[Madame Cholet]

Cost a few packets of seeds an new pair of shears and £20 pa rent

Harvest
cycling/walking there and back is cheaper than a gym.

Entertaining others by climbing in skips and carrying stuff home and carrying cardboard in my sack.

The amazing number of people i have met there and en route and on here.

Bought virtually no veg this year and it tastes heaps better and no chemicals.

OODULES of raspberries loganberries and gooseberries

my sanity a beautiful place to chill out look a t the view and listen to the kites whistling.

Hours of endless fun playing the song game with Cadalot and Baldy

a stone less heavy from joining the healthy living club.

Hours of fun dehydrating pickling jamming ect and selling my surplus on the stall reading book and researching on the web.

[surbie100]

It's going to take a while to get back what I've spent, but I started out with absolutely nothing. Not even a dibber or a pair of gloves.

I'm calculating the harvest value this and next year. I reckon I need to do that just to get it out of my system. Though as a relative newbie it's also handy for working out which crops I want more/less of. I know 6 PSB isn't enough for us, but we'll be absolutely fine with fewer spuds...

[Mother-Hen]

I cannot put a price on the satisfaction I get from feeding my family from the plot or the hours I have spent at my sanctuary to save my sanity.
No price is too great if it is something you truly enjoy......

[marcofez]

Priceless! It's my haven!

[BussinSpain]

Peace and quiet, plenty of good weather, free exercise, home-grown food - priceless:)

[DD.]

If I started to put financial costs on my plots, I would have to take a step backwards and seriously think about why I was doing them.

[beesrus]

As a boy child,  I was always intrigued with perpetual motion. To me, that was probably a  manifestation of wanting to understand the planet, and properly being a part of nature.....  a bit like being one of those pesky birds effortlessly floating on the air over the allotment, or a kid picking wild blackberries.
I love the plot, more than the garden, and the money isn't really the issue of course .. it's all a delight.

But what money does do is give me an indication of how natural and "sustainable" the growing efforts are and how likely the plot is to remain sustainable. The less money spent, the less external input other than my labours, the more I'm getting it right, probably almost a Buddhist  viewpoint in a way.
So, here's to a year soon where it just costs the rent, a bag of chicken manure, and a very few seeds, with everything else  being continually recycled bounty from those 200 square metres. It take years to get the right plants, composting and balance.

[rosiecider]

Have no idea on money or hours,but my health I am sure has benefited all that exercise cheaper than gym membership and more fun, local wildlife is pleased looking at them feeding on the flowers and herbs, food is tastier than the supermarket stuff and it feeds my soul too.

[Aunt Sally]

I'm happy to spend money on whatever gives me so much pleasure

[cadalot]

I'm addicted what can I say - I have bought some items that I'm unlikely to use much (petrol generator and electric tiller) but actually next year I actually could use them as I've now done all the hard work getting there. Now it's the hard work keeping it like it.

[rosiecider]

I'm addicted what can I say - I have bought some items that I'm unlikely to use much (petrol generator and electric tiller) but actually next year I actually could use them as I've now done all the hard work getting there. Now it's the hard work keeping it like it.

And all the hard work keeping some of mother nature at bay ie pigeons, slugs, cats, rats, mice and  a border collie off 

[BabbyAnn]

I have to confess that the harvests make all the time and effort worth while, but when my income was reduced I took on an allotment to save money on food bills as it was only one of just a few areas where I could reduce my spending.  The bonus is being outdoors, being creative, making friends with like-minded people, always learning new things even though I've been at it for a number of years now.  The financial cost is still a factor to me and I hate to say it, but I don't think I've done a very good job of saving on the food bills at all 

[nipper31]

I dread to think how much my allotment cost me when I had one, per pound of beans I probably spent about eight quid but never really added things up for fear it would be more!! Had to give it up in the end because it got to be too much work for me on my own and no longer had anyone to help me. Now I try to grow a few bits and pieces at home in a little veg patch, got a few spuds this year, some garlic and a handful of strawbs (slugs got the rest!).
I enjoy cooking with stuff that I've grown and the satisfaction that I go out into the garden to harvest, so no carbon footprint or food miles.

[Kristen]

I too don't tot it up. 

My aim is to grow veg which has the best possible flavour (so poor yield, disease prone [up to a point!] and "fussy" are all fine, provided they taste fantastic , and no chemicals at all - I very very rarely relax that, the whole crop has to be at risk, and I can't remember the last time in 7 years on this plot that I have used anything [other than fertiliser and some slug pellets]).

Bit hard to get solutions to either of those at the Supermarket, so I figure there is no direct price comparison and thus absolutely no justification is required!!

This year I have started growing through Mypex / Weed suppressing membrane.  I made that decision when about 25% was already planted, so the later 75% has been done that way.  A fair amount of extra time was spent cutting "X" slots for each plant-position in the Mypex (individual pieces, one-per-crop, labelled to be reused in future years, and with a bit of extra length in case I want to plant a-few-more of something in future years, any excess rolled up otherwise).  That apart, there was some increased time spent at planting, as its a bit more fiddly than just "slamming them in", but I figure that next year the Mypex will be down long before the crop is planted, so I won't have to spend time hoeing the weeds off, so that will compensate for a bit more time planting-out.

Upside, from this year, is that I have done far less watering (long term goal is to put some leaky hose under the Mypex at planting time), and pretty much zero time spent weeding where the Mypex was in place (some weeds still poke through the "X" where a plant is planted, but little compared to having to weed the whole bed).

A gardening mate, also a newbie to Mypex-ing the whole plot , and I think, subjectively, that yields are better.

I'm not planning on using it for some crops (I figure harvesting Parsnips, through Mypex, will be a nightmare), and I'm not too sure about very closely planted crops, like Onions or Garlic, but my mate is going to do it for everything!

[cadalot]

I also invested in weed membrane and have cut to bed size and made holes in on different patterns for different crops and I will be using them again next year and for as many years as they last - they have reduced the weeding down so that I can actually keep on top of those beds with crops that I can't used the membrane on.