Does your garden ACTUALLY save you $ ?

[Farmfresh]

I put all of the dog hair I brush out around in my garden to keep away the varmits. With a 1/2 Husky that makes a LOT of dog hair.

 

[wrybread]

We have a 23 year old cat so to ensure the rest of her days are peaceful, no new deer repellent pets for now. A fence would be costly (DH's objection) and unsightly, given where the garden is located in the yard (my objection). DH also refuses to tinkle out in the open in view of the neighbors. (Haven't decided whether that's selfish of him or not!) Hair hasn't worked and neither has used clumpy kitty litter.

So this is what I've decided to use, after spending 643 hours on-line researching this dilemma:

Spray on a blended mixture of:
raw eggs
hot sauce
garlic
liquid soap

Reapply after rain.

The U.S. Forest Service has used a derivative of this for years and the government is never wrong, right??!!!

 

[VickiLynn]

We have a 23 year old cat so to ensure the rest of her days are peaceful, no new deer repellent pets for now. A fence would be costly (DH's objection) and unsightly, given where the garden is located in the yard (my objection). DH also refuses to tinkle out in the open in view of the neighbors. (Haven't decided whether that's selfish of him or not!) Hair hasn't worked and neither has used clumpy kitty litter.

So this is what I've decided to use, after spending 643 hours on-line researching this dilemma:

Spray on a blended mixture of:
raw eggs
hot sauce
garlic
liquid soap

Reapply after rain.

The U.S. Forest Service has used a derivative of this for years and the government is never wrong, right??!!!

I use a mixture similar to that. I put minced garlic and raw eggs into an empty gallon jug, and fill the rest of the jug with water. I let it sit and stew a few days, shaking it occasionally, then sprinkle it all around the perimeter of the garden. At first it smells terrible, but the smell disipates as it dries. The animals can still smell it, though. The deer and rabbits stay away. Oh, and it's good for several rains. Whenever it rains, I can smell the stuff again for a while.

 

[tortoise]

My SO has declared the garden a success and (if we pro-rate the fence) having paid for itself. I am approved to expand the garden for next year, and to buy heirloom pea seeds (yay!).

The only good stuff this year was green beans - one 10-foot row and as many as we can eat - but not enough that it is worth preserving - and cucmbers - one hill of 3 plants is keeping us in cream cucumber salad for every meal. The potatoes seem to be OK. I dug up one plant early and got about 5 lb of potatoes off of it. We have 10 plants this year, so I'm expecting to get my goal of 50 pounds of potatoes!

SO would like to put them on trellises and grow cuckes for PICKLES next year! Our peas didn't do fabulously well, and he eats them all fresh. I guess he really meant it when he said that I couldn't plant too many peas. We had 2 sickly rows this year. I am thinking 6 rows next year.

Our garden isn't fabulously amazing, but it is a surprise. I remember hours and hours of weeding, bug picking, with deer flies swarming my head, and barely getting anything out of a garden when I was a kid. I didn't realize how POOR the soil was. (My parents found out years later that there used to be a driveway where they put the garden! )

I weeded early in the season and did some newspaper mulch under the cukes and melons. We got a low "ground-cover" type weed growing and I let it go. It is about an inch tall and small enough that it doesn't compete with the veggies, but it keeps out the big weeds! Sweet! We're letting it go to seed and hoping it will come back next year.

Rambling, but YES it seems to have paid for itself! Who-da thunk-it?!

 

[Wifezilla]

Last night for dinner I had stir fried chicken with yellow summer squash and young zucchini from the garden topped with shredded parm.

OH YEAH it paid for itself. YUMMMM!!!!

 

[me&thegals]

My garden is making up for last year and doing so well this year! Late blight has hit WI, so that could be another loss, but otherwise things are thriving. The things I usually struggle with are incredible this year!

I figure that just ONE picking of any vegetable has already paid for the seed costs for that planting. Now, just to find the time to get everything put up

 

[VickiLynn]

My garden is looking good, too. We're picking green beans every day, along with zucchini. I have yet to get a ripe tomato, but there are lots of green ones! Last week, I took a huge cutting of broccoli, and the onions and peppers are coming along. It's been too wet to get in and weed, and picking beans is more fun than pulling weeds anyway. I haven't dared to dig around for potatoes yet, but the plants look healthy. I'd like to put in a fall planting where the peas and radishes and spinach were, but the soil is too wet now.

 

[dagaul101]

Not really it's a pain to maintain it

 

[freemotion]

Onward and upward, dagaul! I find that gardening and processing the products of the garden gets faster and more efficient each season. What was painstaking and overwhelming now is a chore, but a faster one, and I don't get so far behind anymore. Still get behind, but more gets used and less wasted. OK, with the animals, nothing is really wasted!

 

[FarmerDenise]

Onward and upward, dagaul! I find that gardening and processing the products of the garden gets faster and more efficient each season. What was painstaking and overwhelming now is a chore, but a faster one, and I don't get so far behind anymore. Still get behind, but more gets used and less wasted. OK, with the animals, nothing is really wasted!

I agree. Each year I do more stuff and different stuff. The stuff I repeat get to be more automatic.
I spent yesterday making pickles using cucumbers and onions from the garden, the bits (cucumber ends and onion skins) one would normally throw out, went to the goats. I made a stew in the crockpot using turkey legs from a wild turkey, green beans, squash, carrots, onions and garlic, all from the garden. The wild turkey came from FIL's garden. It had been raiding his tomatoes. Again all the usual vegetable digards went to the goats, chickens and the rabbit. With the exception of some salt and other seasonings, everything came from the garden, including snacks for the critters.
Today I will be making an apple pie with apples I traded the neighbor some cucumbers and tomatoes for. There is nothing that can beat a homemade apple pie, unless you go to a fancey restaurant where they make it from scratch. And it cost me a lot less!!!
I also have a super tan from working out in the garden and hopefully am getting some free vitamin D.