Elephants on Bicycles

My good friend Jeff from UrbanInfill had some thoughts about starting a garden up and he gave me the idea of posting a little primer about what I know about vegetable gardening here in Columbus. I don’t guarantee the accuracy of this information beyond stating that this has been my experience. Jeff is hopefully going to take a much more scientific approach to documenting his gardening experience much they way he did with his COTA challenge. Look for those posts on his website. With that I give you my primer to your first season of gardening, estimated costs, and a little word on canning. Enjoy!

The start-up costs for a garden can be very little if you are working on a budget but, like everything you can easily find yourself spending a fortune if you aren’t paying attention, don’t want to do much of the work yourself or if money is no object. Let’s consider what you might spend on vegetables during a year and then consider that you will make up for a level of those through your garden. Seeing as you will likely still purchase some of your vegetables else where let’s assume that for the prime harvesting months of June – September will be your return on investment period. With that in mind let’s decide on a figure that we would spend for vegetables at the store for that time period if we didn’t have a garden. For my family of three we broke it down to about $30 a week on average although this number fluctuates throughout the year and growing season. This gives us a budget of $30 x 17 weeks = $510.

For $510 we want to grow a garden that produces 80-90% of the vegetables we’ll use for that time period, the reality is that you just can’t grow some vegetables as effectively as you can purchase them unless you have an unlimited amount of space and an equally unlimited amount of time to care for the garden. Primarily I don’t grow potatoes or yellow onions because they take up a fair amount of room, have a fairly long grow time, and such a minimal cost at the grocer. With this in mind we’ll lower our $510 by 20% (worse case) to $408.

Below is a breakdown of what we do attempt to grow each season. We start everything by directly sowing the seeds in the garden. Assume 1 seed packet has enough seeds to plant about 3×10′ rows or, in some cases you can sow a small portion of the seed and re-sow throughout the growing period to give continuous harvest.

* Tomatoes – 8 plants
* Squash – 4 plants
* Cucumbers – 4 plants
* Eggplant – 4 plants
* Broccoli – 1 row
* Beans – 4 rows
* Peas – 1 row
* Asparagus – 9 plants so far
* Greens – 4+ rows, re-sow often
* Carrots – 1 row, re-sow
* Radish – 1 row
* Beets – 1 row
* Spinach – 1 row, re-sow
* Garlic – 2 rows
* Green Onions – 1 row
* Red Onions – 4 rows
* Corn – 8 plants (generally a free-bee for the squirrels)
* Bell Peppers – 8 plants
* Jalapeno Peppers – 2 plants
* Basil, Chives, Oregano, Etc. – several plants interspersed in garden, re-sow

We also have several raspberry bushes, mulberry bush, cherry tree, apple tree, grape vine and strawberries which all produce at varying rates and are perennial so these don’t particularly count towards our figure but with long term planning can fit into your figures eventually.

If you start all of the above from seed you can plan on an average cost of $2 per seed pack. For the greens we generally get 3 or 4 varieties, likewise with the beans. So if we assume that we’ve got 35 different seed packs that equates to about $70. A little secret here however is that if you go to some of the OSU agriculture events you can pick up about as many seed packs as you can carry for free. As long as the seeds are stored in a cool dry place they won’t germinate so you can use them for years.

Next up is the planting itself. Will you plant in the ground or will you use containers? For budget purposes let’s say we’re going to plant in the ground and that means tilling the soil, amending it, planting your seeds and then regular watering cycles. This will require some equipment and I think it is fair to put that cost on your first years garden. Obviously there is much nicer equipment that you will want later down the road but for this first year you must have these items:

* Garden Spade $15
* Good Gloves $8
* Hoe/Weeder Combo $15
* Hand Weeder $10
* Hose $10
* Sprinkler $10

You will also need to amend your soil unless you are lucky enough to have unusually rich soil from a previous owners garden or similar. Lets assume you need to amend it and will use 6 bags of peat moss (~$3/bag) and 10 bags of manure rich organic soil(~$2/bag) – maybe a small bag of sand too. This will set you back $40 more. If you’re keeping track we’ve now spent $70 on the vegetables, $68 on the tools, and $40 on the earth. For a garden like this you might throw out another $50 in water usage as well. We’re up to a grand total of $228 which seems like quite the bargain huh. Well, remember there’s a lot of work going into this, do you value this activity on its own merits or are you going to factor you time cost into this? Personally I would say that if you aren’t valuing this activity on its merits of providing you with exercise, connection to the earth and the healthiest food you’ll eat then you should just go back to the grocery store. You aren’t the right person for this path.

Ok, so you’ve got all of this stuff but now what to do with it? First is to clear your garden of grass, then spade/hoe the soil so that you’ve turned at least the top 6″ but the deeper you go the better down to say 1′. This is a major effort using hand tools; if you want to splurge, particularly this first season, then the $50 rental of a tiller may be your ticket. I managed to buy one that was used once by its owners on craigslist for $125 – this was a great investment. Anyhow, after you’ve tilled the ground then you’re going to start amending the soil and tilling some more. This is a process you’ll need to do the first couple of years and then less often in the future (of course you’ll also start composting so you won’t have to purchase the soil).

To amend the soil spread all of your peat moss out across the garden and 6 of your 10 bags of soil. Till this mixture into the top few inches of your soil. You’ll use the last 4 bags of soil while you are actually doing the planting. Some plants are perenials, some are annuals. Asparagus is a life long vegetable. You’ll buy a couple of plants already started, plant those someplace in the garden that you don’t mind leaving alone, and you won’t be able to start cutting the spears for 2 years. Asparagus will then continue to produce for around 20 years. When you plant the asparagus you’ll want to dig a hole bigger than the plant, put the plant in along with enough soil (from bag) to fill in the hole. There are several resources to use which can tell you which plants interact well with other plants, onions tend to be a problem when planted near certain other plants – keep this list handy as you decide your placement of plants in the garden.

When planting the seeds it is best to mound your rows enough that you can discern where your seeds are and where they aren’t. Use some of the soil (from bag) as you make a line along the center of the mound and then place the seeds spaced as suggested on the packet. Then using your hand just fill in the recessed line you created. It is best to plant your seeds in the morning so that you can give the whole planting area a good watering during the day instead of just before nightfall. Do your continuous watering in the mornings as well, making sure that all of your plants get a good drink before they work at growing all day long. A bed of mulch will help with weeds but isn’t a necessity.

So it’s the end of May and you’re getting some veg, how exciting! Soon however it is June and July and you’re getting so much veg that you don’t know what to do with it all. Canning and freezing are both good options but both require time and more equipment. The plus side is that you can also give some of the canned goods away as presents to friends and families which is always appreciated. There are tons of good canning books out there but I would suggest getting a more recent one because ideas about food safety have changed a lot since your grandma’s times. Not only will these books tell you specifically how to can but they will also give you lots of recipes to try. There are two methods to use, hot water bath and pressure cooker. The hot-water bath works well enough for jams and pickling, you can also do tomatoes this way. Unfortunately most of the veg you have will be low-acid which means you need to use a pressure cooker. The question then becomes whether you want to can those that way or you want to freeze them. Depending on what your freezer space is like this is a great option because there isn’t really any processing necessary, thus the veg retains all of it’s nutrients. Canning, regardless of the method, is a form of processing and will take away a level of nutrient and flavor from the veg but not so much as the veg you get from the store. Home canning still provides a superior product over the store bought variety.

I’ve used the hot water canning method mainly because I haven’t invested in a pressure cooker (those go for $100+) and have generally found I can freeze a good quantity of veg along with pickling much of the rest of it. If you are in the same boat then for the canning process you’ll need a large and tall soup pot, tall enough to cover whatever size jar you decide to use. I like the pint jars for most pickling and the small 1/2 pint jars for jams. You’ll need to purchase jars, caps and screw-tops. A few dozen will be plenty for now and will set you back around $35. The tin caps with the rubber edging are the only component that will need to be repurchased on a regular basis and generally cost a few dollars for a dozen. The reason is that the rubber seal doesn’t stand up to multiple uses well. Finally you’ll want a good pair of tongs to grab the containers out of the boiling water. These will set you back about $5. There are certainly other tools that may be useful but this is all you really need. I’d wrap your canning cost up to being around about $65 between buying the book and the tools.

By canning and freezing the veg you aren’t using immediately you’ll be able to enjoy some of your labor well into the fall and winter. It’s fun to rediscover your spaghetti sauce or salsa come New Years and makes for an easy meal when you are feeling the winter blahs and don’t want to go to any trouble. The cost is that you will spend some days inside during the summer that you might otherwise enjoy outside but I feel it is a worthwhile trade off. Of course you don’t need a garden to get this out of canning. If you decide to forgo the garden you can always use the method of hitting famers markets for particular produce that is in the height of its season, buying a bushel of tomatoes at one time for pennies on the dollar and then canning them. I feel an extra special reward for having grown the veg but this method is equal in terms of financial savings and still provides you with joy.

So let’s look at the final estimates:

Veg Costs -   $70
Tools -          $68
Earth -           $40
Water -          $50
Canning -      $65
Total Cost -   $293

Working from the figure of $408 (80% of veg from garden) you are still saving $115. This may account for other vegetables which you aren’t growing, you may invest that money or maybe treat yourself to some nicer garden tools. Having said all of this I think it will be interesting to follow up on all of this and see how the numbers work out for Jeff in his specific experiment.