Growing your own food just a hobby?

Well, as I read, and think about this, my motivation is returning.

I obviously enjoy raising food or I probably wouldn’t do it. And that’s probably where my thinking should end, but unfortunately my brain doesn’t work that way. Annie, I am not against flowers. Unfortunately there are conflicts that arise. My wife has roughly 200 feet of flower gardens, 5 feet wide. Sometimes it encroaches on cow space and for example, if cows eat some sweet pea flowers near the fence, I hear about it quite loudly.

I think one of our problems, as I told my wife, is that we have way too much money (even though we’re below average income). We, and most Americans, are able to have hobbies with little or no return, and those are actually admired. A guy can buy a 1 ton truck, a 20 foot boat, drive it hundreds of miles to go out on a lake, catch fish and throw them back, and people envy that. That is the American ideal.

I may not be making much profit, but compared to that guy, I’m looking pretty good.

And it’s more than that. Something seems really messed up about our modern life. On the news we hear about the obesity epidemic, the energy crisis and global warming, the Iraq war and terrorism, and the problem of illegal immigration. Yet we do nothing about them.

Because we don’t want to raise our own food using muscle power, we pay farmers to run machinery to do it, or they must use immigrants. We cry about the illegal immigrants, yet we’re unwilling to do their work. Our teenagers should be working the fields or the gardens, burning fat, and growing healthy food. Less time to be getting in trouble, which solves other problems.

Besides running the farm equipment, we burn fuel to transport food hundreds or thousands of miles, then we drive to the stores, rather than walking out to the garden and getting it. Then of course, we have to import our fuel from countries that we have problems with. Our increased dependence on that cheap oil affects our decisions to intervene in certain countries, which affects how people view us, which leads to our current situation (war, terrorism, etc). We spend trillions messing with other countries because, ultimately, we are spoiled and lazy.

Back to our home, it is sometimes frustrating to see us buying store food when produce goes to waste. Again, we have way too much money. I’m competing against all the quick and easy junk food marketers.

I’ve decided I’ll do what I enjoy, and find somebody that wants the result, even if it isn’t my family. Fortunately, the cows and chickens will eat a lot (saves on feed bill), and they express thanks for my efforts. I’ve also started finding people who will pay to come pick. Helps pay some expenses, and I know if they’ll pay, it will be appreciated.

Well, I’m all fired up, and I’d better get out there – today should be our first day of corn on the cob – much better than that store stuff. I got a new cob butterer from Lehman’s I want to try out (excuse me, I need to wipe the drool off my keypad….). Okay, I’m out of here.

Preach it brother!!!!!!
I so agree with this. I make my kids work, they work for everything. In fact, I have 2 sons (15 & 13) headed out to butcher up about 10 birds, their younger siblings will catch the 10 said birds, while I tend the kitchen and DH cuts and burns out in the woods.
My kids dont like the work part, and gripe and complain about how they dont want to live this way, yet my DS #1 (21 yr old) is out of the house and the hardest worker I know. It was good for him.

I have began to see the dangers in the fast foods, junk foods, etc, and we are steadily steering towards a more wholesome environment. It isnt easy to change the mindset we were ingrained with while growing up. But I feel like it is important to be sure my offspring are not the irresponsible, obese lazy video gameplaying youth that I see.

Enjoy your corn, and I am jealous! We had such a bad drought for the last 3 years, I lost so many plants, so much money, just burning up in the garden, no way to save it, I got discouraged and didnt plant this year AT ALL..
Now I regret it, ran out a few weeks ago with some seeds and planted me a little patch by the house. I will soon have carrots, pumpkin and zucchini
Don't get discouraged, what your doing is admirable.

__________________
Please visit my blog! All new and squeeky clean...for now anyway.
http://mamasnature.com

I grow & can for quality & safety only. When Krogers has green beans @ under $1 a can, I really don't want to look closely at what mine cost per quart. I was a contract negotiator in healthcare administration for years, so all endeavors here are put into excel spreadsheets out of habit. Input costs including land value, fuel & fertilizer, seed, depreciated value on jars & canners, propane etc. outweigh proceeds EVERY year. ROI on gardens is dismal. Until quality & safety are factored in. Yet, I still get out there and sweat every spring, summer & fall!

DJ, I don't know where you live, but yeah, you can get corn on the cob at the stores right now 3 or 4 for a dollar, but what about this winter or early spring, when frozen bagged corn is 5 or 6 dollars? Would y'all rather pay that much for an inferior product or go get corn out of your own freezer and pay nothing for it, and have a better product.

Again, I don't know where you live, but if your wife enjoys putting money in someone else's pocket for no good reason, well... that money would be better invested in some kind of annuity, wouldn't it?

I don't think it's a hobby if it puts food in your mouth and saves money in your pocket. Heck, if you produce too much find a church or soup kitchen to give it to.

For me, there certainly is a 'hobby' aspect to growing plants and/or animals for consumption and even the ones for 'aesthetic consumption' like flower plants or ornamental game birds one might raise. Though it is called a 'fancy' to raise some of those things, it adds something to one's homestead lifestyle if that's their choosing. Just as it might be a 'hobby' of someone living in the city and 'consuming' by spending for things they admire for their home like art and so forth.
An example, also is the satisfaction (and cost savings) of starting seedlings that grow into garden or flower bed transplants. I grew several varieties of onions from seed this year, and leeks. I kept track of planting approximately 1500 seeds with a germination rate of around 75 to 80%. The total spent on these seeds was about $10. I heard that specialty onions were expensive in the stores this year. In fact, just last month I priced a Vidalia onion in a store here for $1 EACH! The varieties I grew called Candy and 1st edition would rival the taste, or be much better because of being fresh from the garden. I've been harvesting a few of these young onions and baby leeks. I went around the garden one day last week estimating the number planted and looking like they'll mature okay. 3 rows of Leeks with about 250 per row. Cost me about $2.50 for the leek seeds to grow that. To buy leek plants at the nursery to transplant is costly enough, never mind. To buy leeks at the store? ....well, you get the picture. The varieities of onions I chose also are generally not avaialble as sets Nor to buy at the store as mature. Many will never know how great a 'sweet sandwich' or a 'candy' onion tastes like unless they grow their own, or perhaps be lucky to find them locally grown at a farmer's market...and at likely an expensive price!
The 'hobby' aspect that I mentioned at the beginning of this post is the 'hobby' of growing seed, nurturing it in pre planting to the garden, learning organic aspects with compost, fertilizing and other growing knowledge such as cold climate gardening like in zone 3 I live, etc. Also, the choosing of all the various ones to try and grow can be fulfilling as well as cost saving for some special garden grown produce. Same can be with poultry. Besides some of the 'coulour' and interest about different breeds, there is utility from the eggs or meat given up by these. The 'hobby' of it is in determining which is for what purpose best suited on the particular homestead. An example is winter hardy brown egg laying chickens. A couple breeds to choose from either can be more hardy and less docile, Or one breed can be morre docile perhaps and maybe get a bit fewer eggs when the weather is at it's low winter peak. I grew 8 lb. very meaty and broad breasted broiler chickens of another variety in only 7 weeks! The taste can't even come close to comparing to store bought at any price...and it cost me half from what the regular safeway store chicken cost...and there are no giblets in those store chickens anymore.
so many benefits to growing your own, it's not even funny.

__________________
The human spirit needs places where nature has not been rearranged by the hand of man.

I'm dead serious about my vegetables.
We eat, can and freeze all we can. I save
most seeds to plant next year. I try to keep
3 years worth of seeds all the time. Rabbit
and chicken poop are my fertilizer. BTW,
we eat the rabbits, chickens and eggs too.
Raise a hog or two each year, and we eat
6-8 deer a year. Don't much of our money
go to the grocery store.

It depends on WHY you are growing your own vegetables.

If you're growing them because you get pleasure out of doing so, you just enjoy being out in the garden, then yes it's a hobby and the fact you get to eat the produce is a bonus.

If you're gardening to save money then it's probably just a hobby. Gardening is almost always more expensive than buying at the store. Folks can say "For a $2.50 pack of seeds I can grow X pounds of produce" but they're not counting soil amendments, gardening tools, cost of processing (dehydrating, canning, freezing), pest and disease control, hoses, mulch... that stuff adds up!

If you're gardening on a large scale and selling produce, then it's a business.

If you're gardening because controlling what goes into your body (pesticides or not) is important to you, then it's a lifestyle choice.

If you're gardening because you wear a tin foil hat and don't want to be dependent on others for your food supply, it's not a hobby.

All the reasons you listed indicate that gardening is, for you, much more than a hobby. It's an ethical stand and a political statement, among other things.

Now that I think of it, though, what does it matter how someone else chooses to label your gardening? If your friend Joe rides his bike all the time, is that a hobby? A lifestyle choice? A statement on obesity and health in our nation? A commentary on fuel dependence? Does he compete and win and get endorsements, thereby making it a business?

Does it matter, really?

__________________
Our homestead-in-the-making: Palazzo Rospo
Eating the dream

DJ in WA, what you said! Thanks for taking the time to put it into words. I responded to comfortablynumb in another thread about his thinking that he could buy carrots more economically than he could grow them, but there's a whole lot more to it than that.

Jassytoo, I agree with you 100%. The garden saves me a lot of money and trips to town. My vegetables at least have taste and no pesticides are used so it's all oganic. Thanks Chris

I don't consider gardening more expensive than buying. I have very little money into my garden. I bought some seeds, but most of my plants were grown from saved seeds. I bought a little gas for the tiller. I don't ever buy chemicals for pest control or to feed the plants/treat the soil. My compost/fertilizer is free from my critters. Sure, if I figured in an hourly wage for my work it may get pricey, but it's not as if I'm taking time off from a paying job to garden.

My canning jars have been used for years and ziploc bags aren't that expensive. I do buy parafin for the jellies, but the fruit is free-- strawberries, apples, crabapples, grapes, raspberries and blackberries. Fresh fruits and veggies are expensive here-- even this time of year.

I save more a year just on pickles than I spend on my whole garden. Not to mention the money saved when feeding the critters veggie/fruit scraps. I find it hard to believe that anyone with a productive garden would consider buying from the store cheaper...

You say "hobby" like it's a bad thing

If it also puts something on the table, who cares? My garden provides for my soul as well as my body -- nothing bad in that.

Besides which, my beans are the best I've ever tasted. I find it sad that so many people don't realize what they're missing with produce picked fresh, cooked (or not ) immediately, and eaten before it's been out of the ground an hour -- they'll never understand that Green Giant and similar brands of commercially processed vegetables have NOTHING on those "hobby" veggies!

Tracy

__________________
Ignorance is the true enemy.

I've seen the village, and I don't want it raising my children.

www.newcenturyhomestead.com

For now our gardening efforts might be called a hobby but one that takes over 500 hours per year.

We are still in the learning process of growing without chemicals or motorized equipment, hoping to grow a sufficient variety of crops to provide a meager subsistence diet (might add animals later) and expect the time may arrive soon when we can at least provide most of what we and what a few others eat and that the time might come when what we grow is all we could obtain. Of course if such a time of need arrives, the others would likely pitch in and help with our hobby.

I agree with Tracy, "hobby" isn't a bad word. It can have different meanings for different people. To some (like me), a hobby is something you enjoy doing that doesn't contribute a major portion of your family's cash flow. I would describe myself as a hobby gardener, as was my father before me. There is absolutely no question that what I grow tastes worlds better than anything I could buy in the store, but being a farmer isn't what I do for a living (not that I would mind being one!)

Maybe this is what DW is thinking?

Tracy and Maria, I agree. If you look at the word "Hobby", I gues you call anything that isn't your main source of income as a hobby.

I spent 11 years as a Tournament Bass fisherman, spending 150 days a year on the water. But it was a hobby, I made my living at my main occupation.

Using that framework, my homesteading is a hobby, I have a full-time job that pays the all the bills. But I enjoy eating all that I raise, be it plant or animal. If all works out the way I'm hoping, in a couple of years I'll be producing most of my own food. That will not only be a cost savings to me and my family but also healthier.

The other advantage of this hobby over others I have had, is that the entire family can be involved in this, were before it was just me.

So just because technically it can be called a hobby doesn't mean that it isn't important to you.

__________________
Bob D. in FL

"Good decisions are made from knowledge, not from numbers" - Plato

BobCat Acres - blog.bobcatacres.com
home of Chickens, Ducks, Turkeys, Goats, Sheep, and Bunnies

Maybe it's a hobby but it does put food on the table for us. Most importantly in my eyes is that every year our garden becomes more productive, our seed bank grows, the work gets easier and we are fine tuning what will and won't work here. I look at it as one of our greatest 'prep' items, a fertile and productive piece of ground. For us it rates up there with a year round spring.

__________________
"Only the rocks [and really embarassing moments] live forever"

"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands..." tick-tick-tick

Producing you own food, be it meats, eggs, cheese or fruits and veggies, is no more a hobby than is life itself. I get frustrated sometimes by DH's view point on my efforts on the homestead. He has a hard time understanding the value of things that do not produce any money. In fact, during a recent disagreement over budgeting, he actually said, "Grape jelly will not pay the bills" I could have smacked him...but I restrained myself. I had spent hours and hours picking grapes, boiling them down and cooking up some jelly, learning to can along the way. Is that a hobby? I guess he thinks it is, but I believe that harvesting and producing your own food is the mark of an honorable existence. My DH is lucky that I don't see food production as a hobby...if I did, I might have given up after a few weeks sweating it out in the garden this year

__________________
"Perhaps I'll have them string a clothesline from the hearse I am in, with my underwear waving in the breeze, as we drive to the cemetary. People worry about the dumbest things!"
by Wendy

Agree with all the other comments, particularly that Americans have become spoiled and lazy.

A few additional points:

* on cost, you have to compare apples to apples. Your tomatoes should be compared to fresh organic tomatoes, not the lowest price, special promotion, canned tomatoes.

* include the savings on a foregone gym membership in your ROI calcs.

* don't ignore the option value. Growing your own food now gives you the option of expanding your growing if you absolutely need to. If you had none of the tools, knowledge, stored seeds, fertile soil, and had to start up, that's a considerable hurdle to do in a short period of time. The ROI on your fire insurance is -100% every year -- until the year you need it.

* given the current state of American society, and the numerous warnings about fragility of our centrally planned, resource wasteful society, (eg, Katrina, Minnesota Bridge, Subprime mortgage companies dropping like flies), I'd say having a garden is a very wise move.

--sgl

I am not engulfed in a fantasy that I am contributing a significant amount of calories from my vegi garden to our diet, but every year I learn to grow something new or better and, if need be, I will have at least some of the skills to help feed ourselves. it is a useful productive enjoyable endeavor. I ride and train horses professionaly and I can and have make a good living at it, but it is still a "hobby" in my mind to me for some reason. I guess because I like it, and would make an effort to do it even if it wasn't profitable. my garden is similar.

__________________
A mystery is not an explanation..... on the contrary....no sooner is a myth forged than, in order to stand it needs another myth to support it.

Again, to clarify, I was not saying that hobbies are bad. My wife was making the point that raising food is no more significant than flowers, i.e. it’s “just a hobby”. My opinion is that in a situation in which hobbies are in conflict, I vote for the one that is more productive in providing food. To say that doesn’t matter, because we can just go buy it, depends on me making more money. I swear, if I took up golf, I’d probably get more support. Sometimes I think hobbies with less return get more admiration.

I grew up on a farm with milk cow, garden, etc. But few of my siblings are interested anymore. I am regularly invited to family gatherings and told how much fun I will have. I then suggest they join me in my garden for fun, but haven’t had any takers. They each travel thousands of miles a year going to various activities, including an amusement park this summer that was 10 hours away. I am now invited to a gathering 5 hours away. Fortunately, I am able to tell them I can’t go due to cow milking and garden obligations. Factor THAT into the savings. Hundreds of dollars annually not spent on fuel thanks to my food production hobby.

There’s something about America that now believes that all activities must be maximum “fun”. If your hobby produces anything, you lose the competition. It must be all dessert, no potatoes.

Along this line, it’s funny that to qualify as fun, it has to happen off your property. For example, people consider it fun to go camping where they can exercise their survival skills. But if a guy like me does that in the garden or on his property it is assumed it must be unfun. My MIL laughed at my shower in the back yard with water heated by the sun. Now, if I had that up in the mountains while camping, she would think it was neato.

I think excess money is a big problem. Most kids know they don’t need to do chores – it’s not a survival thing. Heck, we could hire it done, right? Takes away motivation for kids to do it, and parents to make them do it. Most think as long as you have a good income and cash, nothing else matters. Saw Nicole Ritchey on TV last night saying she had it all at 18, was bored, did drugs, etc. No purpose, no motivation.

I plan to put more money toward paying off the mortgage, creating less available money (more later for retirement) and give us some incentive to get off the couch, and have the fun of surviving in the back yard. Less money available to buy at the store when garden produce is going to waste.

Photo from this afternoon:

What sort of turkeys are those? Do you have any problems with them flying out of the enclosure?

__________________
"Perhaps I'll have them string a clothesline from the hearse I am in, with my underwear waving in the breeze, as we drive to the cemetary. People worry about the dumbest things!"
by Wendy