Seed and Bean

My $20 essential garden tool

I’ve often wondered whether my kitchen gardens were worth it – financially, I mean.  There’s no denying the physical and mental payoff but am I really saving any money on our grocery bills?  This year, the first year of this garden, I decided to find out.  I bought a scale and measured all the produce that came out of the garden…well, I attempted to, but we tend to eat our peas straight off the vine while admiring our maintenance efforts, and my husband tends to pull a radish or two while he’s working in the garage so I probably missed a pound or two.  I think I got most of it tallied, however, and here are the results of my 187 sq. ft. of growing space (not including my container garden of herbs).*

• Basil  1.75 lbs @ $4.00/lb = $7.00
• Beans  6.75 lbs @ $6.49/lb = $43.81
• Beets  8 lbs @ $1.99/lb = $15.92
• Carrots  3.25 lbs @ $1.20/lb = $3.90
• Cilantro  1 lb @ $4.00/lb = $4.00  (I also let the cilantro go to seed so I could harvest coriander but since I haven’t finished that yet, I haven’t included it in my calculations.)
• Cucumber  4.25 lbs @ $3.99/lb = $16.96
• Peas  7 lbs @ $3.99/lb = $27.93
• Peppers (Jalapeno and Hungarian Wax Banana)  1 lb @ $6.99/lb = $6.99
• Radishes  2 lbs @ $4.98/lb = $9.96
• Rainbow Chard  32.25 lbs @ $4.11/lb = $132.55
• Salad Greens  4 lbs @ $5.99/lb = $23.96
• Spinach  7.5 lbs @ $5.98/lb = $44.85
• Tomatoes  48.5 lbs @ $3.29/lb = $159.57

The grand total comes to $497.40!  But wait…there’s more!

• Canned Tomato Sauce  7 jars @ $5.59/jar = $39.13

Now the total is $536.53!  But before I get too excited, I also need to calculate how much I spent on the garden to put it in.  I decided not to include the $50 rental of the sodcutter since that will get pro-rated down to pennies by the time we move from here, ditto for the small bits of irrigation tubes, and I couldn’t figure out how to calculate the water usage, so that’s not included either.

• Liquid Seaweed Fertilizer  1/2 a bottle @ $23.90 ea = $11.95
• Canning Jars 7 @ $0.83 ea = $5.83
• Bulk Compost 1 cu. yd. @ $50/cu. yd. = $50
• Seeds and Plants (I had to make a guess because I used seeds from last year’s purchase) = about $100

Estimate for garden investment is $167.78.

That means my garden saved us about $368.75 in grocery bills for three months – or 1 sq. ft. produced almost $2 worth of food.  I don’t know where that falls in the criteria of a successful garden but I’m happy with that.  For a new garden that got put in in a hurry, I think we did pretty well.  Once we get the compost system up and running, start applying some xeriscaping techniques, start my own transplants, and do some seed-saving, I’ll be able to knock the costs down further.

This was an interesting exercise to do – knowing exactly how much I’m saving makes my food taste even better.  

*The dollar figures were obtained from my local grocery store and are for organically grown produce only (and much of it is Canadian grown).