Rosalind Creasy did a small plot 3 years ago and documented the harvest. The title of her Mother Earth News article was "Grow $700 of food in 100 square feet!" http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/Square-Foot-Gardening-Food.aspx She also posted photos and some notes about a winter/spring crop on her website http://www.rosalindcreasy.com/edible-garden-how-to/
None of these estimates seem to take into account the land rental fees for community garden plots, which are getting quite expensive in my area. (I assume the $70 is for garden supplies?) I'm 20-30 miles north of San Jose, and I have a long growing season. Although I grew a variety of crops, I weighed only the tomatoes this year. I was wondering how my numbers work with these estimates. One of my community garden plots is only 66 sf and costs about $175 a year just to rent the space. Using Pattie's estimate of 2 lbs/sf and $5/lb, or $10/sf, yield would be $660 minus $175 minus $70 = $415. Using Manuel's numbers (half a pound per sf, or $1/sf), $66 for a 66 sf plot minus $175 land rental minus $70 supplies = ($179) ---> ROI is negative! I've only weighed tomatoes, and tomatoes were on less than half of the plot, but my yield was about 88 pounds. So at $2/lb (though it would cost more than $2/lb to buy the organic heirloom tomatoes I grow, if you could find those varieties for sale), that's $176, which cancels out the plot rental. And I also harvested 6 types of pole beans, 2 summer squash varieties, 4 kinds of kale, beets, cucumbers, and some basil, which easily give a significant positive ROI. I could also have grown celery, garlic, onions, more brassicas, mache, and peas in the spring, but I got the plot in March and spent a month or two weeding and improving the soil. Despite the high fees, one of the benefits of this plot is the fruit trees around the edges, which are available to all (including people who can reach over the rickety fence). So I also harvested small amounts of mulberries, plums, apples, figs, and persimmons. On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 12:52 PM, Perez, Manuel <[email protected]>wrote: > Home Food Gardening Production > > $2 per pound at average, in-season produce prices $600 estimated dollar > return for a 600 sq. ft. food garden- $70 average food-gardening investment > = $530 average food gardening return on investment. > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://list.communitygarden.org/pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20121114/d08aa301/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: http://list.communitygarden.org/mailman/listinfo/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org
