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| Our garden is one of the best investments we make each year. This is last year's cash crop. Better than a gold mine, and more fun. |
I find it interesting to see that many consumer staples that we don't need are getting cheaper and cheaper, while things that we do need, like food, are getting more expensive all the time.
This year, the price of vegetables is predicted to rise between 4 and 6 percent, and that is after quickly rising fruit and vegetable prices in previous years.
The way I see it, growing a garden gets better and better with each year that passes. This year alone, my garden will be 4 to 6% more valuable than last year.
Compare that to the 0.5% that I get on my "high interest" bank account. A garden is even a better investment than gold bullion, and a lot less volatile.
And unlike money, or gold, or stocks and bonds, when you invest in gardening, you can eat the results. Plus what a garden does for you soul can not be counted in dollars. It is an investment in personal wellness.
Happy Summer, and happy gardening. Or, for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere, happy Winter, and happy gardening.
With the unrelenting rain we've been having here in Ohio and across the mid-west, I would imagine that vegetables and fruit will be as dear as gold. How lovely that you can plant your own garden and enjoy it's bounty. It's something that I envy. I'm hoping our local farm stands will have something to offer this summer at a fair but reasonable price.
ReplyDeleteThat rain is crazy. I read the Mississippi River has been at flood stage for months. Months! I hope your farmers get the conditions they need soon.
DeleteWe will be checking farms in our area for some the things we don't grow. Thinking about making blueberry jam/jelly, for example, and there is a blueberry farm just down the road.
We plant a garden and virtually live off it once it starts to produce.
ReplyDeleteA garden is a bounteous and wonderful thing. How is yours progressing?
DeleteThis is awesome! Love your math!
ReplyDeleteI just bought some discount tomato plants from the grocery store. Rescued, more like. Four small, but otherwise healthy plants for .63 cents. I couldn't not buy them with that kind of math.
DeletePlus they looked like they needed someone to love them. Someone like me.
Your garden is looking very good, hope you enjoy many meals from it. Each year my wife and I try to make some improvements and additions to our gardens. This year we expanded the gardens to include a 3ft by 6ft cold frame. This enabled us to start eating salads from the garden in early April and hopefully will let us grow greens and other small produce well into the winter, not bad for NJ.
ReplyDeleteGardening is a wonderful skill to develop because you can use and improve upon it the rest of your life. You will always have to eat and the price of food keeps going up, so there is a sort of compounding of benefit going on here as well.
Ed
We are always amazed at how much food we can harvest from a 8 X 16 space. We would love to have a cold frame. Perhaps when we get settled in our own place.
DeleteI love your assessment of gardens and gardening. So true!