This last week I had no harvests. I did however start having expenses for the year as I put in my first seed order.
Fedco: $55
In addition I finally got my sidebar tally caught up to 2012. If you will notice I'm in the hole by over $400. Except for the seed above, these are not things I've bought this year. When I started the garden I amortized the cost
When we moved into the house I had a lot of expenses putting in the garden. Our yard was subsoil. I elected to add expenses to my tally that would occur only because I was putting in a vegetable garden. For instance the soil to ground level and brick path were not added as I would have had to put them in anyway to put in lawn. The path itself goes from driveway all the way around the back of the house and up the other side to the road. It would have gone in even if I hadn't had a garden. It might have been placed a bit differently, but the expense would still have been there. The white picket fence with the arch was something I've always wanted. I love when I see arches with the old fashioned roses growing over the top. So I swore I'd have one when we moved. The arch is actually extremely expensive, but even without vegetables in my garden it would have gone in.
That that defined what was amortized. As to how long they are amortized, I guessed as to how long they would last. So here is a list of things that I amortized.
- Fertilizers, soil amendments, 2 years, $197.26/year
- Bamboo 100 8' tall and 50 4' tall, 4 years, $65.37/year
- Wood and hardware for cedar beds, 5 years, $106.22/year
- Composter, 10 years, $5/year
- Tomato cages (really good ones), 20 years, $18/year
- Soil, 30 years, $7.44/year
- Concrete bricks, 30 years, $0.81/year
Now 30 years might be a stretch. The plan is to live in this house for 20-30 years. Basically until we have enough health issues and want to move into assisted living or our knees get bad enough we don't want to live in a non-ranch house (though the stairs are very wide and we could have a stair lift put in). Now the bamboo will probably outlive its four years and the cedar probably will out live 5 years, but it is hard to say. Basically I did the best I could on guessing the life span of the items bought.
The above basically adds up to $400/year. Half of that is the soil amendments and other things which will expire after this year. I placed a large order with NOFA (Northeast Organic Farmers Assoc) last year. I bought things like a general organic fertilizer, greensand, azomite, orchard netting, Fort V potting soil, bone char (our soil was really low on phosphorous), a planting mix for our fruit trees, fish emulsion, Sluggo (5lbs so enough to last a while) and worm castings. I shouldn't have to buy much of that kind of thing this year. Though I did use more than half of the potting soil, so I'll see what happens there. I'd like to see if I can do more direct seeding this year and less growing of transplants for things like greens.
Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.
Daphne, I love to see how you've broken down all of your costs! I've been thinking about back-tracking and doing this for our garden, so this is extremely helpful! Can you tell me how you factor your veggies worth? I have thought about checking out different stores and the Farmer's Market to find an average, but it just seems a bit overwhelming. Any ideas or tricks you could share?
ReplyDeleteI do the same thing with amortized costs as well. I updated my spreadsheets over the New Year's holiday and am (of course) in the red until the harvests start ramping up. It's usually end of July before I break even and from there on out it is a positive savings. Last year took me longer to break even because of the crappy weather year and resulting dismal harvests.
ReplyDeleteI plan to start tracking my expenses and yields this year. This will be my second year gardening. I haven't invested much in infrastructure..taking it slowly. I like the idea of amortizing though! It gives a true idea of what the garden is costing you this year.
ReplyDeleteFriends keep telling me that one of the benefits of keeping chickens or rabbits is the free fertilizer!
ReplyDeleteJust got my seed order organized as well. Should be a plentiful summer.
ReplyDeleteThis year will be less ordering for me and that means more profit - but that means that next year will start off in the red right away. It's a bit of a give and take.
ReplyDeleteYou and so many of the other garedeners are so organized, sure wish I had that skill. Noticed in your January 4 posting you order from Fedco must go to their site. Do you order from other company as well?
ReplyDeleteI never thought I'd see the day when Daphne wrote "Last week I had no harvests" ! :(
ReplyDeleteI'm trying hard to concentrate on the outcomes, not the expenses, so I may have to put a price-tag on "gardening therapy" or simply "enjoyment creeated"...
I like your realistic approach to the amortization. Makes good sense to me the way you have it broken down.
ReplyDeleteBee Girl, I try to do prices that are close to my local farmers market which is where I would shop if I didn't grow them. I usually use the IPM places since that is where I buy from. We only have one organic seller and she sells a very limited selection of veggies. My veggies are organic. So I'd use those prices if they were available.
ReplyDeleteI do one price for the whole season. For instance the early tomatoes are often $5 a pound. But the regular season is $4. If there is an overabundance they might drop to $3/pound. But I just always use one price (easier on the spreadsheet). So my price in my spreadsheet would be $4/pound. No one grows fava beans at my farmers market, so I just have to guess what they might be. Supermarkets don't sell them either so then I'd go to online prices. Sometimes I just have to make an educated guess.
So for me I ask myself, "Where would I shop if I had to buy your veggies?" That is really what they are worth since it is the money that isn't leaving your wallet. Or if you grow organic but wouldn't spend that money in the market, you can still use the organic prices if you want. Or not. There is no definitive answer. Really it is what you feel they are worth.
Sustainably Modern, I like amortizing too. It isn't good if you move a lot, but if you stay in the same house for a long time it is a very good estimate for year to year. If I had not amortized I would have been in the black last year, but just barely.
Norma, yes I often place one or two more orders, but small ones. I have about 6-10 more seed packets that I want from Pinetree. I don't need them, but I might get them anyway.
Mark, the therapy values are pretty high with me. I started calculating the costs one year because I was reading comments on the $64 tomato and Burppes claim that their $25 of seed will mean $2000 in veggies. I was sure they were both full of it, but it made me curious. So I've been doing the calculating since then. I keep doing it because I like to know the total weight of my veggies. It helps me plan for coming years. And since I already have the spreadsheet made up that does the cost calculation when I put in the weights, I keep posting the amount of that too. I also find that keeping track of what I spend keeps me from spending as much. Not that I really need to spend less. Put even if I have the money I tend towards parsimony and not wanting to buy stuff.
We have had a lot of similar expenses at our place over the years. But we started out with pretty good soil so we have only had to maintain and not really needed to improve. I just figured I would allocate all those up front costs to the first tomato out of the garden. Man that was a pricey tomato!! :)
ReplyDeletenew in the blogging world. Love finding all the gardeners out there! Most of my posts have been about my Radicchio and kids! Working on a summary post of last years garden this week :)
ReplyDeleteI like your breakdown of expenses. I have never done that but hope to this year. Have to take inventory of what manure etc. I have left in the garage for next year. I think once that is done it should be easy as I don't think I have any vegetable seeds left over but if I do it won't be significant. However, I do also furnish seed for a project I do with ARC that I don't get any harvest from but I think that would also be minimal so I could absorb it.
ReplyDeleteHow do you arrive at the cost when you harvest? I can't decide if it should be the cost if I bought the fresh produce or the cost if I bought the canned and frozen goods over the winter.
I've got some expenses to track too, tho on most things I expense them out the year I buy them, I suppose if I buy some new equipment I might amortize it.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to pull out my little notebook and tally up what my expenses were from my first growing season in my new greenhouse.
ReplyDeletegreat post.
Stacey
www.downtoearthdigs.wordpress.com
Wilderness, the price of the veggies is determined by my local farmers market.
ReplyDeleteYou're so organized and detail, my only concern now is to get out of the doldrums, get my seed order in, and complete the trips with my girls. That means I'll be MIA again for a while before settling down to gardening.
ReplyDeleteI kept a list of expenses last year, and early in, I felt a bit self-conscious for the cost of the garden. Last year was also the first year I weighed the produce. I haven't tried to calculate the profit of my harvests, but the weight tally easily put my indulgent fears to rest. What could be better than a beloved hobby that easily pays for itself?? Thanks for the tips, Daphne.
ReplyDeleteYour organization and spreadsheets are inspiring! I'm a data lover, so I really want to know how much things cost and how much they are worth. Since I'm weighing harvests this year, I hope to figure out how much everything is worth. However, I dread taking into account the cost of my garden structure. I went a bit overboard with a terraced garden (~$3,000). Going to take a lot of veggies to make up that deficit! Maybe I'll deduct for increasing property value, otherwise I might have to live here 100+ years to make a profit!
ReplyDeleteI found a great database at USDA for the market values of veggies based on region, date, and organic. You can find a link at my blog: http://sanguinaria-budding.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-much-are-my-veggies-worth.html
ReplyDeleteHow you are able to keep track of all the costs is something. We should do more of that ourselves. More direct seeding seems like a good way to save a little money to me.
ReplyDeleteIt's great that you kept such good track of what you bought. I didn't. I need to go back and see if I can figure out what I have spent.
ReplyDeleteLynn
That is so impressive - I think what stops me really calculating my costs of gardening is that I might be revealed as a spendthrift and have to stop shopping - hmm on second thoughts perhaps I should follow your example after all....
ReplyDeleteDaphne- I'm in Watertown- where do you find the best deals on seed starting suppies e.g. trays, cells, soil mix, etc? I used to go to Lex gardens but now I just go anywhere willy nilly! Love your blog.
ReplyDeleteDiane, I so loved Lexington Gardens when there were around. I have a ton of trays. I bought the last ones from Pinetree. I don't need cells as I have soil blocks. The soil mix I love it Fort V (from the Vermont Compost Company). The only way to get it cheaply (ie no shipping) that I've found is to get it through the Northeast Organic Farmers Assoc. They do a bulk buy every year in the spring. You have to go pick it up at one of their drop off points on the designated day.
ReplyDeleteYour mention of Harvests made me think that you and readers of this post might like Folia the online gardening website.
ReplyDeleteIt's a great resource for gardeners and has helped me keep on top of my 800+ plantings with photo's, notes, journals, milestones etc. They have an extensive plant wiki and a seed stash section where people can also list seeds for swapping and see who else is growing the same plant around the world.
Here's the link join and to access my own Folia pages www.myfolia.com/gardener/CDfolia/invite. (my member name is CDfolia).