The Cost of a Garden

Did you know: You can buy one Garden Anywhere Box-GAB ($60) and one bag of potting mix *($15, but you can get it for $10 or less if you find a sale) for a total cost of $75. The GAB and the potting mix can be used year after year. Let’s say that your GAB and Potting mix last five years. Suppose you plant two tomato plants ($3-or seeds which would be way cheaper) in your GAB. Your initial investment would then cost you $15 a year (plus plants minus the $$$ that you would spend to buy tomatoes) a year to grow yummy, delicious, homegrown tomatoes. What if your boxes and potting mix last eight years or more which is probable. That would be $75 divided by 8 for a cost of $9.38 or less a year to grow LOTS of tomatoes. Our boxes are going on eight years, so this is a realistic goal. We think they should last 10 years or longer.

Let's suppose that you like your GAB and want to expand your garden. You decide to buy a 3 box system ($199-this includes three GAB's, the watering system, fertilizer and dolomite) plus 3 bags of potting mix ($45 or less) for the cost of $241 plus the $75 that you’ve already invested for a total cost of $316 divided by 8 years equals $39.50 a year for a No weeding, Self- Watering and Portable garden. Now you have four GAB’s and a watering system. You have four boxes that you can grow yummy, delicious, home-grown tomatoes, or peppers, cucumbers, squash or anything that your heart desires and a watering system that you can hook up to your outside watering system that attaches to all of the boxes (like box cars) and waters your garden for you. You can go away for a week at a time and your garden will be watered automatically. Too good to be true? No, it’s a reality with a Garden Anywhere Box garden.

You can expand your garden each year adding as many boxes as you want. This will be the sixth year (updated to say going into our eighth year) that we’ve been gardening the GAB way. Last year we had boxes on the deck, by the pool and out in our actual spot where we used to garden the “tilling and weeding” way. We grew over 40 tomato plants, assorted peppers and squash, corn (yes, corn-12 seeds to a box) kale, herbs, okra, sunflowers, and other assorted fruits and vegetables.

Like I said, you can use the same potting mix year after year. Every few years, dump the potting mix on a tarp in the sun for 2-3 days between planting cycles. This allows the potting mix to aerate and sterilize as the sun removes unwanted bacteria/fungi, etc. It is fine to dump the potting mix in one big pile. After it is mixed, aerated and dried, put your potting mix back into your GAB’s. Put a new strip of fertilizer length-wise down the box and if you are planting many different nightshades (tomatoes, peppers, egg-plant) you should renew the dolomite regularly to avoid blossom end rot. Add new plastic to your GAB to keep weeds out and moisture in. Secure the lid and you are ready for a new growing season.

Compare this to the cost of a garden in the ground. You've got to have a place to grow a garden. You need good soil or amendments to the soil, rototiller (helpful) shovels, rakes, hoes, trowels and other assorted helpful tools to ready the ground and remove weeds. Once you get the ground ready,it's time to plant. Make your rows. Plant your seeds. Hope that a big rain does not come to wash away all of your hard work or that a freeze does not come to freeze all of your baby plants. How do I know this? That has been our experience over the years. It got to be so hard to want to grow a garden because no matter how hard we worked, we seemed to get very little yield for our effort. It was not only the time it took to plant the garden, but then the weeds would come, even with mulch and heat that took over about mid-July caused me not to care what was growing. It was just TOO HOT to want to go out and fight the weeds.  I had pretty much given up hope of having a garden until we started using boxes to grow a garden. Finally, success! Five years later, some modifications by Larry and Garden Anywhere Box was born.

*Potting Mix or Soil- Potting Soil: Contains Soil (Dirt). Potting Soil will often not give optimal results because its thickness does not allow adequate water and airflow in containers. Best Uses: Raised beds or to fill low or bald spots in your yard

Potting Mix: Contains No Soil (Dirt). It does contain a sterile mix which may contain a combination of sphagnum moss, perlite and vermiculite. Potting Mix has particles larger than soil to allow the flow of water and air in the container. Potting Mixes drain well while still retaining sufficient water for plants. Best Uses: Container Plants. Can also be used to start seeds and for root cuttings.

Potting Mix is recommended for Garden Anywhere Boxes. 

Home and Garden Show

Here is our booth at the Home and Garden Show at the OKC Fairgrounds.

 

We displayed a three-box system with a small rain barrel. 

 

We had great success. We handed out 1000+ cards over the three day weekend and about 600 flyers. We would have had more flyers printed if we would have known how many people we would meet.

 

We met so many wonderful people. It was fun getting to share our way of gardening with others. We could see the excitement on peoples faces as we explained how easy it is to garden this way. It was like wheels were turning in their minds to the possibilities.

 

Next time...

 

This was our first time doing a show like this. We learned a lot for the next time.