Wneighbor seems to be proof of the following:
Home Garden Economics
April 20, 2009
Examiner.com - USA
The ‘so-called’ “Great Recession” can’t remain balanced where it is. It will either fall off the fence on the side of prosperity or it will plunge into the darkness of a full-blown depression. If you were paying attention in junior high school, you know that economic depressions are bad news.
A personal garden is a hedge against starvation and can even be a source of income when most other sources have dried up. Not only does your family continue to need to eat, but so does everyone else.
So, let’s take a look at the economics involved and see if gardening is a ‘good fit’ for your wallet and table. There is a project in Milwaukee that grows $500,000 worth of produce on only two inner-city acres. Do the math and you’ll see that a _ acre building lot can “make the difference” for almost anyone. In fact, an extra $62,500 a year could end our need to punch a clock forever.
If you buy a packet of tomato seeds and start it indoors, you will spend something less than $2.00 for roughly 50 seeds. Fifty tomato plants in 2” pots — which is what you will have in about 2 months — would have cost you roughly $150.
But, let’s follow that packet of seeds a bit further through the season.
With 12 plants, my wife and I have tomatoes through the summer and some to put away. In fact, we are still drinking tomato juice that we canned in 2003 when we put away over 100 quarts of juice before running out of jars. The total that year for our garden of 240 sq. ft. was roughly 300 quarts and nearly as many pints.
If you have a larger family to care for and you keep 25 of those plants for your own needs, you could easily sell the others for $2.00 each. That’s $50 cash in your pocket for a $2.00 investment in seeds, room on an old table and a spot in a cold frame once the weather broke. You are now $48.00 to the good and the tomato plants you kept are effectively free of charge.
The 25 you now set into the ground are going to give you somewhere between 4 pounds and 20 pounds (or more) of fruit each. Unless you planted cherry tomatoes, it’s a mighty poor tomato plant that only yields 4 pounds of fruit. Your tomatoes are now worth from $4 to $20 apiece. And, at just $1.00 a pound for organically grown produce, that is definitely the lower end. Delegate a child to sell the excess from your driveway.
So, doing the math, we find that we spent about $12.00 for a packet of seeds and planting materials. The excess plants were sold for (at least) $50.00 and we realized between $100 and $500 in produce for ourselves plus whatever we sold. All this from about 80-120 square feet of soil.
The Department of Agriculture says that the amortized cost of canning a quart of home-grown produce is about ten cents. Those are old numbers, so call it 25 cents. That makes the home-canned product cost about _ cent per ounce vs 8 or more cents for the salty, ‘chemically enhanced’, commercial product. Food you can for yourself is better than what you can buy and costs only a fraction of the store-bought product.
When you “do the math”, gardening makes perfect sense. And might even be your escape hatch from the pincers that are closing around your neighbors.
http://www.examiner.com/x-5189-Detroit-Organic-Gardening-Examiner~y2009m4d20-Home-garden-economics
The ‘so-called’ “Great Recession” can’t remain balanced where it is. It will either fall off the fence on the side of prosperity or it will plunge into the darkness of a full-blown depression. If you were paying attention in junior high school, you know that economic depressions are bad news.<<<
We think in terms of food, but the signs of it are already out there, but you will not hear about the local [for my area] set backs.
The big annual Harley Motorcycle meet at Laughlin, Nevada has begun, as I sit here, a half mile off the highway to Laughlin, it sounds like a war zone, with thousands of motorcycles beginning to arrive in the area, as they go to Laughlin, a steady roar for the past hour or so.
In the past years, it had grown to about 60,000 for the weekend.
Hotel rooms were booked a year ahead and rented for several hundred dollars each, for the most common of rooms.
This year the hotel rooms have not been rented or they were canceled and for the first time in the last 20 or maybe 30 years, they are bringing in the Tour Buses of California gamblers, hoping to make a dollar or two.
The casino workers have already been warned that there will be more layoffs next week.
But did hear of one miracle this morning, not related to above.
On the police scanner, there was a call for the Fire Department, for a small car had hit a semi truck/trailer and it was trapped under the trailer and the people could not get out, the medics went rushing down the I-40 freeway and the Medic copter was in the air, for the call had come in from the Arizona Highway Patrol.
When the Sarge arrived on the scene, somehow, the car was free, off the roadway, one person on the way to the hospital for a MINOR injury and to be checked out.
Can you imagine driving under a semi’s trailer and only having a minor injury? Talk about miracles.