City Slickers just don't get it...
 

That, or this was written as a deterrent for people to start their own garden..

I had to laugh at all the things they say you need to buy to raise a garden...

http://money.msn.com/how-to-budget/t...-grown-veggies

That's possibly the dumbest thing I have read in a while.

Manure or compost a stick and some seeds will grow a garden. Not for many these days....James

I want to know what kind of stinking top soil and compost they were buying! $20 a bag??! Pssssh. I haven't paid more than $1.50 (less than 1/2 of their lowest estimate).

And a scarecrow motion detector?? They've got to be kidding.

Thanks for the laugh simi! I'm feeling quite frugal right about now.

Strangely, it is not just city-slickers that will make the argument that it costs more to raise your own than buy from the store. There are threads in the general homesteading section here to that effect.

Gives me goosebumps, but it is all in how you do it, I suppose...

I've spent plenty of $ on getting my orchard and fenced areas set up. All money well spent and that is already "paying" me back, if you want to look at it that way, I guess.

Yes, there is some money to be spent, but I can't see people not having a hose... And you don't need tomato cages... I always used poles, or branches and string... I got bamboo now...

OK.. seeds the first year or two, but after that, there should be a lot you don't need to buy...

And Styrofoam cups for starters? I can find all kinds of small free things to start seeds in..

I guess it's just part of the consumerism mentality we've been bred to be a part of..

I used cups from my mom's frozen yogurt, pudding cups, yogurt containers, cut off water and soda bottles. Also, plastic shoes boxes..etc, etc. I told people I was gardening and was given tools, books, advice, and planters. The dollar stores have tons of stuff, and spending big bucks on soil is not gonna happen.

This article was written by a free lance journalist. Good Doctor's waiting room stuff.... http://www.jenniferalsever.com/index.html

Nothing to get riled up about.

geo

I must be doing something wrong. I have never used my pruning shears in the garden. Purple hull peas, limas, corn, okra, cucumbers, tomatoes, etc. don't seem to need "pruning" much!

Yeah that article is good for a laugh!

This year I did keep careful track of what I spent, though. It amounted to $330. But that includes a lot of unnecessary stuff, especially books (I decided to learn more about holistic orcharding and soil remineralization). I also bought a lot of minerals to mix up my own fertilizer, but most of them will last more than one season.

I'm keeping carefully track of the harvests, too, weighing everything I bring in and then pricing it according to the USDA ERS data.

It's really working out well. Eating into that cool $330 pretty fast. And that's not taking into account how much better it tastes, or how much more nutritious it probably is.

and, just to be specific, my garden isn't that big. About 500 square feet this year, plus a few fruit trees.

I think I'll make my fortune selling garden plants: $20 tomato, $5 strawberry, $20 pepper--------------how many can I put ya'll down for?

People will count a one time item...like a hoe as a yearly expense for growing a garden. I'm using a hoe my dad bought when I was around 12.

It is true that even people on HT claim they cannot grow veggies cheaper than they buy them. I'll never understand how that works :shrug:

I don't spend that much for my garden-even if I have to buy all the seeds and/or plants! For one thing, there are very few plants that I need a ton of, so buying the seed packs in the dollar store saves me a ton. (They were 5 for $1.00) I don't buy fertilizer, mulch, top soil, etc.

I don't use tomato cages-they're not big enough. I went into the woods, dragged home a bunch of small, dead cedars, put them in the ground and strung baling twine between them. Did the same for all my vine crops. Didn't cost me a dime.

This year, my garden did cost more than it should have, but that was only because we had a late frost. It went down to 29*, and it hadn't been called for. It killed the majority of my seedlings.

When you factor in the cost of your time it can easily be more expensive.

A plateful of fresh bluegills, with some fresh fried potatoes and onions from the garden, a sliced homegrown tomato, and I don't really care how much it cost.

:)

geo

I use styro cups ... buy them in big boxes at Sam's Club ... and it is an up-front cost, but they can reused from year to year, just like plastic. :shrug:

I like the uniformity of size ... also, when I was selling plants, a clean, new cup makes a presentable pot at very little cost. :)

The reason why articles like this rag are bought 'hook line and sinker'?

The article is written for a specific type of person:
Princess Trendy.

You know her. The neighborhood queen, who wants everyone to notice HER?
That same Queen, who will have all of this crap in a yard sale the following year so she can chase the next trend? On her 18.5% interest credit card??

If we do not teach our children common sense, they will succumb to this drivel.

Compost: Make your own / Barter with someone
Tools: Craigs list / Garage Sale / barter or rent (rototiller)
Soil testing: Worth EVERY PENNY you spend.
Seeds: Buy in bulk / stored correctly will last for years.
Starting seeds: Craigslist / garage sales / recycled items / recyclable items (red solo cups)

The INTERNET is free.

Common sense. Oy.

You get free Internet? Wow. We pay for ours. ;)

Library
Just about any restaurant, coffee shop, bookstore has free wi-fi.
Yep, totally free.

This article makes me roll my eyes. It's for people who've never really thought about growing their own food, don't know how to do it, and have a consumer mentality.
That said, more people growing their own food--even if they have different priorities about it and little experience--that's a good thing. When I lived in the city, my garden had to be "cute" and "pretty" to keep the peace. We also had to put down heavy duty landscape cloth and cover it with two feet of trucked in topsoil because the yard was so heavily contaminated with lead that we were advised to avoid touch the ground too much--much less eat anything that came out of it. All that cost a lot more than the veggies we got out of it, but the garden made us really happy.

Here's a whole other extreme: The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden (http://www.amazon.com/The-64-Tomato-.../dp/1565125576)
Don't buy his book; I'm sure he'll really waste your money.

As long as I can sell her $20 tomato, $5 strawberry, $20 pepper plants this year.................maybe next year I can sell her a bag of designer fabric scraps for making a quilt......

Free for customers. If you're just using it without being a customer, that's kind of immoral.

Last year I spent 43.89 on my garden...and I made almost $150 profit from it....

The library is free.....via your tax dollars.
Sheesh.

I am addicted to seeds, I just can't pass up grabbing a few packs when I go to the store, but I really don't need to. If I would be more diligent about saving seeds, I wouldn't be spending much if anything at all...freecycle, the recycling center ,Craigslist, garage sales,etc. are all great places for frugal gardeners!

City-slicker here and guess what? I'm not spouting fluff piece drivel. Not all of us are idiots.

Pruning shears as a minimum? :huh: I'll admit that's as far as I got.

You could spend all day posting the inaccuracies in the fluff posts that pass as "news" now.

I had to laugh when I came across this article on eggplants this morning... the first picture shows a person using pruning shears :)

http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/...-eggplant.aspx

ETA: just realized that the photo is of Suzanne Ashworth (author of Seed to Seed... great book)!

I spend very little on my garden (maybe $100 maximum on a first year garden). I think that the only items that I purchased were some seeds and the fencing that I put around to try to keep all the local wildlife out. I borrowed some tools from my parents who don't garden any more and got mulch/compost from decomposed leaves from the heavily wooded area in my back yard. I don't count my labor as a cost because it is something that I enjoy and great exersize.

I don't count my labor as a cost either....when you think that you could be spending money at a Gym and on diet foods instead....working a garden promotes good health and good eating....so you save in medical costs (unless a clutz like me who gets into all kinds of crazy gardening accidents...), grocery costs, gym costs, etc.

Now I know why they are not my life coach.

Yeah my country, really nothing more than a citiot living in the sticks seems to have a problem with the fertilizer part of gardening. It attracts flies. Of course he stores the stuff in his back door and he lives on a 10 acre lot.

More like bathroom reading and just as valuable.

They must be figuring their labor costs pretty high. They would rather watch TV and go to the grocery store. I figure that instead of watching the sewer pipe I just as well be doing something. Therefore my labor really costs me nothing.