Growing Your Own - Does it Save Money?
By Cindy Naas
Those of us who grow urban gardens do so for a number of reasons.
Saving money on our family food bills is a reason which nearly always comes up in any discussion of urban gardening.
But, is this true? Or is it a myth?
One family decided to test out this hypothesis.
The frugal living blog Get Rich Slowly is conducting a year long experiment to determine whether those growing their own fruits and vegetable will really be ahead in the long run.
The project involves keeping track of money spent on seeds and various garden items such as fertilizers, tools etc., logs hours spent working in the garden, and then compares homegrown produce to the price of any current store-bought food.
Here is the first article:
The last entry is at the end of July, and the writer was almost at the break-even point. However, we all know that August and September are the months when the food really begins pouring in, and I predict that this will show that growing your own produce can be quite cost-effective.
Saving seeds, using ‘found’ items for container growing and bartering for services such as the use of a rototiller make urban gardening even more affordable. I think that based on a lot of what I’ve been reading lately, that the trend toward growing fruits and veggies in the city will even be influencing the kinds of homes many people buy in the future.
For example, I am going to be moving in the next year, and I already know that the lot size will be more important to me than the size of my house. Many people are building gardens where front lawns used to be found, and saving money on food is a big motivation for many city gardeners. It will be really interesting when the results from the Get Rich Slowly team are all in.
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Regardless of whether or not one actually saves money on their overall grocery bill, there are more important reasons to grow our own food.
With the average meal traveling 1400 miles to our tables, that cost of transport must be factored in as an impact on the environment.
Additionally, the effect on our health and the cost of that in health insurance and medical costs must be taken into consideration. With the chemicals and cross contamination during processing (not to mention irradiated foods! YIKES!), growing your own food or knowing where it comes from is just safer.
But, to answer the question, we have found a significant savings by using freecycle and estate sales to collect gardening and canning supplies. Certainly, the yields we have seen from our own produce has made our produce bill far more affordable.
However, it is important to take into consideration more than just the financial benefit of either growing your own food or sourcing it from a local producer. We must cut down on the transportation cost of our food for economic and environmental reasons and we must take control of the chemicals that are being put into our bodies by the corporate food machine. These benefits far outweigh any financial cost to a locally sourced food supply.
October 4th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Also, when you grow your own, you can use varieties that are not the standard choices. The standard store varieties are the ones that ship and store well, at the cost of the amazing tastes that other varieties offer.
You can also keep these varieties going so they don’t disappear. Did you know there are 1500 varieties of apples….and there used to be 15,000?
October 4th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
I planted a garden for the first time this spring. In my case, it wasn’t a matter of saving money or decreasing my family’s carbon footprint. I am growing vegetables because I want to improve the quality of our diet. For instance, if I didn’t grow tomatoes this year, we wouldn’t have purchased any; they were just too pricey around here. The same thing goes for the cucumber and watermelon that I grew. Fresh fruit and vegetables have been priced out of our food budget to the point that we were living on processed carbs.
I affectionately refer to my garden patch as my ghetto garden. I haven’t spend more than $25 since I started in April. Seeds, dirt, and compost — that’s all I bought. I threw the stuff out there and let it grow. God was looking after me, because grow it did! My kids ate well, and I can’t wait to do it all again next spring.
October 7th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Even if it’s not cheaper, and I would be surprised if it’s not, especially if you vermicompost and/or traditional compost, use found containers, etc….It’s fun to grow your own, and your food tastes better!