I’ve been trying to keep track of what I harvest out of my garden. The way I put it to my mother-in-law, I’m trying to figure out how much more expensive it is to grow my own vegetables as opposed to purchasing them. Her response was, “but you don’t get the same satisfaction if you just buy them at the store.” True.

No matter the cost I will always grow something to eat. It may only be herbs, but I love the satisfaction of wandering through the garden and being able to pick a snack on my walk.

We don’t grow enough vegetables to prevent us from purchasing things from the farmer’s market or collecting our vegetable box from Terra Organics, but we grow enough to make a dent. This was very apparent last night as we wandered the 6th Avenue market. I walked out with 2 ears of corn, 1 zucchini, a beautiful arrangement of edible flowers, 2 Walla Walla sweet onions and a loaf of bread. I currently have an over abundance of peas (shelling and snap), lettuce, beets, carrots and herbs. Within the next few weeks I’ll add peppers and tomatoes to the list.

So how do you go about figuring if you are growing $64 tomatoes? The key is to keep track. In the end it is a complicated equation that figures in the cost of water, time, and supplies. I’ll go over that at the end of the summer. In the mean time I simply weigh everything that pick from the garden with a small kitchen scale. When calculating the final total I’ll add 10% to the amount to account for mouth loss (the food I eat as I go).

Yesterday’s totals are as follows:
13 oz snap peas
10 oz shelling peas (still in the shell)
6.5 oz beets
8 oz carrots
8 oz strawberries

This season I’ve collected:
almost 5 pounds strawberries
1.5 pounds snap peas (add 20-30% for what we eat on the spot)
14.5 oz beets
10 oz carrots
2 oz broccoli
lots of lettuce, cress and spinach (I don’t weigh that because we eat it too fast)
I also don’t weigh the herbs, but many an herb has been collected too.

I think we are off to a good start.