Grow me the money!

How much food can I grow in 2011? Back in February, I screeched like an excited baboon about our garden’s cash value potential. Well – Labour Day looms, and the garden keeps churning out its goodies. In between Googling “what the hell do I do with 16 turnips”… here’s a veggie update. As of August 31st, we’ve grown $350.54 of food in a 75 sqft garden.

Less a vague $50 for garden fees/seeds/poles/compost/trays/mesh/twine… that’s easily $4 per square foot of garden. And I’ve crammed flowers in all over – it’s not the most efficient plan. I’d estimated in February that we could grow $500 of food – and we’ve still tomatoes, onions, parsnips, leeks, rutabaga, squash & plenty more potatoes left out there in the wild. I think it’s a target we’ll easily reach. Rosalind Creasy, I take back my suspicions – maybe we can grow a small fortune after all.

In the winter, growing $500 of food sounded like a lot – money on trees sort of stuff. Incorrect. Even if we paid ourselves BC’s current minimum wage – $8.75… that’s just 40 hours of work for the harvest so far accrued. Vegetable gardening is not the route to riches. But it’s heaven and it’s time in the sun, and it’s my favourite non-ugly spot in the city. Perhaps not mortgage payments from thin air… but exactly the opposite – nothing to do with housing/homes/renovations/budgets/deadlines. Don’t grow food to grow money  - but do find a hobby, far, far away from your renovation.

Scale of operations?

Ah-ha! Line up for some secrets, peeps. Our garden’s about 75 sqft. Room enough to grow 6 or so tomato plants, a dozen potatoes, etc. Say the future house-with-dog-and-view-and-backyard affords a garden double or triple in size. The amount of food we can grow triples ($1500), but the work required does not. A backyard garden as opposed to distant allotment plot means:

1. lazy-girl-irrigation (drip hose pipes kept in place)
2. no travel time

Assuming this hazy future is some years away, I’ll be an expert master supreme wizard of gardening by then.

3. grown from seed, 18 tomato plants will be hardly more work than 6
4. routine care will take less time and thought

So while I never like to start small – our baby-sized approach could pay off better in the future… a bigger-buck harvest for a bigger-buck house.

Mathematically sound

To gauge the calculation, I’ve used the prices listed at Spud.ca on the date of harvest. As a farm-to-home delivery service, Spud is expensive but it’s second-to-none for quality & freshness and they match their prices to Whole Foods and its ilk.

Food grown so far this year:

• Veggies - arugula, baby spinach, beetroot, cucumber, garlic & garlic scapes, kale, lettuce, mixed greens, potatoes, radish, ronde de nice squash, runner beans, sugar snap peas, swiss chard, tomatoes, turnips & turnip greens
• Fruit - blackberries (picked from a hedgerow), rhubarb, strawberries
• Herbs - basil, bay, chocolate mint, marjoram, mint, rosemary, thyme

Of those, any guesses which was literal cash-for-gold, and which aren’t worth the ground they occupy? I’m surprised by the results. Without becoming a whinging gardener about what did well or not – let’s get to the tasty stuff: PIE charts!

• Earliest baby: rhubarb, April 21
• Canada Day surprise: sugar snap peas
• First pathetic tomato: August 25
• Costly mistake: throwing away ‘garlic scapes’, straight to the compost.

So, straight-up pie.

Rhubarb! You little beauty! Heading off to the garden with a hair dryer. You want heat, tomato bastards? I’ll show you heat.

(Have you grown anything this year? Maybe use your savings to snag a new desk plant).

[Update!] It’s finished! Find out the total cash value of our 2011 garden harvest. You’ll be surprised.