Rising Food Costs - Gardening

[Jafo232]

If you watched the news the last couple of weeks, you probably have seen a bunch of stories on how food prices are going to start seriously going up. Much of this has to do with corn and other commodities going into ethanol but there are other reasons as well.

It is about this time of year I start to think about what I am going to do with the garden. I have already decided to about triple the size of it as it was way too small last year (first garden in this location). With this news, I might even go bigger. Even with the small garden last year, I still saved a lot of money once there was product to pull.

I wonder if there will be more of a push for home gardening this year due to what is expected to happen in commodities? Are any of you planning on a new garden or expanding your current one?

[Cook Chatty Cathy]

Hi Jafo,

Yes, you bet I am planning a small garden now that we found a house. I don't have tons of room but enough to help out. It's been years since I did serious gardening but the cost is a BIG factor on fresh vs. store bought this year. But not only that but the taste is so much superior on home grown!!! I want cherry tomatoes growing out of every nook & cranny!!! Okra, greens, pole beans, sugar snap peas just to mention a few!

Cathy

[KYHeirloomer]

There are all sorts of great and good reasons to grow your own veggies. And they all come down to quality. The produce you grow---particularly if you opt for heirlooms and other open pollinated varieties---taste better, and can be more nutritious, than anything you buy at the market.

However, unless you only mean "dollars out of pocket," you do not actually save money by growing your own. Even if food prices go up the projected 20% this year, you cannot grow your own cheaper than buying. Not if you include all the actual cost factors.

I mean, let's get real. Does anybody really believe they can achieve the economies of scale reached by Monsanto?

Now then, if you want to talk about value (as opposed to cost), Monsanto can't begin competing with you.

So it's best to concentrate on the value of growing your own: home-grown has inherent flavor, nutritional, recreational, and environmental benefits that alone make it worthwhile. But cost really isn't one of those benefits.

[Cook Chatty Cathy]

KYH you hit the nail on the head with that one! I never found gardening to be cheap. But I do believe that we can cut back on our out-of-pocket exspenses if we make a few adjustments.

I have a goal and intention of trying to really garden cheap this year for instance...using marigolds and other flowers and herbs to repel bugs, marking the territory to help detour other kritters by training my little doggie to tinkle at various locations throughout. Starting ALL my plants indoors from seed, except the greens, and squash of-course. And I seriously believe (if you do not count our labor) we can save $$$ if we try.

But even if not: as you say the quality, freshness and nutritional value far outweighs any cost factor!

Not to mention we soak up sunshine (Vitamin D) while we work our garden, and we take in loads more fresh H2o, and we feel more at peace out in the garden than shopping in the store!

I wish everyone could know the joy of growing fresh veggies, and the frustrations too (to gain appreciation of our farmers!) You never really know until you do it with your whole heart!

[Cook Chatty Cathy]

I was wondering KYH, if I wanted to use the heirloom seeds where exactly would I find them for sale around these parts? And what are the benefits of using heirloom?

I do not know that I have ever used them. We used to purchase all our seeds at the Feed Store and I had no idea where they came from, and each seed had a pink coating on it to keep the bugs from feasting on them, I doubt they were heirloom seeds.

You must believe in them as I don't gather that you would waste time on something you do not feel is worth your while.

I'm 100% sold on fresh veggies from a garden - if you can grow them - and I always got good seed from the feed store. Heck I even had a brother and sis-in-law that went and sowed dried black eyed peas from a bag they bought at a grocery store and they had black-eyed peas growing like crazy that year! Boy did they brag on that!

But I am interested in the benefits of heirloom.

Thanks, Cathy

[Jafo232]

When you see the price of tomatoes and peppers here, you definitely save money by planting them rather than buying them. I also can my produce which boosts savings. I try to use natural homemade composts and grow from seed as often as possible. All of this makes the savings more than worth it.

[KYHeirloomer]

Well, Jafo, I reckon your time isn't worth anything. So I'm gonna hire you to work for me.

And there is no value to the land you plant on? Nor is amortization on the capital investment an issue for you? Nor......

The point is, if you are going to cost-acccount your garden (an exercize, btw, that I see no value in), you have to include all the cost elements. If you insist on cherry picking which costs count and which don't, then you're only kidding yourself.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: from a cost viewpoint, you cannot compete with Monsanto.

I'm amused, too, that you choose to highlight the least costly element (seed) and ignore the most costly (labor).

[Jafo232]

I'm amused, too, that you choose to highlight the least costly element (seed) and ignore the most costly (labor).

Ok if you want to take the cost of labor, well what does it cost do cook meals 3 times a day? Wouldn't it be cheaper for you to just eat out instead of cooking meals from scratch? Or, if like me, you enjoy cooking and the actual labor of cooking doesn't even enter the equation.

What does it cost in labor for you to clean your house? Why not hire a maid because it is cheaper? Or if you like me you see no need to spend the money I labored to get, to pay someone to labor on something I have plenty of time to do myself.

Your point would make sense to me if I was working on my garden instead of going to work, but I find that with a little time every day, and a few hours on my days off, I can manage a rather large garden. This doesn't even take into consideration the two free laborers I have in the form of my strapping twin sons. Subtract the time it takes for me to shop (spend gas, pay for car maintenance, insurance, wait in line, search for decent ingredients) I save money.

Let us also not forget the exercise and time outside can only make you healthier for the most part.

A nice looking garden does nothing but improve the look of the property; property that was otherwise just growing grass before the garden was installed.

[KYHeirloomer]

Cathy, you're right. I am passionate about heirlooms. In fact, I will not put a hybrid in the ground---as much for political reasons as horticultural ones.

As to availability, heirloom seeds are everywhere, nowadays. Even the mainstream seed houses, like Burpee, offer some. And there are at least two dozen companies that specialize in heirlooms. Among them:

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
Tomato Grower's Supply
Victory Seeds

You can find them, and many others, on-line.

There also are several seed-saving organizations you should check out.

Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) is the largest such group in the world. In addition to their growers exchange proceedure they have a public catalog, where anyone can order seeds. Find them at Seed Savers Exchange.

Appalachian Heirloom Seed Conservancy, of which I'm the managing director. Specializes in preserving the edible foods of the mountain south. No web page, but you can reach AHSC at KentuckySeeds@hotmail.com for membership info. Be sure an include your snail-mail addy.

Southern Legacy Seed Project & PASS (Pass Along Southern Seeds) based at the University of Georgia.

And there are a few really specialized ones, such as Native Seeds/SEARCH, which specializing in collecting native crops of the Southwest and northern Mexico, and re-establishing them among native peoples.

There are, too, individual growers who offer seeds at seed swaps, and spring gardening meets, and on line. For instance, I'll have a large display on hand when I give my seed-starting presentation at a local library next month.

The benefits of heirlooms are legion.

First and foremost is flavor. Families have passed these down, one generation to the next, because they taste good. Flavor has been the sole selection criterium. The same cannot be said about hybrids.

Hybrids are selected to meet the needs of the food distribution system. Flavor is not one of those needs, and when a hybrid has good flavor it's because it sneaks in by accident as part of the overall genetic mix.

Second is seed saving. You can save seed from open pollinated plants, and, in the absence of mutations or cross pollination, they will breed true to type. With hybrids, on the other hand, as the old commercial says, you don't know what you're getting. They do not breed true to type.

Next is bio-diversity. Virtually every major agricultural disaster of the past several hundred years resulted from there being a limited number, of genetically similar varities. A new blight appears, and wipes out the crop.

Do you want to put all your marbles in the half dozen hybrid tomatoes that Monsanto et als offers you? Or would you rather make your choice from the 6,000 or so known open pollinated varieties.

The only exception to all this are beans. Despite what the seed houses would like you to believe (so they can keep selling you seed) there are no hybrid beans. They are all---all 10,000 or so of them---open pollinated.

Whew! I reckon that's a little more than you wanted to know.

[Cook Chatty Cathy]

No, quite to the contrary KYH that is not at all more than I wanted to know. I am very interested and want to make wise decisions when it comes to growing food for my family! I have concerns as to the why's. And I really do care not only about food, but also the ecology. I think I am going to buy heirloom!

I have up to the moment placed 2 telephone calls to 1) the local 4-H and 2) the local Health Dept. = it seems there was a large scale PCB contamination in this region compliments of a nice big GE facility (long since closed down)! I have no idea of the extent that it remains a threat, but the creek behind my house is (reportedly) involved and well I was thinking of using it to irrigate with given the fact we are in the midst of a bad drought. I'd hate to water my garden with PCB water! And in the process potentially poision us all. So it is my hope and prayer that threat no longer exists! But I would rather ask questions and be a nuisance than be ignorant!

And I am doing my homework and want to do companion planting to control the insect balance in my garden. Why the #@*&! spray all my plants and poision the bees who are lovingly fufilling their purpose in life? There has got to be a balance in here somewhere! And what with tons and tons of bees mysteriously disappearing last year, why further the problem with spray? Goodness we need to be considerate of those we share this planet with!

My ole' grandma battled tortoises and all kind of varmits in her garden and never used pesticides, she composted, had a green thumb, and she also smoked, drank, and ate like a health food freak long before it was popular and she also lived to be almost 100! Her diet must have had an active role in her long robust life, maybe a few good genes too (hope I got some of 'em) but she always ate fresh fruit & veggies every day of her beautiful life! So I just would like to continue to do what I know works! (except for her smokin' they stink and cost too much now a-days!)

Thank you so much for the information, Cathy

P.S. I wish you all could've seen her she would spot this big tortie out in her garden munching down on her nice young plants and she would dart out her back door run and grab that tortie and carry him outside the perimeter of her garden and turn it upside down- gave him lots of time to consider his sins while he was trying desperately to upright his ole' self!