Garden Accounting - June

This is my sixth year at this house, which means my vegetable garden is pretty well established (although it seems to grow every year!) and the perennial fruit plantings are starting to bear (I just got my first mulberries this year!) so I thought I would take a record of how much I spent on the garden, and how much produce I got out of it - basically, is the garden paying for itself (I KNOW it's worth it - if nothing else, just because I know where my food is coming from, and what's in it!) I tried to do this honestly, which means taking the prices from what I would otherwise buy, not the high-end fresh organic it really deserves to be compared to.  If I would buy organic, I compared it with organic; if I would just buy the cheap stuff, I used that price.

So, here's how the garden did for June:

First the bad news: I spent $183.06 on seeds, started plants, hog panels (those cost me over $80 right there), red mulch film, and other supplies.

Now the good news:
I saved $154.23, just in the month of June. This was mostly greens and herbs - can't wait to see how much I save the rest of the summer, when the tomatoes, cukes, carrots, etc. start rolling in!

In case you were wondering, here's what I actually harvested:
3 pounds of rhubarb
1 1/2 pounds of spinach
5 1/2 pounds of lettuce
2 green onions
3 oz dried oregano; 16 oz fresh
10 teabags worth of chamomile
16 oz fresh chives
4 pints fresh strawberries (almost half of these were wild - I am so thankful for little girls who love to pick them!) :)

Like I said, I've never done this before, so it was nice to see these results. It made me feel much better when I was out weeding this morning!
(For the continuation of this series, click here.)