I want to comment more and more, but I need to stop myself half the time, because I know it doesn’t add anything, not funny, or will just get hated on cuz I’m ignorant of most situations/people
You’re getting a lot of hate here, but you’re not entirely wrong. Cost aside, home gardens are massively more carbon intensive than modern industrial agricultural methods. Community gardens are generally better.
That said, gardens do still offer a ton of other benefits, both for your mental health and your taste buds. But let’s not completely decentralize our agricultural system.
Appreciate the link to the paper. Will be an interesting read.
But at first glance here’s a wee problem with the study: It takes the worst practices of urban farms and compares them with the best practices of industrial farms. It is not comparing “home grown produce” from the OP, where some of the principle offenders - not using materials for a long time - may, in fact, be used for a long time. It also doesn’t study small-scale non-urban farms. Which to me IS a decentralization but by people who know what they are doing.
One example is composting, where it correctly surmises that people who don’t know how to compost correctly… wait for it now, don’t compost correctly and produce higher GHGs.
And you are mischaracterizing the results and omitting a key finding: "However, some UA crops (for example, tomatoes) and sites (for example, 25% of individually managed gardens) outperform conventional agriculture. "
I have some land prepared for a garden. It was pretty well laid out by the previous owner of the property. I’ll have some costs in getting it going, since the last guy used it mainly for flowers, so I want to put in some raised beds and something to keep the animals away from my food, beyond that, it’s all planting and waiting. It rains sufficiently here so no need for irrigation, and there’s plenty of sun. The soil is pretty decent too.
Direct financial costs will be minimal, year over year, and then it’s just the indirect cost of my time to tend to it as it grows.
There is no precise answer to the associated costs. It’ll be different for every circumstance. There are just too many variables and factors to consider.
If you have plenty of time, happen to already have good soil and climate, have all the necessary tools on hand, and are just lucky, don’t have to pay for electricity or water, and so on, the financial cost can be essentially 0 (or close to it).
The more you have to overcome your situation, the more you want to make the cultivation easier, the more you want to maximize yields, and so on – generally that’s going to incur more financial cost.
There could be upfront costs like installing automated watering systems, amending your soil if it’s not up to par, building raised beds, building fencing or installing edging. Plus, any tools you don’t already have, which might include shovels, snips, wire, a spade, and so on. Even if you’re growing on a balcony you might have to buy pots and potting soil, invest in some shade cloth, put down some saucers to protect your downstairs neighbors from getting dripped on. Those are just a small sample of potential upfront costs.
Ongoing / annual costs might include things like fertilizers, pesticides, compost/mulch, replacements for any of the upfront stuff that breaks, and even things like cost of water (which is hopefully negligible but not always).
So, if money is the only “associated cost” here, then it could basically be nothing, but it also wouldn’t be entirely unusual to spend a couple hundred dollars (USD and US costs, I can’t speak for the entire world) and some folks even spend thousands.
I thought you were sincerely asking a question and I was answering sincerely as best I could. If you would like a more precise answer for your specific situation, then I’m afraid I can’t really help there, at least not without a lot more information and a lot more time investment on my side.
I appreciate your effort in that, but I was actually replying to the OP to make the point that “there are associated costs” is not a valid criticism of home gardening.
It seems like there would more effective and direct ways (with less farce and fallacy) than asking a loaded question that people might see as a sincere request for information and an opportunity to spark a bit of interest.
It seems like there would more effective and direct ways (with less farce and fallacy) than asking a loaded question that people might see as a sincere request for information and an opportunity to spark a bit of interest.
You are the one who misinterpreted and answered a question that was not asked of you. There was no farce or fallacy in my question in the context of that particular discussion.
A lot of industrial produced food is cheap because of child, forced, and otherwise exploited labor (undocumented workers, for example). Heavily mechanized farming (mostly used for grains) is cheap because of the vast amount of fossil fuel “energy slaves” used. And that’s only cheap because the costs are externalized.
Anyways, growing your own food can definitely be cheaper than buying it. Of course, not if you start plants under lights, build raised beds and fill them with purchased soil, buy organic pelletized fertilizer, or stuff like that. It can be nearly free to grow your own food (if you don’t count the cost of your own labor) by saving seeds and intercepting materials from waste streams (wood chips, lawn clippings, manure, used coffee grounds, etc) to “feed your soil.”
Desire for isolation won. I don’t reach out anymore and I don’t respond to DMs anymore. I felt lonely for a while but the feeling has now faded. It’s honestly better this way.
It’s better to encourage native fauna by planting native flora than plant a vegetable garden that you give up on after 2 months and then gets overrun with foreign weeds.
I fucking hate gardening. Fucking hours of work, thousands of dollars in tools and materials to beg a plant to grow because it can’t be fucked to grow on it’s own. Only to watch it die and it’s fruit rot on the stem because of some Norwegian small nosed stink beetle that’s invaded the garden. OH WHAT A LOVELY HOME I’VE MADE FOR YOU YOU LITTLE FUCK.
I just wanted to make salsa. I could have had salsa any time. Months ago I could have had salsa. I could have made my own. I could have been bougie and gone to the farmer’s market and gotten all the things I tried to grow and made my own salsa.
What I’ve learned about gardening is to grow what loves to grow in my particular space. I tried a lot of plants and you know what thrived? Gerkins. Little cucumbers. Do I need 600 picklng gerkins? I do not, but thats what grows. Chives also love it back there.
So, we give away jars of home made sandwich slices and pickle relish. The plants reach up and pull on the low tree branches with their little tendrils. Its not what I want to grow (I want to grow fucking pumpkins, but they get downy mildew and barely fruit).
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