
5 foods it's cheaper to grow - ph0rque
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/SaveMoney/5FoodsItsCheaperToGrow.aspx
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lmkg
In terms of just money, it's far cheaper to grow your own food. It does,
however, take a _significant_ time and effort commitment. Very few plants are
simply plant-and-forget[1]. As usual, when you go to the store, you pay for
the convenience more than for the product itself. Nonetheless, even when you
consider time & labor, home-grown food probably comes out cheaper because a
significant amount of the convenience markup comes from transportation, which
gets eliminated entirely.

Even with the work it takes, I would strongly recommend it. Remember, the true
cost of the time and effort you put in is the opportunity cost of what you
could be doing instead with your time. For a large chunk of the population,
that's TV or facebook (farmville, ha ha). Plus, there are intangible benefits
beyond the retail value of the food itself. Personally, I find it immensely
rewarding to eat food that I made myself from seed to plate. It tends to taste
better too--foods in the grocery store are bred for fast harvest, lower soil
requirements, long shelf life and durability during transportation. It should
come as no surprise that they converge in most discernible attributes towards
wax and cardboard. Meanwhile, the tomato seed varieties you can pick up at
your local nursery are bred to optimize salad, pasta sauce, gazpacho and
lasagna.

[1] Unless you live in Hawai`i. Seriously, you can throw a stick at any bare
patch of ground on that island and come back to a tree in a few years. Lava is
nutritious.

~~~
iuhjytgfbnjhmk
>In terms of just money, it's far cheaper to grow your own food

Not necessarily - thats the point of the article Even in just cost of seeds
and fertilizer you can't grow wheat more cheaply than iowa or saskatchewan.

~~~
camiller
There is a story about a well know homebrewer who wanted to try to grow and
malt his own barley for brewing. The story goes that after the wildlife were
done with his barley patch and losses during winnowing he had managed to turn
50 pounds of seed into 20 pounds of barley.

~~~
weaksauce
I would think that the hops are the determining factor in cost and taste of
beer. there are just so many varieties of hops and there is a shortage right
now because of the subsidies in other industries pulling farmers away from it
to focus on corn. (I think it's corn but it has been a while since I read it)
The owner of sam adams brewery had a hop subsidy to small brewers at the
prices he could get to help foster the microbreweries around.

~~~
camiller
I don't think he was doing it to necessarily save money but to have more
control over the process, or possibly to create a under-modified malt suitable
for decoction mashing. None the less, he turned 50 pounds of seed into 20
pounds of seed.

There are 50+ types of specialty grains, each with distinct flavor and color
contributions to the beer. In a more malt forward style like a scotch ale the
grains certainly do provide a lot of the flavor profile, and there are at
least 100+ strains of yeast for that matter.

Actually hop prices have dropped to half or less of their highs during last
years shortage. Disclaimer, I work part time at my local home brew shop to
support my brewing hobby with the employee discount.

~~~
weaksauce
Interesting. I didn't know that the hop prices fell. The craft beer prices
have increased a bit since then. Need to support the local brewers though.

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jgv
Growing herbs was one of my best decisions (lifehacks?) of the summer. I have
found basil to be the most rewarding and robust herb to grow. Although my
friends have a mint plant that keeps on coming back.

You also don't need to be living in a rural or suburban area to grow herbs. I
live in Brooklyn and have herbs growing on my fire escape, as do many of my
neighbors. If you're lucky enough to have outdoor space, a good trick is to
take tires and fill them with dirt to grow crops. Friends of mine have been
successful with tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers.

I'm an advocate of urban farming and I'd love to hear from other people
growing food in an urban area. I'm dying to try Window Farms
(<http://windowfarms.org>), which looks like a great project and has built a
robust community around urban farming.

One more thing: cat people, grow catnip! It's ~$1 for a bag of seeds and keeps
on coming back. Much cheaper than anything store bought.

EDIT: Currently growing basil, rosemary, cilantro (barely), chives, mint,
catnip, parsley. Would love to hear what has been successful or any advice
since I'm kind of new to growing.

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nostromo
A warning: A friend gardening on a fire escape in Brooklyn came home from work
one day to find all of her plants gone. It turns out it's illegal to keep
things there and they can be removed without warning.

Regarding mint, it's super robust and will expand if allowed to. You can also
surround other plants with mint, because most pests don't like the flavor
(that's probably why it evolved that way) it will act as a barrier. Ants,
mosquitos, cockroaches all don't like it. I grow Pineapple Mint because it
looks cool. :)

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jgv
Good to know about growing on the fire escape. Before growing herbs I had no
idea that there were so many varieties of mint: spearmint, orange, chocolate,
pineapple. Will you bring the mint indoors during the winter or let go dormant
and come back next spring/summer?

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nostromo
I live in SF now, so I leave it out year round, maybe brining it in on the
coldest nights. In NY though, if they are in pots or raised above the ground,
I wouldn't let them freeze. If the roots get frozen they may never come back.
Plants in the ground don't get as cold usually so they will be better off.
(Your mileage may vary, I'm still learning this myself!)

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CWuestefeld
I've got a small orchard of 8 fruit trees [1]. I've found that if you want to
grow your own food, the time investment for fruit is the lowest per unit
product. I'd estimate that I spend less than 5 hours per year on my trees,
total.

Maintenance consists of pruning in the fall, culling fruit early in the
season, fertilizing occasionally, and periodic spraying. For pruning, decide
how much you think you ought to cut back, and then cut twice that amount. Do
not skip the spraying. People who want their food grown all naturally really
just wind up feeding the bugs and other pests.

A given type of fruit tends to come ripe all at once. I'll be harvesting my
peaches, say, over 1.5 - 2 weeks. For soft fruits like peaches or plums, you
can't keep them very long. You've got to preserve them or give them away. So
plan your crops accordingly.

If you want to do this, now is the time to start planning. Even more than
tomatoes, you need to time it right. Trees need to be planted either in very
early spring, or in the fall.

[1] 2 peaches, 2 apples, 2 pears, 1 plum, 1 pluot

~~~
pbhjpbhj
TIL: plum crossed with apricot is a pluot (or aprium).

> _People who want their food grown all naturally really just wind up feeding
> the bugs and other pests._

I think that's part of the point. Wiping out bugs with pesticides has far
reaching effects and not just on the bugs directly.

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jules
Cheap is not the biggest advantage. Home grown vegetables taste better,
especially haricots verts and tomatoes.

Some fruits are ridiculously expensive though like raspberries and
blackberries. They also require less weeding than most vegetables and they
survive the winter. From one blackberry plant you can get 20kg of
blackberries. This can cost like €300 in the supermarket.

~~~
Semiapies
For blackberries, do what the hipsters call "foraging" or what folks when I
was a kid called "picking them" from wild bushes. Cheap.

(Make sure you're not close to a road, garbage dump, etc. And they may not
grow in your area. Void where prohibited.)

After going to the trouble of doing so, you might just prefer to spend the
money for a little tub of them. Still, it's an option.

~~~
robobenjie
Oh, but the flavor of wild, ripe blackberries is so much better then even the
ones I can get at the farmers market. Along with tomatoes, they have the
biggest difference in flavor home-grown vs bought. Also blackberries myst be
the easiest thing in the world to grow (here in the bay area anyway). Getting
rid of them when you are done might be another story...

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billswift
Wild blackberries are actually small and not that tasty. If they are good,
they are almost certainly feral domestics; maybe spread by birds or an old
farm was nearby.

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andrew1
The fruit tree numbers are a bit silly; land isn't free, they should really be
including the rent/mortgage cost of the land too. The returns would be less
impressive at that point I'd imagine.

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tedshroyer
Almost every property you purchase in the United States will have setbacks and
easements on it which make a large portion of the land unbuildable. For
example, a typical suburban lot in my area will have a 5 foot utility easement
along the sides and back, then a 20 foot front building setback. It seems to
me that you're decreasing the effectiveness of your mortgage payment by not
doing something with that area like gardening on it.

~~~
jokermatt999
Just be careful where your property lines are when you plant your trees.
Whether a tree is on one property or another seems to be a common dispute.
However, if you're giving your neighbor several pounds of free fruit, they may
be more amicable to a tree growing a foot or two on their side.

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te_platt
After taking into account the cost of time and effort tending plants, it's
almost always cheaper (dollars per pound) to buy food. Still, I'm an avid
gardener because of the other benefits besides cost.

1\. Better taste. A tomato out of the garden is almost a different fruit
(vegetable?) than one from the store.

2\. Personal satisfaction. There is just something rewarding about tending to
a plant and enjoying the fruit after the work.

3\. Aesthetics. I have a lemon and a grapefruit tree I keep indoors. They look
and smell nice. The fruit is just an added bonus.

~~~
weaksauce
interesting. How big do they get indoors?

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unwind
At the other end of the spectrum from the fruit tree at least, is sprouting.

It's dead easy (I think I _could_ manage, but luckily my fiancee got bitten by
some kind of sprouting-bug lately), doesn't require much space (the window
sill is perfect) and very cheap.

Around here, a mini tub of store-bought sprouts can run around €1.5 (say, $2).
That buys probably around 500 g of dried mung beans, which will give a volume
of sprouts that easily beats the store-bought pack by a factor of, oh, 50 is
probably very conservative. It's almost scary, at first.

We cheat and use a sprouter (a small plastic container with two levels of
strainer shelves, a bottom, and a transparent lid) that was around €10-15, so
it'll take a while to get our investment back.

For the impatient, sprouting is of course also very fast, you'll be harvesting
in a manner of days.

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Jkeg
Sure, most of those plants can be cheaper to buy than grow, if you treat your
garden shop clerk as a used car salesman and let him connive you into buying
every unnecessary over marketed garden gadget in the shop. But really, most
plants will just require a shovel, trowel, cheap fertilizer, and a bit of
time. Wheat and others are obvious exceptions, because their actual value is
so low it's easy for any expense to exceed the benefit. Wheat also benefits
hugely from mechanization, but the initial costs are high. It's basically an
oddball. Potatoes don't fit that pattern, just buy seed potatoes once, then
let a few grow "eyes", cut them off, throw them in the ground and weed them a
bit. Done.

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KingOfB
A) Tomatoes are a must grow and pretty simple. The taste of a tomato that
never touches refrigeration is almost a different fruit. Easy to grow in a 5
gallon bucket on your deck or wherever.

B) Carrots are my favorite fresh. I can't believe they said there wasn't much
of a difference between store bought and garden bought. Although I have
noticed that I have gotten a few exceptional carrots at time. It may be that
their such a durable vegetable buyers can be negligent and leave them sitting
around for ages.

C) Asparagus plants take a while to establish but are easier than growing a
fruit tree! Key is to plant them correctly and to lime the hell out of them
every fall / spring. They thrive under the right soil conditions.

And on the foraging front, Mushroom Foraging is actually pretty simple for a
few location dependent varieties. Chicken of the woods or Sulfur Shelf is
blooming all over the place this time of year in New England. Hen of The Woods
is also bloomer, although not as easy to spot.

My favorite grow-your own was Giant Shiitake's from Fungi Perfect. Buy spores
online (30$), find a suitable tree(30$ or free) and a days of work to get
started. Water in droughts and you will get tons of mushrooms twice a year for
2-3 years. I had 3 fruiting logs and I would get 6" deep in a grocery bag of
portabello sized mushrooms! This was one of my more satisfying hobbies,
although the logs died in a drought last summer =(

<http://fungi.com/plugs/plugs.html>

~~~
camiller
B) Carrots - my father-in-law did carrots once. Horribly bitter taste. I don't
know if there are different varieties or if it is just soil composition but
ugh.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Probably soil composition. I've noticed wide variation in taste of carrots
from different parts of my garden. I don't bother growing them anymore because
they are so picky about good soil.

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xentronium
You have to invest quite a lot of time to get everything to work.
Nevertheless, growing your own food is still very popular here in Russia, when
almost every family (even with <600$ total monthly income) has its village
cottage with some plants. You get to harvest and eat fresh only late summer
and early autumn though.

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brc
Well I have a small garden but try and get maximum yield from it. I've got
Chives, Onions, Spring onions, basil, oregano, Thyme, and Rosemary. I have
lettuce, tomatoes,zucchini,snowpeas and broccoloi, and celery. I have a small
mandarin tree that yields by the bucketfull. In my planning I'm pulling out
some decorative trees and replacing with a banana patch and I'm experimenting
with pineapples.

I would estimate it's mostly been a money pit - the yields have been nowhere
near enough to justify the time or money. For me it's a chance to do something
real (I work from home) and a great learning opportunity for the kids.

The other thing not to forget is growing flowers. They're much easier and you
can have fresh flowers inside the house for a very small outlay, or just keep
them in the garden and enjoy.

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prawn
With potatoes, when you have a few starting to get past it in the cupboard or
potato box (going soft, growing on you, etc), just throw them in the ground
and they will take off.

For anyone with a small amount of garden space, look into the book One Magic
Square (I think that's what it's called). Local author/gardener, suggests
square-metre plantings that are complementary or that will give you crops
suiting certain meals (salads, soups, etc). The other big advantage is that
you add a square-metre and get used to it before you take it further.

IME, one risk otherwise is diving in too deep and finding you've bitten off
more than you can chew (well, manage by weeding, watering, etc). Instead,
start incrementally.

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sgoraya
Growing my own food is something that was instilled in me by my parents - We
always had fruit trees, nuts and veggies growing in our backyard. My Dad
having an MS in Agronomy didnt hurt either.

Currently in backyard in CA:

-Plums, lemons, oranges, pomegranate (my personal favorite), avocado and fig tree.

-Eggplant, jalapeños, bellpepper, corn

-Mint is the only herb we're growing

Beyond watering every evening (I actually find this therapeutic in a way), the
twice a year fertilizer (the fresh stuff we get from Dad's friend) and once a
year pruning, our backyard garden provides us food year round.

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froggy
I'd add to that list Blueberry bushes if you have the right type of soil
(acidic/well-drained). They don't need pesticide spraying and each bush can
grow up to 15 pounds/year of berries.

My yard project this fall is digging out a row of clay soil and making a
raised amended bed for 8-9 blueberry highbushes. Blueberry plants are finicky
about soil PH and drainage, so I am prepping the bed with sulfur, coarse sand,
peat, and ground pine bark chips and getting it right for planting by spring
2012. I expect they will produce ~100 pounds per year in 5 years.

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guyzero
I'm shocked they felt it necessary to mention that it's not worth your time to
grow your own wheat. That's possibly the most obvious gardening suggestion
ever.

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arohner
Not exactly a vegetable, but making your own beer is cost effective, and
tastes great (Though it will turn you into a beer snob).

It costs around $100-$200 upfront investment, and then about $50 to make 5
gallons. The time cost isn't that bad either, 3 hours on the first day, then
15 minutes, once a week for three weeks.

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mast
In terms of time and effort, it is far cheaper to simply go buy food the
grocery store. On the other hand, we need to start taking responsiblity for
the food we eat. Growing your own means you don't need to worry about food
recalls or pesticide use. And, as other commenters have noted, homegrown does
taste better.

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nobody_nowhere
Totally does not account for the amount of time it takes to plant, water,
weed, fertilize, pest-proof and on and on. $735 to maintain a garden for a
year? Sure, if you consider your time as zero-cost.

In my experience, those heads of lettuce are delicious, rewarding, and cost
10-100x what you pay in the store.

~~~
cullenking
Crazy talk - greens are so freaking easy to grow! You don't need to go crazy,
just buy a couple bags of cheap soil, mound it up on whatever shit dirt you
have, surround it with some rocks and water every other day. Water in the
morning while you drink the coffee, takes a few minutes.

Way way way cheaper than the store - I am not detracting from my work or life
in any way when I stand outside and water my (large) garden for thirty minutes
while drinking coffee. Actually, it's one of the best ways I can think of to
wake up.

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emarcotte
Do many people have advice on things that can grow inside an apartment?

I've heard/seen various lamp-based systems that have timers and things. I was
curious if there are any particular plants that would grow in the relative
dark of an apartment if I could get myself a barrel with some soil.

~~~
rwmj
It'll cost you a fortune in electricity if _cough_ my friend's experience
growing dope as a student is anything to go by.

I'm assuming your apartment has windows (or do you live in the dark?) so
invest in some window boxes. You can grow herbs easily in those.

~~~
emarcotte
I have windows, but I also live next to some trees which makes direct sunlight
limited.

I was hoping there was some secret vegetables/herbs that could deal with low-
light. I guess that means things that would be possible to grow in the woods,
like underbrush.

~~~
jgv
If your window gets sun, you can get herbs like basil, parsley, or mint to
grow indoors. Currently I'm growing catnip indoors and I plan on moving some
of my herbs indoors when it gets colder.

~~~
swolchok
Is it too late in the year to start mint? I have a very similar situation to
the OP; live in an apartment in SE Michigan with a window/balcony, but near
trees. I'm assuming it'll have to come inside around mid-October.

~~~
rwmj
Mint is like a crazy weed. It'll take over your garden given half a chance. It
survives mild (UK) winters, but probably needs to be established before it
will do that. So you might want to look for advice and maybe start it indoors
for the first winter.

I did make a great discovery this year: chocolate mint (mentha piperita). The
leaves taste like minty chocolate (you really have to try this -- you won't
believe it until you do).

~~~
swolchok
Just buy seeds on the Internet?

Also, I've heard conflicting reports about growing mint indoors over the
winter; some sources say that mint needs to die down in the winter and won't
survive year-round growing, but others don't mention it. Should I just plant
two pots, one indoors and one out?

~~~
rwmj
I've always bought it in pots, not tried it from seed. The pots are really
cheap anyway (like $3 equivalent). All they need are watering, and if they die
off, just get another pot ...

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ciupicri
_I asked Steiner how I can tell if I can use a seed again. "It says on the
package 'one-use seed' if it's been genetically modified," he says._

I sometimes wonder if we've gone too far with these genetic modifications.

~~~
billswift
Actually, except for heirloom varieties, most plants grown for decades have
been hybrids - their parents are of different varieties, so their seeds
produce different and usually far inferior products.

Newer patented varieties are _legally protected_ against being non-sexually
propagated also, like taking cuttings from herbs or roses, to start new
plants.

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vinhboy
lemon tree....

~~~
joeyh
Specifically, potted Meyer lemon tree :)

Expensive, but worth it.

