Will you save money? Maybe and maybe not.
But you will have a steady supply of fresh produce that you’ve already paid for.
L
Bidet has weighed in on this subject:
“It depends.”
;-)
If Biden and the Communists have their way we’ll soon be eating our pets.
I grow tomatoes mostly because you pick them fresh and they are significantly cheaper than a stand or store price.
I grew heirloom tomatoes. I gave them away but if I had sold them...and I know they would absolutely sell....I grew about 200 lbs....I would have made a fortune. I started from seed in my apartment. Once they were in the ground...they grew as if Jack of Beanstalk fame planted them.
My freezer is my garden. I plant and harvest constantly, without need of rain and threat of bugs or crows.
Its about availability and access.
Grow what you can eat.
Its easy to overplant tomatoes and cucumbers.
You will also have the advantage of not having to buy tomatoes from Mexico, where just about all of the tomatoes in supermarkets--even upscale ones like Whole Foods--come from.
The food is better, fresher, more fun, and available when the trucks stop running.
when you got no money and you got no food and your life is shit and you find seeds in grandma’s cupboard what is there to lose? you put the seed in the shit and you get food. who needs job or money or food when your life got seeds in shit?
This thread reminds me of the scene in “Second Hand Lions”.
The guy forgot to include price of fertilizer, compost, and top soil, and labor cost.
Two, I live in an area with a relatively short growing season.
Three, I live in an area with terrible soil. I would literally have to have topsoil trucked in. It is difficult to get anything other than native plants to grow.
Four, does this figure in canning/freezing/preserving? My cooking/eating habits don't generally require lots of onions, then lots of cucumbers, then sometime later lots of some other veggie. How do you even out availability with use?
I'm sure it is a useful and fun hobby - just not my cup of tea. I have hobbies that pay off for me.
It may not save money now but it will provide food if and when none available, which is looking like more and more of a possibility.
I don’t think so. If I add up ALL my costs each tomato or ear of corn costs me five bucks.
But I enjoy it. It’s my hobby and I love doing it!
This lady is right.
I own a small hobby farm..Time=Money Its hard to find doing anything that makes the Money>Time
Right now I am putting in a apple orchard - specializing in apples good for craft hard cider. Selling the apples
wholesale is not worth the time. Value-adding by making cider out of it might make it worth it.
as for SHTF food to grow...cant be potatoes.
The money aspect will be immaterial once food can’t be found in the stores.
We grow our own Vegetables every year, they taste way better than what you can buy, Zucchini, Corn and marinara sauce still in freezer from last year, plus we have a dozen or so chickens that give us 10-12 eggs a Day. Cherry, Peach, Pear, Apple and Plum trees also. will plant another 20 in a couple weeks
Getting Garden ready in another week or two
My water bill several years ago in my hot dry part of Texas went up about $85 a month when I water outside. I think for Me, it is cheaper to buy the vegetables we get trucked in from Mexico. I like gardening. Here, squash Vine borers are the worst. 60 miles north in ranch country, grasshoppers eat everything.