How Economical is a Vegetable Garden?

Over at Down To Earth last Thursday, there was an interesting comment from Tracy in Brisbane:

A few people have commented to me recently that growing one's own vegetables/salad items is not always financially viable... What would you have to say about such claims....?

I am assuming that by 'financially viable' they mean 'money expended on the vegetable patch does not exceed the usual shop price of the harvest'. That is, is a vegetable patch economical?

I thought I'd consider the matter on my own blog. There are a lot of variables, so it's hard to make a general case. I can only provide specifics for my situation, and raise some of the issues with the calculations.

Vegetable garden costs per annum:

• Seeds ($80)
• 4 bales old hay &/or sugar cane mulch (say $50)
• Additional water (say 2 hours a week @ 4 l/min = 25 kl *$1.87 = $50)
• Bag potting mix ($10)
• Electricity to run my seedling heating pad at night for 2 months (say $5, but it's probably less)
• Chook food, since the chooks provide the fertiliser and eat insects and weeds ($120)

Total cost: $315 per annum

Issues:

• Some gardeners buy most vegetables in as seedlings; this is considerably more expensive. Home-collected seeds are, of course, much cheaper.
  
• I was in two minds about including the hay, as its first purpose for guinea pig bedding in winter. I decided, however, that I would need to mulch the vegies even if I didn't have guinea pigs, so I left it in.
• My chooks are a fundamental part of my vegetable garden, because I tractor them in it for half the year. I rarely move manure about (only when I want it around a plant in the front garden) because the chooks generally deposit it where I need it. Of course, if you don't have chickens, you will have to get your fertilising and pest-killing done in other ways, which are probably going to involve more money.
  
  

Food produced per annum:

• Free range eggs, say 2 a day for 9 months= 45 doz (@ $6/doz, that's $270)

Breakeven cost for vegetables: $45 per year

Now I don't weigh and price my harvests as Scarecrow does, but I'm pretty sure that I am getting more than $45 worth of vegies out of my patch in a year!

Issues:

• I'd probably recoup my $45 on fresh herbs alone. If I didn't grow fresh herbs, however I would probably use less of them in my cooking, rather than buy them in -- so how do I account for that?
• If I grew potatoes, carrots and onions in my back yard, I would not get the dollar value that I do by growing asparagus, fancy lettuces, Tuscan kale, herbs and so on.
• I wonder what the market price of chervil is? I have never seen it for sale, so how do I price it? What about the interesting cultivars I have that are not available in the shops?
• If you have an organic vegie patch, its contents should be priced accordingly. You are not producing forced tomatoes for $2/kg.
• The taste issue is a big one for home gardeners. Even the expensive truss tomatoes aren't a patch on the taste of a fresh, home-grown tomato. Strawberries, peas and sweet corn also deteriorate very quickly, and are never as nice from the shops. But you'll find a 'taste premium' on all home-grown food. Even spuds!

As a final note, someone will no doubt ask how I priced my time. I haven't. The reason is that my garden is also my hobby. I don't buy scrapbooking materials, or cross-stitch, or anything else in the artistic or craft line (note that many crafts are quite expensive). Which, I suppose, raises another question: should I deduct at least some of the money I spend on gardening from my craft budget?