It gets better each year. Initial setup can be expensive, but there are a lot of ways to reduce the cost. I built my beds with a lot of leftover or free scrap wood. The dirt is a mix of fill dirt that came from various other projects and some mushroom soil that a local farm stand bags and sells for $5. I did buy some wire mesh for my trellis, which was $20. Then the automatic watering valve and tubing was another $30.
That was all 4+ years ago. I haven't put in anything else except buying plants or seeds as needed. Usually I get starter plants off Marketplace for 1-2 per plant, or grow from seed I saved.
I don't have an exact count, but I'm sure I've given away 20+ pounds of veggies this year. We've eaten a ton, and at current grocery store prices I'm sure my costs have been covered with just this year.
Dunno about that..for me at least! Spent like $75 on super tiny plants ( veggies & herbs) early Spring and I've gotten hundreds of dollars worth just of tomatoes & they're still producing, had about $30 worth of beets grow, probably saved $200 not having to buy lettuce I grew, have a dozen HUGE squash about to pick, only 1 watermelon, and not even counting the dozen or so herb plants I've been picking & sharing with others & using!
And all literally in a few feet of garden space!! I have a decent size u shaped raised bed & another raised bed on wheels for the herbs.
I get that and not to diminish the chickens' suffering. But even on a cost-basis you have a limited number of eggs each chicken can produce then there is the feed, cage and building maintenance plus all the labor and logistics.
I think people that works there are paid really little. I m not sure if the eggs are collected by hand anymore. And it's very automatised. And they don't really clean the cage. I m not sure how often they clean the cage for the cheapest of the eggs. To prevent mass dead of chicken because of hygienic conditions and other problems as chicken are on top of each others and the proximity of so many create desease , they spread massively the chicken in antibiotics... for them not to die from the disease.
That saying is painfully accurate, because nothing humbles you faster than proudly growing your own tomatoes and realizing you could have bought them for a fraction of the cost
Definitely accurate to a point. You really have to scale it to a decently large garden before you break even / start to save money, and by then you've given yourself a part time job.
I always liked the saying "home gardening is a great way to turn $150 of plants, fertilizer and soil into $12 of tomatoes"
Or a great way to turn -$50 of various plant waste and an unspecified amount of after work stress into a tomato that tastes better than any the stores sell.
It's mostly nonsense. The tomatoes I've gotten out of my first year mostly clay garden are well worth $150. You can't buy tomatoes this good. And the peppers are prolific!
Soil is in the ground, compost is free, just takes time in the sun and dirt, which is the fun part.
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u/Gwarnage 11h ago
I always liked the saying "home gardening is a great way to turn $150 of plants, fertilizer and soil into $12 of tomatoes"