Financial Friday

The Economics of Gardening-

Gardening is one of the quickest, healthiest, and most fun ways to improve your personal economy. I will give examples below, but before that, I must first let you know that when I garden, I only garden organically. So if you are into ingesting all those chemicals, you need to figure in those costs into you calculations.

Strawberries-
Five years ago I bought 6 strawberry plants for $10. Due to poor placement, 2 died the first year leaving me with 4 strawberry plants. Traditional strawberry plant care calls for you remove plant runners (the means by which strawberries create new plants). The theory behind this is that it keeps the 'mother' plant from reducing its energy and allows it to put more into nexts years fruiting, thus yielding bigger fruit.

Since I was more concerned with filling in my strawberry patch than I was with gigantic fruit, I did not listen to this. Each year our harvest would grow.

This year, I finally decided to measure the amount we have picked. In our first picking we have picked 8 quarts. At $4 a quart, that is $32 we saved by growing our own. Not bad for a $10 investment. Based on what has yet to ripen, I predict we will get another 12-16 quarts out of the garden.

Boiled down, a $10 investment now yields about $100 worth of produce each year.

Tomatoes-

I love growing tomatoes, but I do not like eating them. That is where my kids and my wife come in. This year I planted 4 plants which cost me $12. This should yield close to $250 worth of tomatoes. Very little work is involved in growing tomatoes, so the yield is quite nice.

Blueberries-

This year we planted two blueberry bushes. They seem to be growing quite well. They will not fruit this year, but they should create a bountiful harvest for years to come.