The first head of cabbage from the garden.

This month's produce totals have been a bit eye-opening for me. First, it's important to note that this is a lousy growing year. Like much of the U.S., we've had terrible weather for growing food; while many of you have been overly hot, we've been unusually cool. It's disappointing...and I found myself wishing that I'd chosen a different year to share produce totals with you. But then I realized this is the perfect year to share my totals with you because it reveals that even in a lousy year, we are still money ahead. Gardening pays off much more than people realize, even when only considering the financial aspects of it.

But the other way this produce tally surprises me is in regards to fruit. The last time I undertook such totals (back in 2013), we lived in the suburbs. I didn't grow a lot of fruit. So I was shocked to look at grocery store fruit prices and then multiply them by what we're getting out of our orchard. Again, this is a lousy year for the orchard; we aren't seeing much of a harvest at all. Still, some of the cost savings are shocking. Look at the blueberry figures! I had to re-run them five times before I could believe the figure was true.

The garden in August.

One last thought: This gardening year has cemented in my mind how important it is to preserve, preserve, preserve. When you have abundant harvests, keep preserving, even if you're preserving more than you can eat in one year! For example, I wish I had dehydrated more summer squash last year. I had a huge glut of squash, and I gave tons away, thinking I had plenty preserved. Nope. This year, I'm getting almost no summer squash, so I will have to do without in the coming year. Bad gardening years are a reality. They will happen.

Dinner of beef, homegrown broccoli, and wild foraged mushrooms.

 

Still, I'm very thankful for what I can grow and that God is providing us with as much as He is. I haven't had to buy any produce (except things that don't grow here, like oranges...but those are niceties, not necessities). And the food taste so good! Soooo much better than anything I can buy. Thank you, Lord!

August Produce Totals:

To learn more about how and why I am keeping these totals, click here.

A little note: While I make every effort to gather accurate numbers on my produce, in some cases, the numbers shared here are definitely a bit lower than the actual harvest. This is because my family steals fruit from the orchard :) and because I sometimes don't weigh leaves off main crops, even though we do usually eat them. (Example: Broccoli leaves aren't counted, just the heads, even though we eat both.)

Tomatoes 3 lbs.

Cherry Tomatoes 7 oz.

Blueberries: 42 lb. 19 oz.

Saved in August: 

$727.29 if purchased conventional; $1,041.18 if I purchased the organic options available.

Saved in 2024 so far:

$1,265.02 if buying conventional and $1,395.55 if buying organic.

 

2024 Gardening Expenses

Walla Walla onion starts: $4

Cherry tomato start: $5.49 (a single plant and a hedge because the new-to-me-variety of cherry tomatoes I started from seed were looking less than robust)

Potting Soil: $47.96 (primarily for potting up peppers in the greenhouse; some will get used for flowers, too, but I won't try to parse that out.)

Organic snail bait $17.96 (I had to use more of this than is typical because we had such a cool, damp spring)

Total gardening expenses so far: $75.41

Total savings minus expenses in 2024: $1,189.61 if buying conventional; $1,320.14 if buying organic when available.