need potting soil, fertilizer, or other things. I used recycled fence, so that wasn't an issue either.

So were your canning supplies free? I have run the math and only try to grow things that can be saved without high tech (like jars lids and canners) Only very special items which can not be found locally are grown in my garden. I get tomatoes from other people that have a surplus and dry them a few at a time, apples and other fruit which everybody doesn't have are traded with others for the things I want. unless you are carefull a garden can turn into a money pit where the money and effort in is worth more than the output.