I was out in the garden this morning after work, sweating like crazy, and the thought occurred to me: I wonder how much this garden really costs? Here is my thinking. You know how you can play with your wage, factoring in travel time, cost for work clothes, eating out, gas, etc. and come up with a very depressingly low wage per hour? I was thinking about applying that same principal to my garden, but in reverse. Not that I would ever quit gardening, even if each bean ended up costing me $5. I am just curious. If I factored in time spent looking through seed catalogues, the cost of the seeds, the cost of the tools I use, the time I spend in the garden, what I spend to preserve my harvest for the winter months, what would the cost really add up to? The knowledge that I can feed my family healthy, chemical free, natural food is priceless (as the commercial likes to say), but the thought keeps tickling at the back of my mind.
I would like to keep track next growing season of what I spend and how much time I spend in the garden. Of course, that is a lot of fiddly work, and I am sure I will forget. Still, I would like to try it. My curiosity demands to be satisfied.
3 comments:
I like Gene Logsdon's approach to this question... If you enjoy what you are doing, or find it rewarding, why treat your time and labor as an expense? It should be considered income!
If I find the passages, I'll pass them along...
I agree for the most part. That's what I mean when I say that I would still garden even if it ended up way more expensive to grow things on my own. Now you have me confused. I think the simple way to figure this out would be to charge for time and labor, but now I am thinking about the benefits of exercise and stress relief, and it also qualifies as hobby time. This is getting complicated!
I would love to read more, though.
I can't find the passages I was thinking of, but it did make me want to go back and read a couple of his books again.
Anyway, I've stopped counting my hours as "labor" for anything other than my actual job. Everything else I just think of as "living a life I enjoy." :)
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