• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Home Garden Joy
  • Home
  • How to Garden
    • Seed Starting
    • Plant Profiles
    • Tools & Equipment
    • Raised Bed Gardening
  • Vegetables
  • Fruit
  • Herbs
  • About
    • Books & Classes
      • Herbalism Classes
      • Books for Christian Herbalists
      • Privacy Policy

Financial Savings of Organic Gardening

September 24, 2011 by Jeanne

There are financial savings of organic gardening as well as the benefits of feeding your family fresh, wholesome food. Let’s take a look at the financial benefits of organic gardening.

Organic gardening picture

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Financial Savings of Organic Gardening

It seems as if every autumn, I’m writing something about the rewards and financial savings off organic gardening. Last fall, it was 79 pounds of sweet potatoes from my $16 investment.  This year, it’s carrots.  I guess that’s because autumn is harvest time. I’m busy pulling carrots, gathering peppers, and canning, blanching, and freezing everything I can before the first frost. I sometimes feel like a squirrel gathering acorns for fall with the exception that I always remember where I’ve stashed my loot.

This morning, it was too rainy, squishy and wet to do any gardening, but the carrots were overdue for harvesting. I’d purchased five large freezer containers to store them and my plan was to pull them up, clean and take the tops off outside so I could just run the bucket over to the compost pile and avoid getting dirt in the kitchen sink, then peel, coin, blanch and freeze them.

I couldn’t believe the heavy yield in the garden. I pulled up about a quarter of what was growing out there and I ended up freezing approximately 10 cups of carrots.

I spent 99 cents on a package of seeds. Assuming that a can of organic carrots is $1 – and it’s probably more expensive than that, but I have only seen conventional in my local supermarket, so I’m going by that price – that a 10x profit from my investment.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Carrots are some of the easiest vegetables to grow. What do you do to grow them? NOTHING. At least I don’t do anything. I directly sow the seeds into the soil in the raised beds once the last danger of frost is past, and that’s it. I weed early in the season but after the carrots begin to form, weeding tends to pull up immature carrots along with the big clumps of crabgrass and whatnot that spring up in the beds, so I just leave the weeds.  When I pull up the carrots, I pull up the weeds.

I do not have a pressure canner, but if I did, I’d can the carrots instead of freezing them.  Both methods are helpful but I would prefer canned carrots just in case we get a power outage of some sort.

I now have stacked containers of carrots in the freezer. I found a recipe for spiced pickled carrots that can be safely canned in the hot water bath canner, so that’s a project for later this week, along with canning the last of the beets.

$1 worth of seeds yields at least $10 worth of produce.

Let me ask you, if your stock market portfolio or bank account paid that kind of dividend, wouldn’t you invest in it?

Get growing! Grow your own food. Not only will you save money, you’ll have better quality food. It’s fresher. You know what’s in it and what’s not (as in – no pesticides or chemical fertilizer used on my carrots.)  And as I sit and type this, I feel a great sense of satisfaction knowing that I can feed my family some healthy vegetables, grown less than 20 feet from my kitchen door.

Organic vegetable gardening is wonderful!

Filed Under: Home Garden Tips

Previous Post: « Beer for Your Slugs
Next Post: Cool Weather Is Coming – Are Your House Plants Ready? »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. ~Gardener on Sherlock Street

    September 26, 2011 at

    That is a great return. We tend to just eat the carrots through the summer though so I never put any up, but since my hubby loves carrots it’s all good.

Primary Sidebar

Let’s Connect!

  • Facebook
  • Instagram

As Seen in Porch

 As Seen in Porch

We were featured in Porch.com and answered reader's questions about indoor plants.

Explore All Gardening Articles

a zucchini growing in a raised bed

Growing Zucchini in Raised Beds

kale growing in a raised bed

Replenishing Raised Bed Garden Soil

raised bed garden

How to Build a Vegetable Garden Using Raised Beds

a watering can next to a seed tray on a sidewalk

What Veggies Can I Plant Now?

Herbalism Classes & Supplies

Goods Shop by Herbal Academy – botanically inspired products

Disclosure

Home Garden Joy participates in two affiliate programs: Amazon and The Herbal Academy. Home Garden Joy earns a commission from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate. As an Herbal Academy Associate, HGJ also earns a commission when you sign up for classes or purchase herbs or supplies from The Herbal Academy. Herbal information and recipes on this site are provided for educational purposes only.

Footer

butternut squash growing in a raised garden bed

How to Grow Butternut Squash Organically

Learning how to grow butternut squash organically ensures you know how to grow this tasty, nutritious vegetable in your home garden. I’ll share with you some basic information on growing butternut squash, followed by some organic gardening tips that have been helpful for me here at Seven Oaks Farm in dealing with the various pests…

Read More

herbs in a pink dish

How to Make the Perfect Cup of Herbal Tea

Make the perfect cup of herbal tea, right from your own garden! In May, I gave two free talks on how to grow, harvest, dry, and create your very own herbal teas. This lecture proved so popular that I recorded the narration and uploaded it to YouTube. You can view it below: Supplies to Make…

Read More

tent caterpillars on a pear tree

How to Get Rid of Tent Caterpillars

I spent last Saturday morning getting rid of Eastern tent caterpillars from the apple and pear trees in the orchard here on the farm. Malacosoma americanum, the Eastern tent caterpillar, is a regular visitor each spring. We first spot the shimmery webs on a clear spring day. The small ‘tents’ built by the caterpillars quickly…

Read More

kale growing in a raised bed

Replenishing Raised Bed Garden Soil

Raised bed vegetable garden soil soil needs to be replenished periodically. If you’ve done your job right and selected great soil, and amended it with nice compost, you’re going to have super garden soil for the first few years. Because you don’t walk on a raised bed garden the way that you do with typical…

Read More

  • Privacy Policy
  • About
  • Awards

Copyright © 2025 Home Garden Joy on the Foodie Pro Theme