My allotment still saves me money - it's official

This time last year I posted the results of my calculations of how much the veg my allotment produced would be worth if I had bought it, in season, in the shop. As I grow organic I based these on the price of organic veg at Tesco where available, non-organic if not.
http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=25837.msg305739#msg305739

I thought it might be nice to do the same again. This time I have totted up all the veg harvested from 01 Nov 2008 til now - 12 month's worth.

The grand total was £642. Minus £188 in costs (netting, manure, seeds, rent, petrol...) gives £464 "profit"*.
*Excluding hours of backbeaking toil.

Big successes were broad beans (I actually got some this year - last year the blackfly killed them) - 21kg/ £83.00, rocket (grows like a weed, very expensive to buy), 7kg/£70.00,  delicious Costoluto tomatoes (greenhouse) 17kg/£85.00 and purple sprouting broccoli, 6kg/£45.

Relative failures compared to the previous year were onions and garlic, french and runner beans and  beetroot. Some you win, some you lose on the great roulette wheel of allotment gardening.

I still find it strange that crops like chard and rocket that are dead easy to grow are so expensive to buy. Just supply and demand I suppose. My wife has been offloading bags of rocket and more than a few courgettes on her unsuspecting colleagues at work - they profess themselves to be delighted, and who are we to disbelieve them? Most of the stuff we have eaten ourselves, or pickled or frozen though.





 

we save roughly £500 per year in veg and stuff , supply our 2 married children and 3 grand children,

before they get anything from the plot they have to dig a little or help out in one way or another on the plot