I set myself to keeping records of garden harvest this year. I mainly wanted to get an idea of possible cost savings, what plants give us the highest 'payback' and what we should focus on or not so much focus on in the future.
Fellow gardening friends should be encouraged too. There are more benefits than just tastier food (as I am sure you know this).
So how much money did this rectangle of dirt grow?
Here is the breakdown, prices are from my local Stop & Shop grocery store (which I consider to be the local average price range). Note that we grew everything organically which in the store is an even more expensive product than I have listed below, I used the regular produce price-
Red and Blue Potatoes:
Total weight grew- 23.5 lbs
Total savings @ $4.99/ 5lb bag =
$23.45
Chips made from blue potatoes-
Garlic:
Total weight grew- 1lb 7oz (about 19 bulbs)
Total savings @ $6.34/lb =
$9.51
Green Beans
Total weight grew- 9.6 lbs
Total savings @ $2.49/lb =
$23.95
Soybeans (Edamame)
Total weight grew- 1.5lbs
Total savings @ $5.99/ 10 oz bag =
$11.98
Sweet Corn
Total weight grew- 30.6lbs (or 73 ears)
Total savings @ $2/dozen =
$12.17
Corn beard-
Leaf lettuce
Total grew - roughly equivalent to 3 bunches (its still growing alittle)
Total savings @ $1.99/bunch =
$5.97
Eggplant (Ugh, I'm still having nightmares about all the eggplants, a blog post about using it
here)
Total weight grew - 32 lbs (or 82 fruits, but I threw and gave a bunch away)
Total savings @ $1.99/lb =
$63.68
Note to self, grow less of these next year.
But the ratatouille was amazing.... and freezes well to make great soup fillers for the winter.
Beets
Total grew- 3 lbs (still some growing in the garden)
Total savings @ $3.49/1.5 bunch =
$10.47
Heirloom Tomatoes
Total weight grew- 30 lbs (or 35ish tomatoes)
Total savings @ $2.99/lb =
$90.76
~Note, this is an unfair price. I used regular tomatoes price here instead of an heirloom tomato price. There were no heirloom tomatoes for sell in the store at the time of my price gathering but I know the price for heirlooms would be more. Pretty much I am saying, the total saving should be more.
Amish Paste Tomatoes (similar to Roma or Plum)
Total weight grew- 27 lbs
Total savings @ $1.99/lb =
$54.31
Pickling Cucumbers
Total weight grew- 15.25lbs
Total savings = ?? store cucs were priced per fruit not pound, I did not keep count of the fruit but there were alot. I canned 8 quarts worth of pickles and we ate fresh cucs almost regularly for lunch.
TOTAL savings all together = $305.26
To be fair I will factor in the seed and seedling expenses, which comes to
$43.13
So that would bring it down to
$262.13. I don't preserve alot of my seeds from previous plants nor do I hassle with growing some things from seeds for transplanting (like tomatoes). I buy seedlings instead from a local nursery. Those that do this will see even more savings than us.
I would like to add that I did not count some things (such as blueberries and sugar snap peas, that just provided maybe one meal or snack), nor did I include our cherry tomatoes, there were too many to count (and I am not growing them at all next year). I also want to note that I messed up our highly anticipated heirloom sweet potato crop. We were expecting a HUGE harvest, but I made a growing mistake for our region... it will be corrected next year.
For those overly analytical people, I did not log hours spent working in the garden (to know what our time is worth). The reasons for gardening goes well beyond cost savings for us.
I thought the above information would be nice to share for encouragement to other people trying to grow their own food... whether large, medium or small operation.
For now though, all garden thoughts can rest.... then we will hit it up again next-
