I often hear gardeners bragging about how much money they have saved by self growing vegetables in their backyard or plot gardens. If you do a detail cost assessment of your growing cost and supermarket cost per pound(kilo) you may find it is costing more per pound to grow than to buy.
Gardening and gardeners generally fall into two categories.
Category 1. I think most home gardeners fall into category 1 gardeners. Gardening for us is a hobby. We are not in gardening because we think we will be saving a few hundred or even a thousand dollars on our yearly food bill.
We garden because we enjoy growing things and being out of doors. We like seeing our flower and vegetable seed grow and bloom. Freshly harvested vegetables have better color and taste better than vegetables that were picked last week and shipped to supermarkets.
Cost of gardening is not a primary consideration for us. We are into gardening for it’s health and entertainment value.
Category 2. This category often includes survivalist, penny pincers, those living off the grid or mostly off the grid. Category 2 gardeners are concerned with feeding their family summer and winter from home garden grown produce. They are most likely to can, freeze and dehydrate garden produce for long term storage. Gardening is not a hobby to them. It’s a yearly on going job/task to be accomplished.
It matters not if you are a category 1 or 2 gardener gardening is not cheap. The initial cost can be overwhelming.
Container gardening requires investment in large containers(pots). Damaged pot must be replaced. New fresh potting soil must be purchased every spring.
Flower/vegetable seed must be purchased and often seeds or seedlings must be purchased every growing season. Many times you must invest in grow lighting. Allocate space and a heated environment to germinate and grow seedlings.
Green house or grow house are a costly investment and require continuous maintenance. Initial grow lighting is not cheap nor is the cost of heating a grow area or green/grow house.
Raised beds are not cheap to buy or build and require maintenance to keep them in good condition. Raised beds must be replaced every few years. They must be rejuvenated by adding compost every grow season.
All situations require the use of organic or man made fertilizers.
Insect and weed control be it organic or commercial made is an ongoing battle that is time consuming and often expensive.
Few areas receive enough rain at the time needed, so add the cost of collecting water or the cost of using tap water to keep your garden plants in good, healthy and productive condition.
Some, not all gardeners must invest in good fencing to keep pest like deer, dogs, lions, tigers, bears and elephants out of their garden plot.
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Why is Common Sense so Uncommon?
Town & Country Gardening 
I love the idea of trying o keep lions out of my little English garden. we do have rabbits though and they can be quite a nuisance!
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After all is said and done, the cost of our gardening is cheaper than the doctors visits and medications we avoid, and brings way more satisfaction to the taste buds and the soul. Thanks for sharing!
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Great article. I’m a category 1 however I do want to learn how to can veggies and fruits. Kinda feel like a have to haha.
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Good for you.
A word of caution on canning. If you don’t have a pressure cooker/pressure caner, get one, it is a must have for canning many types of vegetables. Most every thing that is not pickled using vinegar and a hot water bath must be processed in a pressure caner to safely be stored away on your pantry shelves.
Happy Gardening
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Grin … my gardening projects are much like why I keep several old hens, I look at them, feed and water them, I get no eggs. I call them, my ‘looking’ hens as the only thing they are good for is for me to look at and I will miss them when they are gone.
Happy Gardening
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Gardening is a form of creativity! So is sewing-both gardening & sewing used to be done to save money – nowadays-it costs way more money to do either! I’ve discovered the cost of the lights & heat mats alone could have bought me the best organic fruit & vegetables for at least two years!! But….nothing beats pulling food from your garden & making it for dinner that night! Nothing beats having the grandkids over to play in the dirt & learn about where food comes from & how to grow it!! And the amazing feeling you get when u fill up a vase full of the flowers you planted from tiny specs of seeds….💚🌷💚!!! It’s exciting stuff!! Back in the day….Mom’s & grandmas sewed to keep clothes on their kids & gardened to keep food in their kids belly’s-we have it easy these days!! It’s nice to take a step back & visit those times!!
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Thankfully, in Scotland, it’s only dogs I need to keep out, bears, lions tigers, elephants are not guilty at getting into gardens here so I’ll be able to save on fencing if they stay away!
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I garden because I enjoy seeing things grow. I like to be able to eat what I have grown.
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Category 2. I think we can save money and will continue to think this way until I prove myself wrong. At this stage you would be right if you’re including cost of labour.
I’m in it to save the planet too. I feel like having a back yard is an unnecessary luxury when there are public spaces everywhere, for everyone to enjoy, so why not plant your space, shorten the food miles by not partaking in inefficient supply chains while at the same time doing something extremely fulfilling, that keeps you active both physically and mentally!
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I come from a long line of farmers from Germany on my dad’s side of the family. Even though we lived in town my dad plowed up almost half of our backyard for a garden every year. Mom canned and froze enough produce to last until the next summer. My brother and I would pick sweet corn and peas and hide behind the stalks while eating them. I’ve always been in awe of how one can turn the soil, plant seeds, and have beautiful plants spring up from the ground.
I’m passing on the legacy to my grandchildren, with plans to leave a space this year for them to have their own garden. My granddaughter is only three, but she’s excited.
So I guess that gardening for me is a combination of keeping alive tradition, providing home-grown food and flowers, and enjoying how that intertwines with all facets of nature.
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Good for you. I like your plan to involve the whole family in gardening.
Those my age and older can still remember how frugal our parents and grand parents lived.
They had survived the days and nights of the dust bowl years, they lived through the ‘great’ depression years and the years of world war 2 food rationing.
Gardening was not a hobby. Home gardens were often the only thing standing between you and hunger.
Happy hunger free gardening
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I find that 90% of gardening is standing there looking at it! I fall into both your categories. I garden to relax but manage to freeze enough soups and freezer-able vegetables to last most of the winter. Of course, it helps that I’m retired. And here in New Zealand the chard grows all year as do turnips etc. And P.S. we don’t have the problem of marauding elephants and tigers (or even deer) – just snails!
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Oh that’s an easy question..I garden because I love too. I mustly do container gardening for there’s not the need for a large garden. When the children were all at home, I did every year a very large garden for 1 and 2 . If you live on a farm gardening does pay off, back then there’s no way I could have afford to buy all our food from the grocery . Those were good years though.😊
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I just like seeing things grow, especially if they have some history (like I’ve saved the seeds year after year).
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Gardening is not cheap no matter what category you fall in, but it is healthy! All the weeding, bending and tilling etc.. that beats going to the gym hands down. I garden because I like to play in the dirt. I love mowing! I love my greenhouse. I collect plants, daylilies in particular but any perennial that is ornamental. I enjoy outdoor living, I love the smell of flowers, I love the taste of fresh produce and so much more. It is a passion, it is art!
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I fully agree with every thing you said about gardening.
Happy Gardening
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When you buy seed now adays you get less and less. Potting soils have gone up. Even people who trade are ot as generous as they used to be. Signs of the times I guess. We recycle a lot. Fees for farmers markets have gone up… Where does it end?
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Sad but my local ‘farmers’ market has morphed into nothing more than an outdoor vegetable market. At least 50 percent of it’s vegetables come from Mexico not grown by local farmers and gardeners.
To top that off farmers market organizers now set the minimum price that can vegetables can be sold for and this sell price is within a few cents a pound of what the same vegetable sells for at local supermarkets.
My tomato seed came from a hybrid tomato I saved seed from some 20 years ago. Each year I select a few of what I consider my best no name tomato’s for next years planting seed.
Using this process I have (sort of) developed 2 tomato types I like. 1 is just about the size of a baseball or sometime closer to tennis ball size with excellent taste and a fair amount of acid bite. The other is a smallish, about ping-pong ball size with a milder less acid bite tomato.
Grin … every year I get a surprise when my tomato’s fruit. I never know from year to year what this years crop will look or taste like.
Happy Gardening
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Our local farmers market… well it’s always been slim pickings. If you saw 4 vendors that was a heavy day. Sadly the fees to park made it ridiculous to sell. Then to go to the next town over, an hours drive, the gas was outrageous…just to sell a pickup bed load.. you never could break even in recent years. And you would be lucky to sell half of what you took. Nursery license fees are up.. I have gotten to the point to just raise my own, do some canning and void the pressures of packing up. I think just to have a garage sale and put my excess there. But I do love to garden. The taste just makes it worth the hassle! And besides that I get fresh and flowers.
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Good thoughts. I think there should be category 1.5. I grow certain things like tomatoes, for both the great taste and my own home canning for use year round. Pickles are the same. I grow and pickle my own styles and even after keep track of all the costs, I still save money. Other things I grow just for the pleasure of the superior colour and taste. Nothing beats taking lettuce or radishes straight from the garden to the sink to the table. However I could never grow enough under lights in winter to go through the whole year without buying some from somewhere else. Same thing for fresh corn on the cob. Potatoes, I figure I about break even but new potatoes from my own garden make it worth the effort.
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Category 1 1/2. I like it, I’ll file that away for my next post about gardening categories.
Happy Spring Gardening
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You get a lot of pleasure from your growing, canning and eating, so I guess you have a hobby with a purpose. Like handicrafts – probably cheaper to buy the cardigan but so much more fun to choose your yarn and design, then make it.
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Absolutely!
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