Why I do not garden

[oldballs]

I never have put a pencil to it,......but.......I know that I have raised more stuff in my gardens that would far exceed the dollars involved. I load my pickup with bushel baskets full of most everything and give it away to neighbors...as well as serve my extended family.

If us hobby gardeners were not out in the dirt, would we being going to exercise appointments?? driving around looking for something to do??? or bore some poor soul??....maybe more trips to the doctor, who tells me to get out and exercise??... Put that into the calculations maybe.

"To each is own" is an old song and I respect the difference.

Cheers,
Mike

 

[Torvy]

@shooterdon I completely respect your decision. I hated canning as a kid and other than jellies, pickles, or salsa, I would not can now. Freezing is easier.

The money today is moot. If I have a garden, it gives me some enjoyment and is one more thing I don't need society to do FOR me.

One zucchini plant can produce enough for everyone in your section, ok maybe quarter-section.

 

[Oaktree]

I am not turning soil by hand, so if I bought a cheap tiller it would cost $600, add a fence for another $250 and 100 canning jars for $100 plus lids for $20. Call it $1000 with seeds etc. Even at "retail" prices I can buy 2000 cans of veggies. If I can 100 jars a year I can buy 20 years worth without doing any work.

in my case, lids are $.20 each and cost as much as a can of veggies. Even if I got two uses out of a lid, it would still be 50% of the cost.

Growing/canning veggies is a labor of love. For me, a waste of time, effort and money.

Gardening isn't for everyone. Agreed, it will take many years to break even if you can if you need to buy supplies new. We lucked out, and most of the jars we have were either given to us, from the "free" table at the dump or picked up cheap at a flea market. I bought a used tiller for $50 on CL. Works fine.
The difference, as others have noted it's more about the taste than saving money. Other than corn, most commercial canned vegetables taste like crap. Way too much salt and other preservatives. Our own are so much tastier.

Am I correct in assuming from your screen name that you hunt? While I have no issues with others doing it, to me it sounds every bit as tedious as you find gardening. All for meat that tastes like an old shoe. Some like game meat, personally I don't.

If it’s something you enjoy it’s not really work. We don’t can though. It’s a lot of work and takes space to store. We take the easy way out and use store bought stuff for 9 months out of the year too.

Gardening isn't all that much hard work other than weeding. We do can/freeze though. We generally get so much of certain vegetables that we'd need to eat them 3 meals a day for the time they're productive. And other than the early stuff like lettuce, peas, etc. everything seems to be ready all at the same time. Nice to be able to enjoy the harvest out of season too.

 

[bigtiller]

I love tomatoes but they have to be fresh out of the garden. None of the "shipped from the south" red hard balls for me. I can buy fresh home-grown tomatoes at the store but they are very expensive.

 

[Jstpssng]

I love tomatoes but they have to be fresh out of the garden. None of the "shipped from the south" red hard balls for me. I can buy fresh home-grown tomatoes at the store but they are very expensive.

I always laugh at the “greenhouse ripened” tomatoes they sell in the store, still attached to the vine like a bunch of grapes. I have never seen them all ripen at once that way.
Well, maybe that one time at the orchard, when they were sprayed with ethylene.

 

[grsthegreat]

Gardening is my wifes hobby. I figure that each ear of corn costs me about $15.


next year she wants all cedar raised beds. The corn cost just went up to about $32. Each ear.

 

[Big Barn]

Another thing to consider...commercially canned produce is overly salted and barely qualifies as 'food', IMHO. It has its place, but I much prefer fresh or frozen. .

Agreed. Check out the sodium content on the labels.

 

[shooterdon]

We never buy canned - will buy frozen or fresh. And as for the reasons to garden, well. . . see the pics. Two of them- from yesterday with the grand daughters. Enough said.

You have exceptional grand kids. Most get bored picking fruit at a fruit farm after about an hour.

Now...Have them do the work of preparing the soil, planting, weeding, harvesting and canning enough to put up 200 cans and see those smiles fade.

BTW One of my fondest memories was harvesting potatoes. If was like an Easter egg hunt in the dirt.

 

[Jstpssng]

The local IGA put a flyer in my groceries yesterday asking me to feed a local family. For just $24.95 they will provide 8 canned goods including cranberry sauce and gravy; instant potatoes and a box of stuffing; plus $10 for a choice of meat. That seems like a really good deal... for the grocery store which is making retail price off from people's donations.

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

I remember being at my cousins. Aunt would can 350 qts cabbage. Then potatoes, snap beans, peas, squash, all kinds of things. Uncle was in the Army. He retired as Colonel from the Pentagon. He was gone a lot. But when he was there, he was there. He was there during harvest time. Of course we did garden at home. My granddaddy did a 40 with a David Bradley each year. He had an 8N but plowed with the DB while it was small. Had an old COLE planter rigged up to use on it too. We have a Covington.

 

[grsthegreat]

Just the thought of seeing, much less eating, 350 qts of cabbage would make me till up the garden and install concrete…….

 

[shooterdon]

Just the thought of seeing, much less eating, 350 qts of cabbage would make me till up the garden and install concrete…….

I wondered about that too. A quart a day every day for a year.

 

[ericm979]

My wife loves gardening so all I have to do is help with the more physical parts. This year we prepared an area I leveled last year and it was super productive. Peppers and especially tomatoes are so much better from the garden than even the farmer's market let alone the grocery store. So I encourage her to grow plenty of those. She also does most of the processing and canning. Even canned they're much better than the premium stuff from the store. She harvested the last of the tomatoes a few weeks ago and some are ripening on the counter. Not as good as during the season but still better than store bought.

If she wasn't around I probably would not garden. I'm happy to help but I'm just not that into it myself.

 

[beowulf]

You have exceptional grand kids. Most get bored picking fruit at a fruit farm after about an hour.

Now...Have them do the work of preparing the soil, planting, weeding, harvesting and canning enough to put up 200 cans and see those smiles fade.

BTW One of my fondest memories was harvesting potatoes. If was like an Easter egg hunt in the dirt.

Shooterdon, I imagine they would get bored at some point - and we don't expect them to work here and I doubt I would enjoy putting up 200 cans of anything. We don't need that - we enjoy what we do to the extent we do it, and prefer it to TV or sitting - a nice hobby with rewards. Our enjoyment comes from planning, maintaining and harvesting a garden for ourselves - we don't can but do make jams enough for a year and to give to friends. Froze a lot of fruit - great smoothies later. We also give excess produce to others. As for the grandkids, they live about six hours away and when they visit we enjoy seeing the our city-granddaughters enjoy the farm, which includes picking fruit and vegetables. If it ever became 'work' for us we would simply cut back or stop doing it.

I'll tell what I did not enjoy - I once got it in my head that a pomegranate martini would be a good thing to try. We juiced a lot of pomegranates, made a major mess, got less juice than we thought, and then didn't care for the martinis. But we have a nice story.

 

[CalG]

Just a perspective.

We only "canned" a couple batches of dill pickles, and spicy green been pickles.

The strawberries and blue berries are frozen, about 100 pounds of peaches are frozen many bags of the same fruit dehydrated, tomatoes are frozen, asparagus is frozen.

The freezer is full! ;-)

 

[mwemaxxowner]

My garden was about 17x30. We didn't can anything, we didn't aim to give us food for the whole year long. It was small enough to be easy to manage. We froze some things, but for the most part what we had in excess we shared with friends and family. We enjoyed fresh food while it was in season. We still have a little broccoli and some tomato sauce I think.

 

[CalG]

OH! And if you enjoy garlic like I enjoy garlic. At $2.50 a bulb, the garden returned about $200 BUCKS worth ! ;-)

All I ask is a years worth for cooking and enough to replant. The planting is done (fall plant for garlic) I'm excited to see what comes up in spring. I've put in 80 cloves this year.

 

[Barry 1]

What store had this cheap veggy sale ? Haven't seen 5 for a dollar in 15 years.

 

[shooterdon]

What store had this cheap veggy sale ? Haven't seen 5 for a dollar in 15 years.

Freddie's Market in Atlanta MI. Sale price was $.25/can with no limits. We purchased $1000 of gift cards for $800 during a promotion so we netted another 20% off. Just bought 20 lbs of fresh chicken leg quarters for $10 (our cost $8). They had Ball Park franks for $1/pack (our cost $.80). Gala apples were $.49/lb.

We do a lot of shopping there as they have some great sales. Some of the stuff is near the expiry date. Those Ball parks had an expiry date within 5 days but we freeze them so it does not matter. Plus, we know expiry dates are not carved in stone.

BTW, our local gas station/convenience store buys stuff at Freddie's and resells it.

Here is the link:

https://wesellstuffcheaper.com/ads

 

[Oaktree]

Just the thought of seeing, much less eating, 350 qts of cabbage would make me till up the garden and install concrete…….

Was thinking the same thing. Didn't even know you could can cabbage (other than as sauerkraut). I've found that it generally keeps until Feb. in our cellar (unheated, dirt floor) anyway. Not sure what I'd use canned cabbage in...we mostly use it for coleslaw or in salads. I'll put some in stews or when I do a corned beef, but I'm the only one who'll eat it that way.

My wife loves gardening so all I have to do is help with the more physical parts. This year we prepared an area I leveled last year and it was super productive. Peppers and especially tomatoes are so much better from the garden than even the farmer's market let alone the grocery store. So I encourage her to grow plenty of those. She also does most of the processing and canning. Even canned they're much better than the premium stuff from the store. She harvested the last of the tomatoes a few weeks ago and some are ripening on the counter. Not as good as during the season but still better than store bought.

If she wasn't around I probably would not garden. I'm happy to help but I'm just not that into it myself.

Just the opposite here, while she enjoys the harvest my wife isn't much into the gardening or preserving. That's OK, I don't mind doing either one. She does do a very good job with multiple flower gardens!
She does nag each year "can't understand why I don't put in more carrots". Actually I do, but they're very slow to germinate and unless I stay on top of it they get choked out by weeds. Also, the germination rate seems to be quite low.

OH! And if you enjoy garlic like I enjoy garlic. At $2.50 a bulb, the garden returned about $200 BUCKS worth ! ;-)

How do you get garlic to grow in Vt? I thought it needed a much longer growing season than we have in New England. Greenhouse?
I have enough trouble with peppers...just doesn't get warm enough here. If we get any at all, it's not until mid-Sept. assuming we haven't had frost before then.