Gardening start-up costs
Basic Financial asked recently about my gardening start-up costs. They were pretty high, due to a few factors that probably won’t apply to many people who garden:
1) I live in Arizona. Our yard consists of rock-covered caliche. That kind of yard is great for making bricks and earthen houses and conserving water, but not so great for growing plants that do well in places where it, I don’t know, rains?
2) Also, it gets really hot here. I learned that “full sun” does not mean the same thing as “full Arizona sun + heat”. So I had to create a shade contraption for my garden to keep it from burning to a crisp. This way it only gets about 4 hours of full sun in the morning instead of being burned all afternoon. So far it seems happier that way.
3) I wanted an organic garden. This meant that in addition to hauling in various mixtures to create a decent soil, I needed to buy untreated lumber to create the box for the dirt, and a drinking water safe hose. The hose was especially important to me, because I knew it would spend much of its time lying in the sun. Lots of sun + normal hose = lead leaching into the water. I didn’t want to be watering stuff I plan to eat with lead tainted water. I guess I could have been less lazy and just hauled the hose out of the sun each time I watered, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen.
So, with all that out of the way, here are my start-up costs:
Shade supplies, $52.05
75 ft drinking water safe hose, $71.95
Many bags of vermiculite, peat moss, & compost, $79.06
Tomato cages, $10.70
Untreated lumber & deck screws, $35.27
That totals $249.03, which does not include plants. The two tomato plants & 3 packets of seeds were about the only inexpensive things involved!
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