The Winter Garden

Bulbs coming up already

Broccoli and brussel sprouts

Garlic

Carrots

Beets

2010 Round Up

My goal for this first year of vegetable gardening was to grow $200 worth of food, which was the approximate setup cost including grow lights, seed trays, seeds, compost, etc. Now that we're nearing the end of 2010, the numbers are in and well, it didn't exactly work out that way. The grand total is... drum roll please... $98.66.

I aimed high and learned a lot. I'm a bit surprised there wasn't more value in the vegetables, but then again there were a few duds, like the spinach and cabbage. There were also some real low producers like potatoes, radishes and cucumbers.

The leader in value is the lettuce, which I estimate a $26 value over the season. It's hard to weigh lettuce, so I just said $0.50 per serving, and estimated a serving size. We harvested 52 servings over the seasons and had some delicious salads. I think lettuce is also one of the most practical things to grow. Who hasn't bought a huge head of lettuce and had half go bad in the fridge? It's just great to be able to walk out back and pick the lettuce as you're making the salad, and pick just he right amount.

Tomatoes are next up, at $21. Then carrots, then zucchini, potatoes, snap peas and broccoli.

And I can't ignore the tree fruits and nuts which we can't take much credit for as they were already mature when we moved in. We have, however, spent several days pruning and training them as they've been neglected for years. If the trees are allowed to subsidize the vegetables, then I did come out on top, but I guess that's not really fair. Here are the trees we have and their harvests for an estimated total of $163.92

Transparent apples 22 lb

Cherries few

Pears 2.5 lb

Prune plums 6.8 lb

Yellow plums 17.0 lb

Walnuts 6.2 lb

If you add it all together, we harvested $262.92 worth of food from our city lot, with a small veggie garden, and in the first year. That's sounds okay. Right? Sure. Anyway, it's a good benchmark. I'm going to try for $150 in value from the vegetables next year, and try really hard to keep costs in seeds and other things down. I have a lot of seeds left from this year that I can use again, and will hopefully make some trades with others.

I did buy some cedar landscape ties to make a bed in the front where it is sunnier for the tomatoes, basil, cucumber, and raspberries and a few other things, so that's already a $40 cost. It's hard to keep the costs down, but I really do like to know the truth. I can't say that we're saving money by growing our own food. Instead, it's a hobby that costs money but pays back a little, and is good for our health. I hope one day to make it an actual money saver.

Harvest Monday

The garden is quiet, but I've kept some beets and carrots in for the winter. These carrots were planted on June 14, took over a month to germinate, and they still haven't grown very big as you can see. I thought I'd pull some up today to check on progress.

I'm going to post a tally for 2010 as a separate blog entry now...