How much do you reckon to save by growing your own?

[nickdub]

I remember reading in an old gardening book about a professional man who the author described as paying £1 a meal for his fresh peas to eat in the evening. This would have been the equivalent of about £20 a serving in modern terms.

Turns out the calculation was based on the gentlemen in question having a paid gardener to grow his peas etc and also being at a time when the income tax rate was about 80% - so the gardener was being paid out of money which had already been taxed by 4/5ths - so if you put that in to the calculations it magnified how much each serving of peas cost to the garden owner by that amount.

So those of you who employ a gardener to grow your veg might need to rethink the costs :-)

[Snoop Puss]

^I employ Mr Snoop, but he doesn't charge me anything. Just as well, though, as I'd start thinking about charging for meals cooked!

[PepperMonster]

I'll be sure to pass that on to all the people who ask me for veg and plants...!

[rary]

^I employ Mr Snoop, but he doesn't charge me anything. Just as well, though, as I'd start thinking about charging for meals cooked!

Is that not part of a wife's duties, to cook meals as and when rquired

[rary]

I have noted that "cost of your time" has been mentioned several times, I don't understand how this can possibly be quantified, how can you cost something when you do not take into account how much it costs you to sit and watch TV or any activity that you would have been doing (eg. going to the football, cinema etc.) if you had not been in the garden?

Or asking silly hipothetical questions as. you are bored because you can't get out to the garden due to the bad weather

[Bluenowhere]

How about less the saving of not paying for a gym membership due to allotmenting.

[nickdub]

How about the bad back treatments required due to lifting heavy stuff ? - this is getting out of hand :-)

[SarrissUK]

No but actually, you are all making a good point! It's not just the vegetables that we grow and can eat or give away, or the money spent on the plot, or how many portions of food we get from it... For me, just as much as all of that, it's also about me spending time and money on gardening and growing veg that means I don't have the time, and therefore save money, on not going on so many nights out! Then all of a sudden my GYO spending are really quite cheap

[veggiechicken]

Those of us who grow at home in our gardens have to maintain those gardens, in some way of another, whether it be by turning it all to lawn and mowing it, paving it over (heaven forbid), filling it with flowers/shrubs and, of course growing edibles.
Whichever way you do it, involves cost and effort. Therefore, M'lud, I suggest that growing edibles is no different to maintaining your "space" in any other way - plus you have something to eat at the end of it.

[nickdub]

Those of us who grow at home in our gardens have to maintain those gardens, in some way of another, whether it be by turning it all to lawn and mowing it, paving it over (heaven forbid), filling it with flowers/shrubs and, of course growing edibles.
Whichever way you do it, involves cost and effort. Therefore, M'lud, I suggest that growing edibles is no different to maintaining your "space" in any other way - plus you have something to eat at the end of it.

You haven't seen my garden VC, which looks like a cross between a nature park gone awry and a junk yard for the most part :-) - I do spend a lot of time sitting in it and looking at things, but maintaining it, not so much ....

[veggiechicken]

Don't worry Nick - mine's the same. I don't often sit in it though, I'm more of a wander and ponder sort of person.

[Two_Sheds]

I weighed everything I harvested one year, and it was the equivalent of £50+ of Tesco non-organic groceries (mine are pretty much organic)
The plot rent is £1 a week, so no profit made.

That doesn't take into account the gym membership I don't need

[muck lover]

I think it’s genuinely sad that we all have a tendency to value things simply in terms of money. Our time, our food, our health everything even our planet.
If you were starving and could choose between a room full of money/ valuables and one with food which would be ‘worth’ more???
Possibly this should have been in rant thread!

[PepperMonster]

I don't grow things to save money. I just find it interesting!

[Jungle Jane]

We’re all saving our health too,our apples for example are less than two years old (did you see that program on tv where apples are in storage for two years in some sort of growth stopping environment) & ours have more nutrients because they’re fresh & no chemicals that stay in your body for years,health advantages we can share with friends & family.