I was garden for years before I stopped to think about whether or not my garden was costing me money or providing me with healthier and cheaper constitutive produce because of my exploit .
Of naturally , when you ’re starting out your gardenwill cost you more money because you have to build unexampled garden bed , buy grunge and amendment , seeds , gardening dick etc . In my book , I mention offsetting these costs by growing high - value dollar crop .
But after a few years and perhaps a ejaculate addiction * hem * , you might really desire to do it if your garden is cost you too much money , or perhaps you just keep your finances very well balanced and have a outlay limit .
To do this you need to keep rails of your horticulture expenses and keep a harvest log and equate them .
How Much is your Garden Costing You?
The easiest way to figure out if your garden is cost you money is to keep track of all your gardening expenses and compare them to your harvests and the dollar value of those harvest home .
What are your Gardening Expenses?
Here are some purchases to keep track of that are classified as horticulture expenses :
You ’ll desire to write down what your purchases are , how many and the price . Most of the sentence in the spring our garden is in the damaging dollar time value because that ’s when most of the garden disbursement are made . Then as the season goes along and we harvest more crop and thus create more dollar bill value .
How to Price out your Harvests
Pricing out your produce and continue a harvest log will give you some idea on how to set off your gardening disbursal .
Some things to keep in mind when pricing out your homegrown garden truck .
Is the produce in season?
So with ALL of these factors and more how on worldly concern do you price your own home - grow green goods ?
Here’s How I Price my Own Produce
I keep track of the cost of produce from our grocery store buying andI take an average from both the in - time of year and out of season toll .
For model , kale at peak time of year in the crepuscle was $ 2 a bunch , the rest of the class it ’s about $ 3 a crowd so I price it out at $ 2.50 . I do this for every veggie that we purchase and spell it down on newspaper or an excel spreadsheet . This will give you a salutary average cost of the produce note value .
HOWEVER there are a few affair I ’d care to mention .
IF you only bribe in time of year and preserve your harvest , your saving are far dandy because the value of the garden truck is at the lower price point . This grant for maximal deliverance but need far more effort on your part to keep the green goods . This choice is n’t for everyone and very few mass do this , but keep it in mind if you desire maximal menage food savings this can be a great way to go .
But back to the kale and accept an ‘ average price ’ .
Of of course this is an average , and produce prices have been going up for the past span of geezerhood so your economic value might go up .
Harvest Sizes
Once you have a monetary value do you go by weight ? Size ? Bunches ?
Many garden truck items can be weighed in pounds , others are prepare into Ralph Bunche .
If I have something like a ‘ bunch ’ for example of Japanese radish or a herbaceous plant like basil or mint , I will write down how many caboodle I have and have a sure price for each caboodle ( take the grocery store average ) . If something weigh more than a few lbs , I will take out the scale and weigh it and price it out per pound . Winter squash and pumpkins are an instance of this .
Some veg like carrot and potatoes vary because I do n’t often glean the 3 , 5 , or 10 lbs that I would normally purchase so I create smaller pricing option on my harvest logarithm .
Comparing Gardening Expenses to your Harvest Log
So to find out if your garden is cost you too much money you ’ll need to equate the gardening expense to your harvests at the end of the time of year . Of course , as I say earlier , gardening is about more than the dollar value but it gives you a rough estimate on maybe cut back on sure things that might not be a requisite .
Remember the taste of new food in peak ripeness can not be compared to the market store green goods . 😉
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