Too Expensive to Grow Your Own Food?

okay as a goin good to see ya I'm mark from self-sufficient me and today I'm continuing my empire build in our vegetable garden knocking up some nice long raised garden beds for a tunnel it's a real mesh tunnel that I built hard about a decade ago and now I'm refurbishing it adding on to it and making it a lot better so that would be more useful but as I was building this it occurred to me I've been hearing a lot of negative stuff about people how should I put it pupu the idea of building a vegetable garden as opposed to buying your food from the supermarket now where does this come from if it tries to be bloody crazy you know people starting to say I mean are these fanboys of supermarkets and big corporations or something I don't know but whatever the motivation the the notion that you're better off buying your food from the supermarket and not growing anything in the backyard is complete and utter bull when you are anyway that's what I want to talk about quickly in this video let's get into it [Music] so recall years ago I saw a book on Amazon I'm not sure if it's still there and I can remember the exact name but it was by a guy who wrote a good thick novel or information book about how growing your vegetables at home in your backyard is not economical and in fact you'd be better off buying them from the supermarket I've always remembered seeing that and wondering what a wanker writing a book like that I mean how easy is that to debunk and it happens a lot I mean people say you're better off paying rent rather than buying a house you're better off renting a car rather you're leasing a car rather than buying a car though that type of explanation is very popular at the moment and the vegetable garden thing is becoming more and more popular as there is more and more people wanting to grow their own vegetables in their backyard and food or fruit or set up a small fruit orchard in their backyard or front yard or wherever you know a little food forest these are becoming very popular at the moment especially with the rise of energy costs which is making food go up and just the Ryder rise in food production all over and also people's concerns about what they're putting in their mouths where their food comes from so there's been this rise and with this rise in backyard food growing there's been this rise in negativity in in the sort of attacking people on in a negative way to say that oh you think you're so cool growing food in the backyard well but in fact you're actually an idiot because you're not saving any money at all in fact you're spending more money so why are you doing it you've been brainwashed well I'm here to oppose that argument I'm gonna smash it to pieces so for a start why has everything in life becomes so mathematical well why do we have to attribute a cost to everything and break it right down like that's the only thing that matters is the money side of things so what I mean by that is that the most common thing that people that oppose growing vegetables in your own backyard it's too expensive because by the time you even if you're not building garden beds like I am which we know costs quite a deal of money but say if you're not in power building like I am say you're going really frugal say you're just digging a hole in the backyard or digging up some some dirt making a fruit few furrows you're not putting in much equipment or much materials into that so you're going really frugal even that type of gardening you're going to have strong opposition towards for some bloody reason these days they're going to say well have you thought about how much it costs in labor have you thought about how much it would cost you spending that time say $20 an hour digging your furrows and planting your vegetables how about the seed let's take into account the water on that let's take into account the fertilizer or you think it's free but it's really not be even if you're making your own compost there's all these other costs involved so the materials labor and cost argument is a really simplified type of way to attack it and it and it happens like I said in everything they can apply that argument to most things simplify it right down and to the average Joe Blow it might make a little bit of sense until we start to pick it apart us backyard gardeners know full well that that's like I said the bull manure argument it really does sound nice and shiny and good on the outside but when you really delve into it it's quite easy to pick apart I can give you an analogy I mean say you are investing in a raised bed garden like this because you like the convenience of stand up gardening like I do of a raised bed that's easier on your back it's easier as you get older that type of thing that even looks better in my opinion overall I just enjoy this type of gardening but yes it costs more some of the materials of this project that I'm making now is around five six hundred dollars I'm using a lot of recycled materials but then you know I'm using not recycled iron sheeting and say of course that's going to add quite a bit of cost but let me put it to you this way say you're really into your food and takeaway food is costing a real lot and you're mainly buying takeaway food because your kitchen is really small your ovens terrible it really needs a makeover and you hate using it it just doesn't work for you but then you think you know what if I the kitchen if I did I catch and makeover and renovated that kitchen space I'll really use that space a lot more often and so you go ahead you renovate your house you renovate the kitchen you get it all singing and dancing it's nice and shiny you get a extra bench space so that you can put more things on and you get a pantry so you can store more of your preserved foods and all that and then this argument comes up so you're now using that kitchen and you are happy about it you're thinking I'm using the kitchen all the time we're hardly ever buying takeaway or takeout as you say in the USA we're hardly ever doing that so we're saving money and then you got mr. smartypants comes along and goes hang on have you considered how much it cost to renovate your kitchen and are you taking that off or using that against your takeaway product so for example those cupboards and the island bench that you put in cost $500 you know how many takeaway foods you could have bought for that you could have had takeaway food for a good three months or so and if you add in the whole cost of that kitchen and the labor that might be ten or twelve thousand dollars if you banked it and got the interest on that $12,000 na and left your kitchen all crappy and just bought takeaway food you could be ahead three or four thousand dollars in five or six years that's the logic of course we know that's really stupid and it's the same for that argument when they say don't put money into your backyard don't put money into a vegetable garden don't buy a raised garden bear don't buy fertilizer buy your groceries from the super-mo because overall you're going to save money through that letting someone else grow your food of course we know that there's a lot more to it than just saving money but saving money is one of the things and I could tell you now the reason why we started growing food on our property was to save money and yes we did initially have some outlays and we're still putting money into our backyard but it is in the long-term saving us money how much does a save you in the long term having a healthier body having a healthier heart losing a bit of weight eating healthier how much might that save you in medical costs in a whole range of things it's going to save you money health-wise I know personally I just like eating things that I've grown myself it's a sense of achievement but from that health perspective you're eating something that you know what's being done to it I mean I can give you a terrible example which was framed on our ABC news network in a different way it was framed you know in a good way I was horrified to hear a sweet potato farmer not far from us was digging in tons of sweet potato because it just couldn't be used because they grew a glut of it and there was too much on the market and so there was nothing he could do about it they tried to turn into a good news story by saying that there was another company a young couple that started a business on making sweet potato flour and banana flour and they were going to use some of the extra excess stock sometimes they just plow the fruit and vegetables into the ground simply because they don't look quite right simply because there's a few they don't knew not the right size or slightly too big or the slow too small they've got to be perfect to put on that supermarket shelf now this is the sanity that's starting to go on this big waste of food so they were framing it as a good news story that some of this waste product was being repurposed which is good some of it was used as feed for pigs or cattle or whatever and and other stuff was being powdered and repurposed but a lot of it was still getting dug back in so this farmer he was saying they dig it all back in but of course a sweet potato and it Rees Prout's so what they've got to do because don't want it to Reese Prout and grow when it's not controlled they will then use a herbicide and poison that crop to make sure that it will certainly die yeah and then they replay the soil and they put in the produce and then they regrow it and then they put it on the supermarket shelf and we eat it and then no doubt there's a residual of the glyphosate or whatever herbicide they use and the pesticides they use and we eat that I know most farmers do their best to especially in first world countries to make sure that they do all the health things right withholding periods and all that but nevertheless there's been a lot of reports especially over this last decade of misuse in the industry and of residual pesticides and herbicides being found in everyday food on the supermarket shelf there's been a lot of horror stories about that and there's been a lot of links to cancers and and poor health results from this type of of ingesting these type of things and chemicals into our system from the food that we eat even in packaged foods they're finding lots of chemicals that shouldn't be there so growing our own food in the backyard from a health point of view as as something we consume isn't just about eating healthy and eating your veggies and all that because you're growing them and not eating as much fatty takeaway or processed foods so it's not only good for the waistline and the health overall cholesterol and heart and and and that but it's also good as far as the chemicals and that we're consuming because you can control your environment in a backyard location quite easily so health is a huge deal when it comes to debunking that stupid myth that growing your own food in your backyard is not cost-effective health is probably the biggest one I haven't even really talked about the mental health side of things personally I came from the military the last 21 years I spent in the military and I got some baggage out of that I was injured terribly and all that but mental why's this type of lifestyle this type of hobby that's turned into well started from a survival type of thing when I did leave the full-time job to become a home dad started as a way to be frugal and grow food grew into a healthy type of lifestyle that was good for all of the family and it helped me out personally to be able to give me a release and relax from some of the baggage like I said that I carried over from a military career so those those costs you can't really put a figure on them they must be huge 2l they easily debunk and outweigh the costs so-called of growing your own food I mean if you really want to get silly about it you could say well what's the price well what would you pay for an extra few years alive on the planet extra few good healthy years as opposed to buying take away all the time or buying supermarket food that maybe you know constantly I hear we all buy a bit of supermarket food here and there I just encouraged people to buy less of it if possible but just say hypothetically it's silly but I'm just going to be silly for a second and say hypothetically not buying all your soup microphone or your packaged food or your processed food not eating all that junk and not eating a whole heap of takeaway eating less takeaway and say living this like type of lifestyle eating more healthy and fresh food from your own garden that's that's not ie been hit with all sorts of chemicals be been sitting on the Shelf transported long distances and lacks nutrition anyway the eating top range food and say that makes you live an extra two or three or maybe five years longer overall how much would you pay for an extra five years on the planet I mean you know is it is that worth what $10,000 is a 50,000 is it a hundred thousand would you pay if you had that money in the bank and say well you know what god here's a extra hundred k just give me a five more years I'm sure you know many of us would would pay that say perhaps by living this type of lifestyle yeah you're making it up in that cost-effectiveness so again that argument that food gardening is not cost effective just doesn't weigh up at all in my mind how about the environment you know the government especially and corporations impose huge costs on us the citizen and their customers for extra energy that they use you know they want us to pay more for energy they tax us on energy costs so that we can use more from the Sun and less coal in that because they say it's better for the environment so we're paying extra for that so how about we save the environment we save carbon you know we save all those costs because we're not transporting our vegetables the furthest our veggies and fruit go is from the backyard into the kitchen or maybe yeah they transport to a friend's place or family when we take them some extra produce but you know what I mean so you're saving on the footprint the environmental footprint by growing your own vegetables see actually helping the environment in so many different ways it's not just the transportation cost it's the recycling you're recycling food you're you're composting yeah yeah you're not traveling as much because your hobby is in the backyard I mean I don't know you could make up so many of those counter-arguments when they want to go stupid on that one side and and bean count literally on how much each bean costs for your seeds yeah that's providing you're not saving your own sudras is very easy to do and then regrowing them next year but say they're counting the bean costs they're counting the ward they're canning the soil the accounting depreciation they're canning a lecture garden beds cost the canning your labor costs they're putting all that together and they're writing these books in these articles saying it's cheaper to get your fruit and veg from the supermarket than it is to buy it or they do these kind of fair shows and they actually have a voice like that exclusive channel 7 it's cheaper to buy your own vegetables from the expensive supermarket then grow your own who would have thought yeah they carry on like pork chops anyway I suppose I think that's enough I know I haven't covered all of them because I'm just speaking off the cuff here but I'm sure you guys have plenty more too often the people that support my videos a lot and watch them quite a bit they do have some really excellent comments and points of view so whether you agree with me or not - I'm happy for you to disagree and put some of your own points down below but especially if you've got other things you can add to this video welcome down below so that others can read them and yeah because like I said I've gone off the cuff and I might not have covered all those points because I could probably sit down and write a lot more valid more points as well but you know I just wanted to have a chat while was out here building this garden bed because it was on my mind and I thought you know what I wanted to have a crack at one of these types of videos off-the-cuff see if you enjoyed and if you did give it a big thumbs up and let me know in the comments as well because then I can do more of these not ranty style videos but more of these sort of what's on my mind informative type videos shows a bit of my experience in growing fruit and veg bit of life experience as well but hopefully keeps you entertained and gets the thoughts flowing and maybe also debunk some of the myths out there through my point of your opinion so there you go thanks a lot for watching bye for now I got to get back and start building because I've got a lot of work to do and I can't wait to get that finished and start planting out because we've hit spring and I need to get growing I've got some really cool ideas and I'll like I said I'll do a proper video on this down the track on this build but just let me get it started first so I can show you what the idea was and how I intend to grow it we're thinking good tunnel cucumber tunnel tomato tunnel that's a sneak peek alright see ya [Music] [Music]

Channel: Self Sufficient Me

Views: 449,195

Keywords: Save money grow your own food, grow food save money, how to save money on food, save money on food, save money on groceries, save money, how to save money, how to save money on groceries

Id: YKCavoQc4dc

Length: 21min 3sec (1263 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 07 2018