Wherever they are growing, plants do best in rich, nutritious soil that drains well. Creating that situation is a garden-wide issue—you don’t just improve the area where your tomato plants will grow. That means that any significant soil amendment expenses would take an equal bite out of the return on investment from all the plants you grow.
COMPOST
Creating your own compost in a compost bin is a great way to save money, and it has real benefits for the environment, too. And plants love it. For making Mel’s Mix, I like to blend many types, including some bagged products, but the best is still the compost you make yourself.
Composting is one of the biggest favors you can do for your garden, your wallet, and the environment at large. Everything from eggshells to fall leaves, grass clippings, kitchen waste, and even unfinished cardboard boxes can be composted. The process is easy, takes little time and effort, and provides a rich improvement to the nutrition and texture of your soil. Although you can buy compost made from different source materials, general compost from a backyard composting bin or pile is usually just as good and costs you nothing.
Priceless H2O
Water is increasingly becoming a scarce commodity in areas across the country. The result is that local water companies are creating thresholds. Once exceeded, the cost of water doubles or triples. This presents a challenge to anyone looking to grow a large and varied garden. Given how much water any garden plot can consume, we had a discussion about including water usage in the expenses calculated against crop yield value, but that was problematic. Depending on where you live in the country, your water bill may range from eye-popping to insignificant. Water usage is also rarely broken down into inside and outside the house, so a high water bill may reflect long showers and frequent clothes washer and dishwasher use every bit as much as watering your garden.
But there’s no getting around the fact that certain plants are thirstier than others. If you live in an area of the country regularly affected by drought, such as central California, there is a good case to be made for adjusting the overall ROI calculations of all your crops by a percentage of your water bill. No matter what, to maintain maximum garden value, take steps to limit your outside water use.
Free water! Install a rain barrel or two to put that free water from the sky to good use (and keep it out of the sewer system).
• Water in the early morning or early evening to avoid excessive evaporation.
• Collect water if possible. A rainwater collection system is a good way to supplement city or well water, especially for watering crops. Specialized greywater systems may also work if they recycle water from low-impact sources such as the kitchen sink. However, check local codes for regulations concerning greywater usage and edible plants.
• Mulch wherever it won’t impact the health of your edible plants. A layer of mulch at least 4 inches thick will go a long way toward conserving soil moisture.
• Use a drip irrigation system rather than a sprinkler or hose. A sprinkler will moisten leaves which can, on many plants, lead to disease. Using a sprinkler also results in a vast amount of water lost to evaporation. A hose supplies so much water so quickly that much of it simply drains away. You can also water by hand if that is a practical option given the size of your garden and the amount of time you’re willing or able to dedicate to it.
Labor Costs
The calculations for Section 2’s listings could have included some factor that accounted for gardening labor, but in the end we chose to leave that out for three reasons. First, everybody puts a different value on his or her own labor. Does a doctor’s time spent in the garden have more value than time spent by someone earning minimum wage? Who’s to say what per-hour rate would be appropriate? Second, the amount of labor you put in changes depending on how much you grow and how you grow—what type of gardening you do. For instance, raised bed gardening takes more time and effort up front, but is usually less labor intensive as the growing season progresses. Third, and perhaps most importantly, I’ve always felt that gardening was enjoyable time well spent. Most gardeners I’ve worked with or talked to agree. It’s a wonderful opportunity to get some practical exercise, enjoy fresh air and sunshine, and get away from pressures in your life. Like a lot of people, the joy I get from gardening can’t be calculated like work. In the end, if you must, go ahead and add a per-hour rate broken down across the season and across all the plants you grow. But be prepared that the figure will most likely skew your return on investment into the negative numbers.
GROWING VALUE: 5 BEST DROUGHT-TOLERANT VEGETABLES
You can conserve water by choosing your vegetable garden plants carefully. Some are naturally better suited to thriving under the pressure of restricted water, and others simply don’t need plentiful moisture. As a rule of thumb, edible plants and varieties with smaller leaves and smaller fruits generally use less water.
1 HOT PEPPER
2 ROSEMARY
3 OKRA
4 GARLIC
5 BEAN (POLE AND BUSH)
The Cost of Land
Although gardeners rarely think of it this way, land can be considered a gardening expense. Committing a portion of your backyard—or front yard—to a garden (even a Square Foot Garden) means not using that portion for recreation, landscaping for property value, or some other use. However, garden land value is an esoteric calculation and one that most people would agree should not have a direct impact on the value of produce grown on your property.
A fee-based community garden or rental plot is another case entirely. If you are paying for access to the plot where you set up your garden, it only makes sense to divide the total outlay across the input calculations for all your crops. This can be a handy catch-all expense, because fee-for-planting community garden plots often include water and even amendments within the fee.
The Starting Point
Just about every plant can be started from seed, but in a home garden, many are often planted as “starts” of one sort or another—seedlings, cuttings, or bulblets. Take asparagus. Asparagus is normally purchased and planted as crowns. I’ve kept this in mind throughout the calculations; where the crop is most commonly planted as a seed, the input for that crop will be the seed packet price, divided by the number of seeds in a packet, and then multiplied by the number recommended by the seed company for planting a square foot. If the crop is conventionally planted as starts, I’ve used the cost-per-start based on an average of nursery prices, multiplied by the number of starts that would be planted in a square foot.
Using seed prices as a one-time expense can be a little trickier than just plugging a number into a simple formula. Some plants, such as the asparagus mentioned above, grow as perennials (and asparagus won’t produce a crop for two years unless you buy mature crowns). Buy them once and the plant will produce for years. Other crops, such as carrots, require new seeds every season. To deal with this, I’ve divided the seed prices in half for any plant that can grow more than one year. This is a conservative estimate, meaning these plants will probably have a real-world return on investment even higher than what is recorded in the listing.
Whether to grow from seeds planted directly into your garden, seeds started indoors, or purchased seedlings is a major decision that will have a great impact on the ROI of any crop you grow.
It should be pretty easy to see that this is one of the more complicated columns to fill out on the chart. This is where you could theoretically calculate in water costs, fertilizer, mulch, topsoil, equipment, and other expenses. Certainly, many articles about determining the dollar value of a garden suggest doing just that. To me, these are total gardening expenses. You can always handicap one of the listings if you think that particular crop is going to take up more than its fair share of resources in your garden. But I’ve tried to keep the calculations included in the Section 2 listings as simple and direct as possible. You can consider them a starting point, off of which you can build as you see fit.
SECTION
HIGH-VALUE VEGGIES: THE WINNERS!
And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. The envelope please…and the homegrown edible with the highest return on investment is…herbs! The runner up: parsnip. And in third place: cherry tomato.
Our congratulations to the winners! And now that the suspense is over, here’s the whole story.
The listings that follow describe all 59 edible plants we looked at in this little competition. Herbs (we included twelve different ones) came up so high because of their relative price-per-pound at retail, that we made the decision to separate them out and award first place to the entire category, even though, as you’ll see, the actual ROI does vary among specific herbs. Consequently, the listings begin with the “Herb” section and the herbs in descending order of ROI. Then we move onto the vegetables and present them in order of ranking from highest to lowest ROI.
WHAT DO WE MEAN BY VALUE?
As we talked about a little earlier, value means many things to many people. Our winner is based on a cold, analytical evaluation of return on investment. That may sound a bit harsh when you’re talking about yummy, beautiful produce that’s made from seeds, water, and sunshine. But if you’re trying to decide what’s worth growing in your own garden, it’s important. For a fascinating look at some other ways to consider value, don’t miss the listings in Section 3, starting here.
HIGH-VALUE VEGGIES:
MEL’S TOP TEN
The list of high-value garden winners features some surprises, such as a not-widely-loved root that perhaps should get more attention than it does. There are also some edibles on the list that should surprise no one: tomatoes remain both a popular vegetable and a solid garden investment.
1
HERBS
The high-value powerhouses overwhelmed the vegetables when it comes to ROI. The ones we included in this general category are (in order of ROI): thyme, rosemary, mint, chives, tarragon, basil, oregano, dill, sage, cilantro, Italian parsley, and curly parsley.
2
PARSNIP
Not familiar with this easy-to-grow root? You should be. Offering enviable nutrition and fiber, the lowly parsnip makes a wonderful, lower-starch alternative to mashed potatoes, and needs only a little dressing up with some butter, pepper, and kiss of Parmesan cheese. One bite and you’re sure to find a place in your garden for this top performer.
3
CHERRY TOMATO
The combination of small, bite-sized fruit and prolific production in a small area combined to land this lovely vegetable garden addition high on the list. Perfect for containers, raised beds, and traditional gardens alike, this is a star performer.
4
GARLIC
Garlic can be crowded and still do well. The production in a square foot accounts for the bulbous vegetable’s prize mid-list position, and the fact that garlic can easily be stored for months only adds to its appeal.
5
HEIRLOOM TOMATO
Unusual and unique, with distinctively rich and deep flavors, heirloom tomatoes are quickly becoming a favorite type to include in larger gardens and anywhere eaters don’t mind odd shapes, colors, patterns, and sizes in their tomatoes. This delicious edible bought its way onto the high-value list because they are so expensive at retail—but that doesn’t mean they are any harder to grow than hybrids!
6
TURNIP
Yet another root vegetable that made the Top 10. This one is a sleeper that boasts not just a richly flavored root, but super nutritious greens as well. Many cooks combine the two for stunning vegetarian dishes—the root is as good in soups as it is roasted. All that, and turnips are easy to grow. A miniature variety called ‘Japanese Turnips’ is harvested when it’s about the size of a large radish. They grow fast, and are very pretty. I’ve used these to encourage kids to eat something besides fries!
7
LEEK
Boasting a distinctive flavor a cut above the common onion, leeks are fairly simple to grow and require only ample water and nutrition to thrive. The sheer weight of the harvest accounts for its high position on the list, but if culinary potential had been factored in, it might have been even higher up.
8
WINTER SQUASH
This is one of the most surprising crops among the top 10, but winter squash earned its position with the sheer yield. That means, in the most practical sense, winter squashes of all types produce a ton of usable calories. And that’s not all. These odd-shaped vegetables provide a wealth of nutrients and a high amount of fiber, which spells health no matter what rank it’s given.
9
SPINACH
The calculations favored the productivity of spinach plants against a relatively high retail price among all greens. But what’s not counted in the calculations are the vitamins and minerals spinach offers. You might also consider harvesting the leaves early because baby spinach leaves are especially tender and flavorful—perfect for when you’re eating the vegetable raw.
10
HYBRID TOMATO
Rounding out the three types of tomatoes in the top ten, this is the most common. But even within hybrid varieties, you’ll find a lot of diversity from which to choose. Tomatoes of all kinds remain a favorite among gardeners everywhere for the delicious, abundant fruit.
HIGH-VALUE VEGGIES:
MEL’S BOTTOM TEN
It’s important to note that just because a crop falls to the bottom of this list, it shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. Financially, these are the vegetables that make the least sense to grow, but there are lots of other reasons to pick one crop over another. For instance, several of these can be considered “superfoods” crammed full of nutrients. Or perhaps you just love a nice, crisp homegrown potato (I know I do), in which case you probably don’t care that they finished dead last in our high-value survey.
1
POTATO
Much beloved, but potatoes simply don’t produce enough yield to combat a very low price in the supermarket. Still, it is one of the more fun crops to grow and certainly one of the most delicious. To be honest, I was a bit surprised they came in last place in our ROI rankings. Sorry, spuds.
2
BRUSSELS SPROUTS
Wonderful cancer-fighting compounds and a well-rounded flavor point to a better position on the list for Brussels sprouts. The story here, though, is one of production. The yield is too modest to make a big profit from the supermarket price per pound.
3
BELL PEPPER
Who would have guessed? As popular as bell peppers are for the sweet flavor and beautiful colors, this is one of the most widely available—and inexpensive—vegetables in the supermarket produce aisle. The plants are also not as prolific as other contenders.
4
SWISS CHARD
This is the big surprise in the bottom ten. Delicious and incredibly nutritious, Swiss chard is also one of the most beautiful greens you can put on the table. But a low retail price point, and modest yield weight, translated to a low ranking.
5
ASPARAGUS
The initial expense, difficulty of cultivation, long maturation, and relatively low retail price point all combine to lower this popular and tasty spear vegetable down to the bottom. But to those who love the flavor and culinary adaptability of this gem, the low ranking is not well deserved.
6
OKRA
The low ranking reflects okra’s lack of wide popularity (unless you live in the South) and the modest price at retail. It is an acquired taste, and one that cannot compete on a broad list of vegetables such as this.
7&8
BEAN (POLE & BUSH)
Beans are an example of a modest financial performer that remains a popular backyard garden crop. A low retail price despite a good yield accounts for the bottom-of-list placement, but this is still a fun vegetable for kids, and a highly nutritious garden addition. Another nice thing about beans is that you can grow different varieties either l
ow as bush beans or high as pole beans.
9
CELERY
Although this salad ingredient is fairly easy to grow, the low ranking is a consequence of low retail pricing due to the unexciting nature of the vegetable. It can be used in many ways in the kitchen, but doesn’t provide the flavor explosion of others on this list.
10
GREEN CABBAGE
Rounding out the list, the 10th-lowest ROI veggie is green cabbage. It takes a lot to grow this highly nutritious and cancer-fighting vegetable. Between a lengthy growing period and the large space a single head requires, the return on investment is low. But you would be hard pressed to find a green more adaptable in the kitchen and more chock full of vitamins and nutrients.
HIGH-VALUE VEGGIES:
MEL’S COMPLETE LIST
VEGGIE
ROI*
1
HERBS (THYME)
$69.08
2
PARSNIP
$35.04
3
TOMATO, CHERRY
$26.13
4
GARLIC
$25.21
5
TOMATO, HEIRLOOM
$23.65
6
TURNIP
$22.86
7
LEEK
$18.72
8
SQUASH, WINTER
$18.15
Square Foot Gardening High-Value Veggies Page 3
