Even if your garden is “just for fun,” if you’re eating from it, you’re saving money that you would have spent on produce from a store. Interesting, isn’t it? Ever wonder how much your garden might be worth?
Even if your garden is “just for fun,” if you’re eating from it, you’re saving money that you would have spent on produce from a store. Interesting, isn’t it? Ever wonder how much your garden might be worth?
An article from kitchengardeners.org has really spurred the conversation on the value of a home garden. The author and his wife weighed their harvests and compared their homegrown bounty to store prices. The results? Their 1/25 acre (about 1700 sq. ft.) garden produced the equivalent of $2431 in store-bought produce and cost them less than $300 to plant and maintain! The author figures that it produced about $1.50/square foot, so even a small garden is going to save you some bucks, and this number could increase depending on your climate and how many garden seasons you have to work with.
Now, the raw number—over $2000— is pretty amazing. When you harvest from the garden, you might just enjoy the veggies and not really think about the big monetary picture. Start thinking about it. For some families, that could be more than half the annual spending. According to a USDA publication, “Food Spending by American Households,” the average annual per person grocery expense is $1,347. And that’s for everything, not just produce. Imagine cutting your grocery expense in half or more, just by gardening!
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