Is it cheaper to grow your own vegetables, or just buy them at the grocery store?
Join us as we do a cost breakdown on one of our garden plots to see if we are getting a valuable return on investment for growing our own food.
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43 Comments
Not about growing, but wanted to recommend fermented cranberry sauce got Thanksgiving.
I love my garden no matter the cost, because I don’t worry about having recalls on my veggies.
I was raised working in a garden so, to me it's just a normal way of life. I can for my family putting up 400 – 500 jars of produce each year. Like you I like to know what is in my food or, more important what has been sprayed on it. We start our own plants in a little greenhouse and make a lot of our compost. Raising a garden and canning saves us and our children a lot of money but more important it's healthy, safe foods. We love being outside and caring for our garden. Especially since we retired 😀. I love your show. You have so much knowledge. Thank you for sharing🥦🍓🥕🥒🥬🌽🍆🍠🥔
I appreciate you and Brooklyn doing everything you do and pass on your knowledge. March 2020, was an AHA moment. I walked in our local grocery stores and there wasn't produce, the food on the shelves were limited. My husband and I just dabbled with gardening, but after that grocery visit, we went to work on our garden. For us, it's all about food sustainability. I want the food, the herbs, the seeds. I think we break about even or slightly cheaper to grow it. It is harder work, but worth it. When you grow it and put it up in your pantry, there's nothing more satisfying. Thank you Travis!
You forgot the cost of your watering system. That is a biggy. At least it would be for me.But I still enjoy gardening.
Growing up, having a garden was most certainly to grow food cheaper than we could buy it. But later in my adult life, when gardening became more of a hobby and a way to just be outdoors, I slowly started warming up to the idea of spending a little to make gardening easier and save some of my time.
Love this topic. To be honest, the older I get the less excited I am to be in public so I appreciate growing our own food. We just retired from a self-employment situation that entailed constant people coming in and constant ringing phones. It does wear on you. Anyway, I'm burned out on interaction. We didn't grow up eating a lot of fresh produce and I've been a tin-can kind of cook so learning how to use all of this is time-consuming. It's really tempting to just can it all (thus still being a canned type of cook) but we need to learn how to eat things fresh and also how to use our first freezer well. My husband is on a health kick and likes the idea of not buying much any more, also. My birthday is tomorrow and I told my husband what I want is his help in the garden. I want him to help me flame weed some overgrown rows (I'm scared to try it alone for the first time) and cover them for the winter. Hey, one birthday I got 3 garage doors for an out-building. I'm good with all of this.
Great discussion Travis. I garden for the same reasons you talked about. I'd like to add another important reason. I love carrying on a tradition of backyard gardening and the connection to the past. Whenever I'm in the garden I remember my grandparents. There was a time not long ago when everyone had a beautiful and productive food plot on there property. It's very rewarding to know we're carrying on that tradition of self reliance. I can't thank you enough for all your helpful advice.
You are so spot on! My ducks ate and killed my fall crop tomatoes. I had to have them, I was planning on that crop. So, to make up for it I had to buy #10 cans of tomatoes. They do not taste as good and they are a lesser product than I can grow. One can cost me 4.00 I got about 20 tomatoes in that can. One plant gives me 40 or more tomatoes- depends on the year. That one seed cost me about 10 cents. The fertilizer I put in was MAYBE a dollar. So I have 1.10 in a 4.00 can of tomatoes.
I get tickled at the garden snobs. We are eating far more superior food than they can buy. Honestly, I have dined in some of the finest establishments. The taste and quality of asparagus compared to what I grow, is lousy. We are putting in a worm bed for up coming fertilizer. Some guy on YT. Did it in a claw foot bath tub. Genius!! I watch you and Garden Answers the most… excellent education.
The exercise, flavor, variety, satisfaction of seeing things grow by God's wonderous design.
Hey Travis are you going to do some live videos in the future? I see your setup for it.
I grow a garden to offset our grocery bill, as a hobby, & for nostalgia reasons. We had a garden every year when I was a kid and I hated it severely because it was so much work. It’s still too much work but I don’t hate it anymore because it’s mine. It’s a great place for me to go and think. Everybody leaves me alone after a while because it’s so much work lol. But it’s peaceful then! That’s a lot of sarcasm from a middle age man but I do enjoy sharing in the excitement when my grandchildren come over and explore Papaw’s garden. It brings me so much joy to share with them the newness of life that awaits us when we grow a garden. Being responsible for the upkeep of a living thing to see it through to the harvest and start the process all over again with a new crop the next season.
There is nothing like fresh from the garden food! There is great satisfaction in producing food from seed to table. There's a rocking chair in our garden space for a reason…it's a peaceful place to sit for a spell and take in what we've created.
Thanks, Travis, for this video that got everyone to thinking about why they grow and what it's worth to them – I just read through the comments and feel so encouraged and inspired by everyone's stories! I agree with so many comments and am thankful to have read them all tonight! Growing food and beautiful things is surely a blessing.
A thought about a cost that you didn't mention, and that is water. In some areas water is scarce and costly. I'm out in Central CA and we're rationed and charged high rates, and nothing coming from the sky in the summers (and sometimes not the winters! – ha!) But that just means we have to grow smarter and work harder, and that's ok, because all those same reasons that everyone mentioned are just that much more important and valuable!
To me it is the difference between obvious cost and actual cost. I could go and buy the cheapest produce around and save a lot of money in the short term. With all of the pesticides and nutritional deficiencies this will cost me in the long run. Growing things myself I know what pesticides were used, none, and know that there is a much better chance of the produce being nutritious. I also like the idea that I am doing a little more to reduce carbon emissions. Improving the soil is one of the best ways to do that.
Is it too late to grow beets in 8A?
I started growing my own food because Kroger has a monopoly on the Roanoke Valley, in Southwestern VA, and the produce SUCKS!! I wanted food that tasted better and I figured had to be more nutritious. As time has gone on my garden has become my happy place. I can get lost for hours and I only have 3 4×4 beds and 1 4×8 bed. It is not a big area, but I just LOVE being in my garden. I suffer from chronic depression and the days I can spend at least a little bit of time in my garden are always better days!!
Now I am really concerned about supply chain issues, inflation and whatever is going to hit this world and our country next so having my garden has given me a better sense of food security, although I have a long way to go to really feel any significant sense of food security. Because I got into gardening I have also gotten into canning and preserving my own food. I am not sure if growing my own food is cost efficient if you are canning food to not go to the grocery store, but I am more worried about being able to feed my family if the grocery store shelves are empty!!!
I love to watch things grow and to eat what I have grown! Everything tastes so much better when it is home grown.
Hey Travis, I was wondering where you were. Kept checking for you on the "ROW BY ROW " show but you have been "MIA". Just happened to be scrolling and I found you.
Have you hopped off the row by row train ????
I really love seeing these videos. And I love growing things. Thanks for your videos and the time you and your family spend educating us. If you could factor in the enjoyment WE GET WATCHING YOU GUYS ,these gardens would be many ,many times more productive ! As far me , I hope you continue to do things just like you have in the past!! Thanks again. Alright,alright,alright!!!
I’m hoping to use less and less inputs as I build the soil with organic matter year after year. My focus is to leave things a little better then when I found them. I like seeing the different verities you grow and fertilizers you try. I don’t know how many products I’ve tried that I didn’t like and waisted money on over the years. I like that you try these things out for us.
Better nutrition, no GMO, living simpler and self- sustaining as much as possible.
The taste. Nothing beats the taste of fresh , i mean super fresh veg. Nothing compares. Thats why the good chefs work with farmers – they know this.
I've watching your channel wow I I started with brousserl sprouts butter head lettuce bug bit me like realy selling them and bottle chillis sauces and for eating had no tanks carry water in buckets love eating my lettuce stuff just going on all the blessing life has got very hard but love it teresa south Africa by us compost you cant get likes yous get very slow in doing thing in our coutry
Hope you are better I just battling with compost to eat and sell but were we live there realy not alot of support feeding eating and giving and I bottle chilli sauce all things to sell
Love to grow my own food , because since the covid 19 , its the best form of excercise for every muscle group and also its a fun hobby and you get to try different things and learn different things, to be honest also since that video you and your dad did back on the hoss channel about 5 types of food everyone should be growing in times of crisis it really moved me to thinking outside of the box/grocery store you know so that has been my reasons too bad though I live in New England so can't garden year round but hasn't stopped me lol now I'm looking for pernial plants and herbs that overwinter and comes back every year , example garlic chives, tyme, different types of grapes and so on , thanks again Travis to you and mr hoss from the other channel 😀
I am a newbie since I only started gardening last year when Covid hit. I’m sure I spend too much, but it’s a great hobby & I’m learning that I can do this if I ever really had to. Plus I’m enjoying learning to cook from the garden & preserve my harvest. This hobby gives me something to direct my CPA personality at that isn’t work. 😊 Great escape!
Thanks for Sharing!!
Wow that is a lot of food
I love to grow my own food because it healthier than the one in the store and it did not come from another country i do not have to worry about recalls!!!
i also love mother earth and i love to mediate as well and it save me lots of money
Loved the video. Very helpful.
I started gardening this year. Always wanted to do it. The empty grocery store shelves of 2020 was the tipping point for me. Also started raising quail. I got an awesome compost pile going. I love this channel because I live in a warm climate and much of the info applies to my area.
Why I grow my own food, it is fun, it is food for the pollinators, it tastes better, job satisfaction, it brings my family joy to harvest a tomato or cucumber. When there is a recall of contaminated food (onions and lettuce this year) I know my food is safe to eat. It uses less pollution to get veggies to my table. I feed my chickens, their manure feeds the compost, compost feeds my garden, which feeds my family 👪. We need less food waste and more composting. The number 1 farmed item in America is grass/lawn(not corn) Plant more trees and grow more groceries. Edible landscaping is the way to go.✌
I pretty much have the same reasons as you. I have wanted to grow food since I was a toddler, I think it’s in the blood somehow. It’s a huge pleasure to grow nice food for the people you love!
Klaus
I wonder why you valued the price at the grocery less than the price you would have sold those same veggies for?
We started a small garden for the first time this year. My 5 year old daughter had the time of her life tending to it and giving vegetables to her grandparents. And it was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. I will be gardening from here on on out. Thanks for all the great content! We’ve learned a lot!
The way I'm looking at what you do . Your condensing the learning curve and the garden soil build up that took our grandfather's a life time to create
Wow wish I could get compost for a hundred. It cost me a hundred for delivery on a truck load.
You can’t trust stores. While this probably isn’t happening everywhere, a friend worked in a store where part of the job was to repackage some produce to indicate it was organic. Just because it is in the organic section and has a sticker you are still trusting someone else to be honest. Second part is the quality of the produce whether organic or not. Plus there is the adventure of discovering new varieties and for anyone who has ever done any bargain hunting, the cost benefit gives you that little thrill as well as improving your health with the exercise.
Gardening first attracted me for the flavor… and because it is like printing money when done right.
It is an investment with returns for life. Returns the form of flavor, food/healthy eating, memories, happiness/less stress, great sun tans, not worrying about the world and if there will always be food on the shelves, etc., etc….
From a cost savings point of view, growing basil from seed cannot be beat. If I plant 10-15 basil plants from seed, I can easily harvest 4 cups or more weekly all season for cooking and making pesto. That costs me less than a dollar for what would cost me $5-$10 per week to buy a similar amount of fresh from the store.
My mother was a German War bride.Upon coming her from a war torn country she vowed never to go hungry again. My parents lived in town and had an extra lot and a half beside the house that was all garden. We never went hungry thanks to them. I now live in that same house at the age of 71 and I sti garden and feed myself as we as many others. I can, freeze and dehydrate my things
Gardening brings me peace❤️