Garden Revenues

Because summer started two months early this year, the garden at Rural Ways is already producing.  We've picked peas, beans, tomatoes, and strawberries since the end of May.  Actually, Valerie has done the picking, and she has helped me by weighing (in ounces) her daily production.  At this point, the garden has provided about 130 ounces of food, or a little more than eight pounds.  It isn't much, really, but the true heavyweights—melons, winter squash, pumpkins—are still to come.  Plus, we should have a good crop of apples and pears and potatoes.  I suspect that we will haul in many, many more pounds of food.

But, does it pay?  This is one of the questions, right?  Is the amount/value of food you can produce at home worth the time and effort?  I mean, as you drive through California's central valley, you can see green fields 100 miles across.  The farms are so large, and the economies of scale so tremendous, that there may be no way to compete on your own patch.  If you can get tomatoes from California at a buck a pound, can you ever make a home garden pay?

This summer, we are taking a shot at quantifying the costs and benefits of the garden/orchard.  We have already spent more than $500 on hoses, soil amendment, seeds, tomato cages, etc.  Can we grow $500 worth of food to match?  Better yet, can we grow more than that?  In other words, can we make it pay?  I suspect that we will eventually make it pay, but, it may pay only about ten cents per hour.  In any case, our current revenues, based on average grocery store prices for our garden produce, plus the return on a couple of seedlings that we sold earlier in the year, is $49.26.