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Kris and I are huge fans of gardening. We grow our own flowers, herbs, fruit, berries, and vegetables. We're not able to supply all of our needs, but we do what we can. For the past two years, I've argued that this is an excellent way to save money if you have the time and the space. But is it really?

In the middle of the month, Kris placed an order for seeds. As usual, she exchanged ideas with a couple fellow gardeners, and they pooled their resources. A packet of seeds contains more than we need, so it's nice to be able to share the cost with friends. Kris says she won't plant anything until March, but I know that as soon as we get a sunny day or two, she'll be itching to get to work. Here's a glimpse of her spreadsheet:

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First, we picked up the oak leaves that had buried our strawberry plants. The strawberries are allowed to run wild in the rose garden, sending their runners to-and-fro. A friend gave us 50 plants for free when we moved into this house in 2004, and now we have too many to count. We fertilized the berries last fall.

So far in 2008, we've spent $27.30 and 6.5 hours caring for our fruit and vegetable gardens. March will see more action. We need to fertilize certain plants, prepare our indoor planting material, and plan the vegetable garden. And any day now we'll see our first peas poking through the earth:

On March 15th, we fertilized the strawberries with Strawberries Alive. On the following weekend, Kris raked the leaves from the vegetable garden (we use them as a cover during the winter) and spaded one area. I'll use the rototiller to work the earth in a couple weeks.

Kris had the day off last Monday, and the weather was sunny and warm; she couldn't resist. She spent two hours planting her tomatoes out in the vegetable garden. She dug a deep hole for each, mixed in a bit of fertilizer, gently patted the plants in, and placed the tomato cages around them.

Aside from the setback with the vegetable garden, we spent some more time in the yard during April, preparing our food-producing plants for summer. I spent half an hour hanging pest traps on the fruit trees, and Kris and I combined for an hour of work tying up the berry canes. (The raspberries and blackberries have gone berserk, by the way. They love the moderately warm, very wet weather we've been having. Wow.)

We did make a few small purchases during the month. We spent $25.98 for a new hose, as well as $2.53 on a couple of herb seed packets. (We spent $21.50 at the annual plant show yesterday, but that's an expense for May. If you hope to grow a garden this year, now is the time to check for plant sales in your area. They're an excellent way to find quality vegetable starts and expert advice.)

We also placed two garden-related orders online this month. We spent $23.59 at Park Seed on supplies for next year. (We're counting this as a cost for 2008 in order to compensate for the material we purchased in 2007 but used this year.)

Kris and I both spent time in the vegetable garden this month, but not as much as I had expected. She spent about four hours planting things and applying a foliar fertilizer. I spent an hour spading the soil (no rototiller for me this year) in order to prepare it for the corn, after which I planted the seeds themselves. I also spent half an hour weeding the grapes. Combined, we spent only 5-1/2 hours working on fruits and vegetables in May. (Kris says she would have spent more time if it hadn't rained so much!)

Sally Herigstad at MSN Money highlighted our garden project in her recent article listing five foods it's cheaper to grow. The foods? Fruit trees, lettuce, herbs, vine vegetables, and bell peppers. She also lists five to leave to experts: potatoes, carrots, celery, asparagus, and wheat. Thanks for pointing to our project, Sally!

While Kris and I may not be putting a lot of work into the garden yet, the plants have shifted their efforts into overdrive. They loved the warm, wet Oregon May. The berries are bearing, the fruit trees are fruiting, and the vegetables are growing like gangbusters.

This will seem like a bounty to some of you, and like a pittance to others, but it's what our garden produces. It's what we have space for. Actually, I believe both crops were substantially reduced this year due to the weather. Even the peas struggled. (Peas don't usually struggle in Portland.)

Last month I wrote that I doubted we could recover our expenses on the garden. This month, after only small harvests of peas and strawberries, it seems like there's no question that the garden will save us money. I'll bet we harvest $300 in tomatoes alone!

Earlier I mentioned that Kris picked twelve pounds of strawberries at a local farm. U-Pick produce is an excellent deal if you don't have a garden of your own. A family trip to pick berries can be an excellent outing for children, and it can yield some delicious jams and syrups.

It was a berry, berry good month at Rosings Park (as we call our happy half acre). Gloomy June faded into memory, the sun came out, and the berries ripened. This is the time of year when there's little to do in the garden but water the plants and harvest the produce. There's plenty of work to preserve the food, however: canning, freezing, and drying.

This month Kris spent about an hour each weekend fertilizing and keeping tabs on the garden. Together, we spent one hour this month tying up the tomatoes, spreading mulch, and other chores. But most of our time was spent picking berries. We combined for about six hours harvesting our produce. We spent eleven hours total working on our crops this month.

During July we spent $20.94 on the garden for three bags of soil to go around the roots of the blueberries. (The bases of the blueberries are mounded, and the soil tends to erode, exposing the roots.)

Here's one of the sad secrets of gardening: mid-summer can be frustrating. If you don't stay on top of things, the garden can get away from you. Here's an actual quote from Kris mid-month. We were on the couch watching Olympic diving when I transcribed the following lament:

Remember: we have a modest garden. We grow food for fun. This project will determine whether there's a cost benefit as well. But even a modest garden can produce a lot of food. With my mother in the hospital and Kris' parents in town, we didn't have much gardening time during the first two weeks of August. For a while, there was a danger that we'd lose control, but we managed to persevere!

We'll continue to exchange produce with other people, giving away our surplus and enjoying the bounty of other gardens. In about a month, I'll be able to harvest Concord grapes from the neighbor across the street. The juice from these is fantastic.

As the summer wends its course, food production will remain high, especially among tomatoes. We'll also begin harvesting fruit before long: pears, plums, grapes, and apples. As usual, we won't have copious amounts of any of these (except tomatoes), but just enough to relish the pleasures of gardening.

September generally brings the largest harvests for our garden. That was true again this year, but not by as much as we hoped. The bad weather at the beginning of the season means that things just aren't ripe yet. Kris has been encouraging her tomatoes for weeks. I'm dying for the grapes to be ready. (They're almost there!)

September's nice because there's almost no garden maintenance. All we have to do is stroll out to pick the food we want. During the middle of the month, Kris and I had a mild misunderstanding. I thought she told me to go pick all of the apples from our trees, but she really told me to pick a few for some jam. I came back into the house with 19 pounds of apples, which was far more than she needed. We made a spontaneous batch of applesauce.

Kris has made notes on her garden plan to help her organize her seed order for next year. Only a few short months until the seed catalogs arrive! And she has begun an experiment to grow a few herbs indoors this winter. Stay tuned on whether that is worthwhile.

October can be something of a relief for gardeners. The bulk of the harvest is finished, and all that remains is to pick the last straggling fruits and vegetables, and to begin cleaning up. While it's sad that the harvest is winding to a close, it's comforting to know there'll be a respite from the work for several months. Plus it's a chance to start dreaming about next year, all of the changes and improvements to be made.

On Sunday morning, John wheeled in a trailer containing about three cubic yards of this stuff, so Kris and I spent an hour spreading it over the vegetable garden. We're happy to have finished this task already, especially in such a frugal fashion.

Not counting the fruit trees, that's a total of 878 square feet (81.61 sq. m.) devoted to gardening. Those of you in the country might think this garden is small; those on city lots (or in apartments) might think it's huge. For us, it's just right.

Our total harvest in October yielded $130.77 in produce, most of which was tomatoes and grapes. (Our grape vines are just beginning to mature. The yield from the plants should increase markedly in the future.) Here's the complete tally for this month's garden production:

We spent a little more time in the garden this month, but again had no monetary expenses. The numbers for this month's harvest also include $25 for the fresh herbs that we've harvested throughout the year (chives, basil, cilantro, sage, thyme, bay leaves, marjoram, oregano).

All that's left now, really, is to perform garden clean-up. We'll probably have several hours into the garden in November, but I doubt we'll have much time in December at all. That'll give me a chance to write a summary of the lessons we've learned, and to provide some tips for others who would like to try this!

Though we'll spend more time in the garden this year, we're unlikely to spend more money, and we're unlikely to harvest anything else. We're fairly certain that the numbers above are close to the final numbers for the year. We've spent $318.43 on our food and harvested $606.97 worth of produce. Roughly, we doubled our financial investment in this project. 006ab0faaa