Garden value vs. cost of vegetable garden

Calculating the value of the vegetable garden has been an ongoing project this summer, though it's been difficult to keep track of every last bite we pull out of our yard. For the purposes of pricing what this stuff might be worth at the market, I'm using prices for regular commercial produce at the regular chain supermarket. The stuff I'm growing is organic, but I'm ignoring that to just focus on the basic price of vegetables at the store vs. what I can "save" by growing this things myself. I might consider revaluing this when I tally everything up at the end of the season.

The local farmer's market and whole food, for example, are charging an arm and leg this season for field tomatoes - compared to what the Shaw's charges for its hothouse tomatoes. To date, we've harvested:

• 8 lbs green beans (pole beans and haricot verts)
• 10 lbs of tomatoes (heirloom, yellow and regular red)
• 4 pints of red and yellow grape tomatoes
• 16 cucumbers (mostly marketmores, with some persians)
• 10 jalapeno peppers
• 2 sweet peppers
• 1 green bell pepper
• 8 bunches of carrots
• 3 lbs of snap peas
• 5 pints of strawberries
• several bags of bibb lettuce, spinach and mache
• 4 bunches of basil

That's $131 worth of food from the garden. Balance that against this year's cost of $208 for soil amendments, seeds and plant starts. It's difficult to calculate capital investments from years past for things like shovels, trowels, wheel barrow, etc., or for things like water and time.

We still have the corn, zucchini, leeks, red onions, pumpkins, more beans, chard, more lettuce, eggplants, more peppers, more cucumbers and loads more tomatoes yet to come....

The winner in terms of value of crop vs. total space and time consumed has been the green beans, particularly the haricot verts, which have taken very little effort, very little space and produce quite a lot.

Value of the vegetable garden

Our vegetable garden is a 17'x14' area in our front yard - small but easy enough to tend in 1 or 2 hours a week.

I've been wondering if it's really worth it. I mean, other than the pleasure I get from toiling in the dirt and the smallish chance my children will be inspired by the sight of vegetables growing and actually want to eat one of them.

So, part of this project is keeping track of the cold hard cash value of what we're pulling out of our garden. So, far, we've gotten about 5 pints of strawberries, 1/2 lb of snap peas and several bags of lettuce and spinach. I'll forget that what we have is local and organic and that that combination commands jaw-dropping prices at the local Whole Foods, and focus on the price of these items as if they were plain old vegetables from the regular grocery store. Current price are $2.50/pint of commercially grown California strawberries, $4.99/pound of snap peas and $4.99/box of mixed greens - bringing the total value of our garden to $24.99, (and it's only June 19th!) and that's ignoring all the snips of chives, basil, garlic scapes, oregano, parsley and cilantro for which I can't begin to calculate the value.

How much does a vegetable garden cost?

Costs to date are $208 which includes all the soil amendments, seeds, fertilizer and the seedlings (tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and a few perennial herbs). I won't need to spend as much next year on soil amendments.

• Costs for seeds, seedlings and fertilizer: $107 (recurring annually)
• Costs for soil amendments (compost and spaghum moss) and tools: $101

I hope to have more homemade compost for next year's garden, but will probably still spend about $50 on soil amendments.

Will we get $208 worth of produce out of our little patch (about 150SF)? Stay tuned...

Check it out, we got mentioned over at Public Radio Kitchen.

What's happening in the vegetable garden

After nearly 2 weeks, I resowed the corn last Thursday (May 21), and covered the whole section with clear plastic. I've been taking up the plastic every other day to water. If I leave the plastic up for 5 minutes, the birds get right into the bed.

The peas are doing well. The carrots are doing well. The second seeding is starting to emerge.

A little bit from the second sowing of mache, but not much.

The lettuces are coming in well now. Looking forward to a garden salad one night soon.

The cucumbers are suddenly ailing. The seed leaves have mostly fallen off, and the second leaves are emerging, but the stalks are weak. Several of the plants have fallen over. I think we may have lost about half, and those remaining do not look strong.

The beans are doing a little bit better, but they don't seem to really be thriving. The seedlings haven't grown much since being planted out. Some of the leaves are getting brown and papery. No sign yet of the beans directed sown.

I fed everything this weekend. Did I mention the $40 spent on fish gut fertilizer? It stinks, but I've had success with it in the past. Vegetables need a lot of nutrients, especially in a densly planted urban garden. The leeks, especially, should benefit from some additional nutrients.

Sunlight is looking good this time of year. The tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and basil get 10 hours of sunlight. The lettuces, leeks, carrots and peas get 8 hours. The strawberries and herbs get 8. The cucumbers get 6.

Finishing the beds

Double dug and amended the outer beds with a mixture of manure/hummus our compost and spaghum. It still looks pretty rocky and sandy. I pulled dozens of enormous rocks out which we used to trim the beds. Then we added some more topsoil.
Spent another $22 on manure/hummus for 6 bags of manure/hummus and 1 bag spaghum for amending the beds when I dug them, plus another $14 on the 6 bags of topsoil and $5 on bone meal to add phosphorous.

Seedlings

After 2.5 weeks, everything is showing some signs of life. The bibb lettuce sprouted right away, followed by the mescun, peas, mache, chard and finally the leeks. I'm surprised at how many seeds do not germinate. I think you have to plant about 4 seeds to get 1 good plant.

Temperatures have been between 35-60 in the sun room. I think the cold days may have inhibited the leeks from germinating.

So far all in costs are about $70 (4 bags spaghum moss, 5 bags composted manure, seeds, 1 pH meter, 1 roll clear plastic sheeting).

I'm hoping to use our very own compost for the rest of the soil amendment. The pH on the compost is reading between 6 and 6.5 which is ideal for most vegetables. I have no way to test the nutrient content, but I can only imagine there's some good nitrogen in there since we've been dumping in plenty of kitchen scraps.