Growing Your Own Food Makes Little Economic Sense, But If It Makes You Happy...

Filed in archive General on May 23, 2008

© Klaudia Steiner

I read this article with interest:

High prices at the pump and the produce aisle have sent home gardeners into their yards with a mission: Grow-it-yourself dining. Sales of vegetable seeds, tomato transplants and fruit trees are soaring as enterprising planters grow their own food.

W. Atlee Burpee & Co., the nation's largest seed company, has sold twice as many seeds this year as it did last year, with half the increase from new customers, the company's president, George Ball, estimates.

"When we saw the gas prices go up, we said, 'Oh boy,"' Ball said.

On the surface, the desire to grow your own food in tough economic times makes sense, but there's a reason the family farm is a rarity these days: it's not profitable to grow food in small quantities. That's why corporate farming has taken over: it produces food at a lower price (although I'd question whether that food is as healthy as it used to be, due to pesticides and other farming practices).

"Yes," you say, "but I'm not trying to make a profit, just save a little money."

Well, then, by all means, go for it. This is one of those money-versus-time situations, though. Personally, I dislike gardening, and, as the article points out, it's not always easy:

The learning curve for home gardeners can be steep. Janet Bedell in Florida said her first fights were with bugs and fungus; now she's working on keeping birds and squirrels away.

While some vegetables, like salad greens, are nearly effortless, others, like celery, present a challenge. New gardeners often don't what it takes for a plant to survive, said Ryan Schmitt, greenhouse manager at The Flower Bin in Longmont, Colo. "It's not a sculpture. Most people get the water thing, but sun and food, they often forget."

And, unless you are becoming the strictest kind of vegetarian, you're still going to need to buy foods that aren't produce, so your savings will be minimal for the work involved. Also, in my experience you end up growing so much of the things you grow that you get a little sick of them, which leads you to giving away bucketloads of tomatoes that you can't possibly eat before they go bad.

I'm not trying to dissuade you from growing your own food. It can be very fun to nurture a little seed into a food-giving plant; everyone should do it at least once. It just doesn't make a lot of economic sense. But if it makes you happy, who can put a price on that?