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Green Chemist

The Price of Gardening

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About a month ago, my wife and I were looking at the new woolworths supermarket at Richlands to see what was on special there. As we walk around looking at the prices, we were horrorfied to see that a bag of spinach was $6. The spinach was old and also ready to be thrown out, a 1kg tub of good quality yorgurt was $6. Was quite amazed. See here, in our house we make make kefir, a yogurt type food for $1 a kilo. Our family can go through 2 or 3 kilos of kefir a week. Thanks to aldi's UHT milk being a $1 a liter. We buy up to 24 at a time. It made me think how much we save by producing our own food.

Our food we grow or produce is either organic or made with out a lot of chemicals. Instead of buying chemical fertilizers, we harvest horse manure from the local pony club who are more then happy to give it away for free. This makes great natural fertilizer and we also use it to make manure tea. We made comfrey tea using leaves that came free from a comunity garden near by. The same garden provided us with free chive plants that we have planted in our garden and now have quite a few. If we need to mulch, we can collect free grass clippings from sport ovals after they have mowed the grass. It just cost us some petrol to drive there and a little bit of effort to rake it up and put into bags.

We get items we need for garden either cheaply or by recycling items, such as free styrofoam boxs from fruit anf vege shops. We buy our rice in 25 Kilo lots and reuse the bags to put manure or grass clippings. I have seen some Australians complain about the high prices of food and yet they do not try to grow their own food. Thankfully our garden helps to insulate us against the prices shocks that can happen with food.

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I have seen some Australians complain about the high prices of food and yet they do not try to grow their own food. Thankfully our garden helps to insulate us against the prices shocks that can happen with food.

 

most new houses dont have enough "garden" to grow anything.

one thing i keep writing/mentioning to t.v gardening shows, stop showing crop rotating veg gardens when most cant get 1/4 of those size beds in their yard instead set up a court-yard kitchen garden and show that for 12 months.far more inspirational.

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I have a bit of dirt about .5 by 2M in my tiny courtyard :P Ahh the cost of living!!

most new houses dont have enough "garden" to grow anything.

one thing i keep writing/mentioning to t.v gardening shows, stop showing crop rotating veg gardens when most cant get 1/4 of those size beds in their yard instead set up a court-yard kitchen garden and show that for 12 months.far more inspirational.

 

Totaly true!

Edited by eatfoo

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i tried my hand at gardening in my flat last year and ended up having to move out before most of my veges were ready, i got alot of fresh garlic, potatoes, leafy greens, herbs, berries, rhubarb, plums and apples though. i hope whoever got my garden appreciated the free food!

this year i am just that little bit more experienced and prepared. and i managed to inherit a garden with plums, apples, figs and apricots already well established.

go growing your own food!

Edited by bogfrog

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It takes a lot of oil to grow and ship the food we eat. As the price of oil rises so does the cost of food.

Always good to shop at the local markets, save yourself money and help the environment.

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It takes a lot of oil to grow and ship the food we eat.

true, but w/most imported foodstuffs ($8.5 billion in 2008-09) the cost ov freight is not a factor in the shelf price.

If it were, there's no way most ov these products would be so much cheaper than the domestic produce.

A unilateral carbon tax will probably not help this situation.

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