How Much Can I Earn?

 

Okay so a slightly misleading title to this post. I'm not trying to run before I can walk, or sell before I can grow.

However tonight I watched a video by Atomic Shrimp on Youtube. I've watched a few of his food challenges over the past 6 months or so. The main ones I've seen have been his food challenges where he sets a budget for a number of days and tries to feed himself on said budget. The video tonight I saw was £5 for 5 days to include 14 meals. 

Well this got me thinking. What will the monetary value of my crops be? 

Its not so much been a case of what can I save from spending on food but essentially by having a food garden I'm actually giving myself a pay increase. I'm not only going to be saving money on my food bill I'm also probably going to eat way more healthy food than I would have bought anyway. 

So for 2022 how much can I earn?

My intention is to weigh and record every harvest from m garden this year. As its only the start of February tomorrow and I haven't grown anything yet its a great place to start. 

To compare prices I will find the cheapest organic alternative to what I harvest and get a price per kg or similar value. I will also include my quail eggs and meat when I process some to my tally as I'm growing them at home in my garden. I won't be counting my quail eggs at the Waitrose Delicacy price of £2.75/dozen. Because they are so available to me I will count one dozen as half a dozen free range eggs I can get from the supermarket. This pretty much halves the value. 

I'm not going to run a strict profit/loss account. I am already invested in my garden and have things I've already bought. I have my quail cages (built on a shoestring), Incubator (gifted to me), Garden beds (Made from reclaimed timber), Seeds (a couple of years of buying a few packets per month), Soil (this has probably been my biggest investment).

I have also recently bought a pressure canning set up. Hopefully through the summer I can preserve what I grow for the winter and stretch my food out through the year and reap the benefits throughout the year. This I feel is being very optimistic. And I actually have no idea what sort of yield I can get from my garden. 

Last years potato crop is pictured above. As you can see I haven't been too successful so far.  

I haven't spent a lot of money so in the grand scheme of things my outgoings have been pretty low. 

Hopefully I will remember to keep account of all my harvests and I'll aim to give a monthly update, if not a weekly one. Particularly when the harvests are coming thick and fast. 

Here goes!