this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
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It'd potentially eventually pay for itself and save you a $1.33 or much more over a lifetime, but actually when you factor in all the costs of the gardening supplies and water and just all the associated costs with setting yourself up to grow them it's going to take a lot longer for you to save that $1.33. Hope you like tomatoes, you'll need to eat plenty to make it worthwhile.
Also the cost of your time. People always forget labour costs.
Labor costs? Don't divide your life into "what if I worked a W2 job 24 hours a day" increments.
You're not allowed to just enjoy gardening, everything has to be a side hustle.
Not what I'm saying, I'm saying that people saying X thing so is free because I didn't pay for it. Not considering that they didn't factor in the cost of their time.
Or maybe they did consider their time and they have a different attitude than you
It's not about attitude it's about fact. Time isn't free.
obviously you have already decided you're right and you're not willing to consider anything else, but let me explain it to you anyways:
some people don't spend their days calculating the monetary value of their own life and just do the things they enjoy because gardening is fun and fresh food tastes better.
And before you start, just don't. I don't need to hear your predictable take on economic theory.
Time spent doing something I love isn't a labor cost, though.
I thought about including that, but it's harder to value and it's not necessarily the case that the time spent on this is coming at the expense of time you could or would have spent earning so it felt a bit a disingenuous to mention it.
Also, tomatoes require pretty much the same Ph, moisture, and light levels that Marijuana does. Once you're good at growing tomatoes, you can switch to a more profitable crop
My MO is much cheaper. I just throw produce waste into a corner of my back yard and see what starts growing. Right now I've got about 10 pumpkin plants taking off like crazy. A jalapeño plant too!
I do think that numbers here are much more complex than people give them credit for, firstly no gardener I know only grows six tomatoes and secondly there are added benefits which come from it being an active hobby plus various health benefits.
I think there are bonuses that are very hard to get elsewhere, making friends by sharing excess harvest for example - if you brought tomatoes and give a bag full to someone you barely know they'll think you're odd but give them a bag of ones you've grown and next time you see them they'll tell you how nice whatever they cooked with it was and at some point they'll probably give you a couple of courgettes or invite you to pick from their strawberies while they're away.
It gives a real connection to reality and passing time too, watching your plants struggle from the soil, potting them up and helping them through the various stages of life until they're fruiting and ready for harvest. Watching the weather, keeping track of how much it's rained and when to plant different things or what to water and feed - it's very grounding, especially learning to accept whatever comes because you can only do so much and the rest is out of your control.
I could go on but just one more thing, having excess fruit opens up so many possibilities that you'd never bother with otherwise, making pies and jams just to make use of them feels so good and it's such a great way to discover new things - my dad made a recipe he found for courgette cake partly as a joke in a year they had a bumper harvest and now it's everyone's favourite cake.
Actually one more thing, I was away from home recently and had to buy things I'm used to picking, herbs are insane prices! And awfull quality. A widow box full of herbs saves about twenty dollars a month and that's without even taking into account having a tub of coriander (cilantro) for mojitos.