The Modern Victory Garden

Growing your own food can be very economical, if you do not try to "purchase" your way out of every problem that comes along.  There are many people who have found very frugal ways to garden, taking advantage of other's generosity, local free resources, saving seeds, and "making do" with things on hand.    I think I fall somewhere in the middle between those that buy everything and those that garden ultra frugrally.   I practice many of the frugal steps mentioned previously, but also purchase needed items on a regular basis.   The annual purchases are generally limited to seed stock replenishment, plastic mulch/sheeting, and basic fertilizer/soil amendment items. Less often, I purchase large bags of dolomitic lime, rock phosphate, and greensand which are used to remineralize the soil about every 3 or 4 years.   In addition, I periodically make equipment and hardscape material purchases as needed to replace tools and/or add beds and sections to the garden area or construct various garden structures.

I thought it would be a good exercise to keep a running tally on how much was spent during the year in the various categories of expenditures and to price out the value of the produce harvested.  Hopefully it will provide answers to what improvements can be made and give greater insight into the financial benefits and costs of the garden. 

The benefit of producing your own fruit and vegetables is best expressed in the avoided costs of having to purchase those items.  Obviously the value of food production activities increases if you are able to produce all of your own food (or substantially all of it) - including fruit, vegetables, grains, dried beans/legumes, eggs, dairy, meat, and nuts etc.  However, we are content to produce 100% of our vegetable needs and as much fruit as can be practically grown on our property.     In addition to financial benefits there are also other values received from providing your own food (as much as is practical) including; improved quality of life from exercise and sense of purpose/achievement, better health from eating fresh produce and more of it, and reduced environmental impacts by reducing the amount of food that must be produced and shipped long distances by fossil fuel intensive agri-businesses.  These benefits are not easily quantifiable in dollar terms - so they will be ignored for the purposes of this cost benefit analysis.  

There are several types of expenditures made in the conduct of food production gardening. 

The first is the annual recurring expenses of buying seed, nursery stock, seed starting supplies, fertilizers, and other routine garden supplies.  Some plants purchased (such as berry plants etc) provide many more year's benefits than the current year - but because these plant investments are made routinely each year - they will be considered a current period annual expense - rather than a capital type of investment.   Since I do my gardening in my spare time (before and after work and weekends) and do not give up any wage earning hours to do so - I will not factor in an "hourly wage" for my time.   Our water for the garden is from a combination of natural rain (abundant in our area), rainwater collection, and from our well.   Electricity to pump water is used and for running grow lights and the heat mat when in use and is therefore technically an annual cost component as well  - however, it is neglible to the total household electricity use and not practical to break out for purposes of this analysis .  For these reasons electricity costs will be ignored for purposes of calculating direct expenditures.  

The second type of expenditure is an investment in equipment or materials to make capital improvements to the garden (such as garden structures or new bed edgings).   These costs provide an immediate cash flow expenditure in the current year - but provide benefits over a much longer period of time.   To properly compare these expenditures to annual benefits - they must be smoothed out over the period of benefit expected.   The following is a recap of cash expenditures and annualized costs made in 2009 for our Modern Victory Garden.