Vegetables for Nothing, Seeds for Free
A few weeks ago, my brother Luke and I had one of our epic arguments. See, he’s a little right of center and I’m just plain right, so sometimes our perspectives collide. At the height of the argument, I recommended gardening as a cure for the recession, and Luke countered it was just as cheap to buy vegetables as it is to grow them.
Luke never manages to change my mind, but he sometimes makes me think. It’s testament to gardeners that growing vegetables saves money, but my brother made me wonder if it really does.
Whenever I’m hit with a perplexing gardening question, I turn to my friend Google. The only thing I found on Google was a chart of the fluctuation in broccoli prices. It looked like a geranium leaf—absolutely no help. There are just too many variables.
Before we can even discuss the cost of raising vegetables, we’ll have to eliminate the two things that matter to most gardeners. First, we can’t put a price on the nutrition and taste of fresh-from-the-garden produce. Most of the taste and some of the nutrition seems to leak out of produce by the time produce gets a mile or two from the dirt it grew in, so comparing garden vegetables to grocery store ones doesn’t work.
Second, it’s impossible to calculate the cost of labor needed to raise a garden. True, in the summer the forty plus hours a week I spend in the garden, figured at minimum wage, would probably buy my produce for the year. However, no boss would pay me for the time I spend hand-watering my herb garden because I enjoy standing downwind of lavender and basil, and it’s probably not essential to count the baby watermelons and tomatoes even once a day, let alone several time.
But no matter—labor isn’t a factor. If you like to garden, it’s not work. If you don’t, you probably don’t bother with a garden.
What remains is the cost of equipment, amendments and seeds or plants. These costs are the sort that economists love. A good pencil could figure Luke was right—or it could figure I was. It would depend on who sharpened the pencil.
For instance, I’d love to have a heated greenhouse so I could grow avocados. The one I really want costs over ten thousand dollars, which would keep my family in avocados for several generations to come. To get by until I win the lottery, I plan to build a couple cold-frames. I already have a couple old glass windows, and if I can’t salvage some two by fours, they won’t be very expensive. I might not be able to grow avocados, but I could grow some hardy salad plants nearly all winter for practically nothing.
By the same token, a gardener could rack up quite a bill for bagged steer manure, peat moss, compost and other soil amendments. Another gardener might build compost or find free sources of manure. When I was young, I was actually paid to clean stalls. Sometimes I dream of all that manure and straw I just threw away.
A last variable is the cost of seeds and plants. As with anything, a little knowledge can save a lot of money. I remember seeing six-packs of corn (corn!) for two dollars a pop last summer. Typically, when corn is fresh, you can buy three ears for a dollar. If you planted that six-pack of corn and every plant grew, you would just break even.
Next to the corn were big, healthy tomato plants in quart pots for four dollars each. Even at the peak of the season, tomatoes are rarely cheap. It would only take two or three pounds of tomatoes to pay for the plant, and you could conceivably get ten times that yield.
Unless you only want one or two plants, it makes sense to start vegetables from seed. The four dollars for one tomato plant would get you the makings of thirty or forty plants, if you add a little potting soil, a sunny window or some grow lights, and a little care. Most vegetables don’t even need the sunny window; just plant the seeds when it’s time.
As economical as those seed packets are, some gardeners get by for nothing. My friend Lizard saves seeds from year to year. It costs him nothing or practically nothing to garden, and his seeds are selected for taste and adaptability to his particular conditions.
Last year, I planted two types of watermelon. I ordered some seeds, and Elizabeth contributed some that she’d gotten from a friend. Elizabeth’s ripened slower, but tasted better. I still have some of Elizabeth’s seeds, and I’ll plant them this summer.
And Luke and I can revisit this argument next summer, over a slice of Elizabeth’s watermelon.
When Teresa Howell isn’t arguing with her brother Luke, she teaches English at Great Basin College.
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Heh, Theresa, you'll wind up like this guy!