Economics of home gardening

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Permalink Reply by sillia on March 2, 2009 at 2:21pm

Can you tell us the size of your garden, approximately? Perhaps you have that info somewhere else here but I've just joined, and this is the first article I've read. Fascinating!

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Permalink Reply by Roger on March 2, 2009 at 7:57pm

It's roughly 1600 square feet.

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Permalink Reply by Brent on March 2, 2009 at 4:32pm

I'm a backyard gardener too, though less ambitious than you. I think the interesting economic comparison would be to a small guest house or cottage on the site of the garden. This is the heart of the conundrum that faces urban planners all the time.

If the guest house were moderately luxurious and maybe 800 sf or 1000 sf with attached garage, it might cost $200 per square foot. That's $200k. At 5.25% interest with a 30 year mortgage that's about $1200 a month - fixed - for 30 years. Could you rent it at the present time for that much? If not, how many years before rents increased to cover the mortgage costs? Assume 5% annual rent increase. How many years until your rental cottage has paid for itself? How has your garden compared in the mean time? Feel free to substitute your own figures and assumptions.

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Permalink Reply by Penelope on March 2, 2009 at 4:44pm

Your luxurious guest house has more square feet than my westside "hovel."

I think garden space should be factored into a house's total area as a necessity, the same way one figures in plumbing and heat. Living spaces are for living, and that includes growing food. Houses are more than sleeping spaces for robotic workers. Remember old-timey terms like "home economics"?

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Permalink Reply by Brent on March 4, 2009 at 12:56am

Let me be clear that I want the garden to win in the cost comparison, but I don't know how that will come out until someone puts pencil to paper.

Roger has a 1600 square foot garden, so a 1000 sf house would still leave 600 sf for gardening. Feel free to speculate about the costs of an "N" square foot guest house, where N <= 1600 sf and (1600 - N) sf is left remaining for garden duty.

I think we're in agreement that garden space is valuable, but one way to make that argument to the broader public is by comparison to other uses. Housing is an obvious other use. Less obvious other uses might be bee keeping, an auto repair shop, the neighborhood's most ginormous compost heap, a stable, and so forth. Feel free to compare Roger's savings to the income and expenses generated by each. I still hope the garden wins.

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Permalink Reply by Penelope on March 4, 2009 at 9:09am

And just for the sake of argument:

Why do we believe we have to justify gardening via dollars/profit-loss? It's like the goofy arguments people make to justify teaching music in schools; it can't be for itself, it must contribute to math scores and the like. And arguments about studying the humanities up against the hard sciences, as if they can have no value unless justified in some other profit-oriented or quasi-political terms.

Survival, ancient arts, pleasure, stress relief, beauty, taste, nutrition, color, scent, satisfaction, joy, problem solving, biology/microbiology, exercise, etc., etc. Aren't these more than enough? When all the money's gone (and it seems to be going fast) if any of us can maintain a plot of earth, we can get along and enjoy ourselves while we do it. Will finding out that my homegrown tomato costs a bit more than the tasteless ones from who know where change my gardening habits? No, except that I may be more diligent about saving seeds.

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Permalink Reply by Wild Flora on March 4, 2009 at 10:31am

I didn't get the impression that anyone was trying to justify gardening using economic arguments. I think that what Roger and others are trying to do is to put together some information about the economics of gardening that at least some gardeners would like to know. To use myself as an example, in addition to a small vegetable garden I currently have a native plant garden that is designed to create habitat for birds and other animals and perennial borders designed to benefit pollinators. So there is no question about whether I'm going to garden -- the only question is what type of gardening I'm going to do. Every year I have a debate with myself over whether it would be better to have a bigger vegetable garden, or whether I should buy vegetables from local farmers' markets so that I can spend more time on my native plant garden and perennial borders. It would be very helpful to me to know how much it might cost (in time and money) to grow vegetables myself so that I can then compare that with what the same veg would cost at the farmer's market. This isn't all the information I need. For instance, farmer's markets help small family-run farms stay in business; so arguably buying at the farmer's market is better for the local community than growing my own. At any rate, I think we gardeners take a lot of information into consideration in trying to decide how best to use time, money, and other resources that are unfortunately limited. Economic considerations are one piece of this puzzle.

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Permalink Reply by Penelope on March 4, 2009 at 3:27pm

Yep!

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Permalink Reply by Scotty on March 5, 2009 at 10:37pm

thank you. it isnt the monetary gain but the joy of eating what you have grown that gives me pleasure. my attitide is one of if I cant freeze it or can it its not worth the effort. I love that my kids and now my grandkids can walk out and pick a tomatoe or carrot and eat it (i grow naturally) I dont have clue wat our savings are but i do know that we make less trips for groceries and since my main proffesion is that im a cook, i love using my own food to feed my family. and i also save seeds. Ive taught my kids (the ones that are interested) what a miracle each seed is.

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Permalink Reply by littlem on March 2, 2009 at 7:50pm

wow, what a great idea. we'll have to do that for ours at the end of the year.

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Permalink Reply by Brian Knowles on March 3, 2009 at 10:16am

Nicely done Roger,

Last year, I weighed everything and kept track of it on a clip board but I have as yet to sum it up. Your posting has given me some great motivation. Thanks for the market price comparison. I've had difficulty retrieving the information on line locally from the stores but I can see you just went out and got the figures!

Thanks

Brian,

Saratoga County, NY

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Permalink Reply by Kari on March 6, 2009 at 12:55pm

Thanks for sharing this info. My husband and I want to calculate the value of our harvest (although ours is much smaller) and this data helps me format an effective way to keep track!

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