GRuB Garden – The Greenest Investment You’ll Make This Year

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Submitted by Cecelia Watkins for GRuB

grub gardenThe large room is full of people, standing and sitting, some with hands in pockets and others holding gently onto their kids. A nervous but excited air permeates the space, and one man begins.  “Collard greens,” he announces. “Yep, definitely collard greens.” The original question was what vegetable people were most excited to grow this year. Someone across the room shouts, “Wait, what are collard greens? I mean, what do you do with ‘em?” Someone else laughs and says, “They eat them down South a lot. Cook ‘em up with garlic and a little oil and they’re good to go!”

The location is St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in the heart of Lacey, and the event is the first Kitchen Garden Project (KGP) Gardener Orientation of the season. Every year GRuB (Garden-Raised Bounty), a local non-profit, builds at least 60 vegetable garden beds with people in Thurston and Mason Counties. For the past 20 years, GRuB and its KGP have been building these beds free of charge, in partnership with families and individuals of low-income. This year, GRuB is trying out a pilot program in which they build gardens for people of all income levels, on a sliding fee scale. This project, dubbed Food Investment Gardens (or FIG—because everything needs a good acronym at GRuB) will generate earned income for the non-profit, and support community members in jump-starting their 2014 garden.

We all know gardening is supposed to be a good thing, but the question is, how good? What kind of an investment are you making when you commit to a vegetable garden, and what kind of returns can you expect? The prospect of starting a garden can be daunting, and requires sizable upfront costs: lumber for a raised bed, nutrient-rich soil, tools, watering equipment—or a hefty payment to GRuB. So is it worth it?

Let’s begin by looking at a garden’s impact on physical health. Tending a garden can involve a lot of low-impact movement and stretching, which makes it an ideal physical activity for people who find more intensive movement a challenge. In the words of a KGP gardener, “My daughter and I have had an amazing summer outside because of our gardens. We spent quality time together outside planting, weeding, watering, sometimes eating dirt. We got outside so much more that we would have before the gardens… the gardens brought together everyone in our lives.”

grub kids gardenYou can also design your garden to meet your own physical needs—if you want a great work out, you can install a big in-ground garden, which will inevitably get you sweating. On the other end of the spectrum, if you struggle with mobility you can raise your garden beds up to waist height and tend them from a chair. Either way, it is exercise with a purpose and context beyond your own physical ability—you aren’t just moving in place in the gym; you’re using your body to grow food. Additionally, in both cases you’re outside, hopefully basking in the sunshine, and soaking up vitamin D. Committing yourself to a garden could be the best thing you do for your body this year.

As far as being good to your body, the dietary benefits of gardening are well-known for being fabulous.  Having an abundance of fresh vegetables right outside your kitchen means you will inevitably cook with them more often. Plus, once you taste lettuce that you grew yourself, you’ll never want to go back to the store. Many new gardeners actually report that their fresh garden veggies are so flavorful and delicious they find themselves using less oil, creamy dressings and salt: good veggies means simpler, more healthful meals.

Kids who will sneer at vegetables in the school cafeteria will rejoice at picking their own cherry tomatoes and eating them like candy. One KGP gardener said, “This story happened more that once: the looks on my children’s faces. I would show them something I’d picked, [and say] ‘That came out of our garden!’ and they would echo my words with their voices full of a mixture of excitement, wonder and delight.” Beyond getting you and your family to eat more vegetables, by growing your own you’ll have full control over what goes into your soil, on your plants, and into your bodies. Even those of you who doubt your thumbs could nurture anything green may surprise yourselves—between good soil and a sunny Pacific Northwest summer, it can be hard to go wrong. If all else fails, you’ll inexorably have more kale than you know what to do with.

Gardening is also proven to relieve stress and reduce depression. In one study, participants did a stressful task, then either read a book indoors for half an hour or worked in the garden outside. After the half hour was up, the gardening group’s stress was significantly lower than the reading group. The gardening participants had also returned to a fully positive mood. Another study found that seniors who garden regularly have a 36% lower risk of developing dementia, thanks to the combination of walking around the garden and learning new gardening skills. A study from the University of Essix shows that as little as five minutes of outdoor, mild physical activity will improve mood and reduce stress.

grub gardenOkay, sure, so a garden is good for your health, but what about your wallet? Is it possible to actually save money through backyard vegetable gardening? The short answer is yes, it’s possible. The longer answer is, it depends on how gardening savvy you are. National Gardening Association estimates point to the average gardener doubling their investment, producing $100 worth of veggies for a $50 investment. The Department of Agriculture gives the average number as $10 of crops grown for $1 of seed. Burpee seed company argues that a gardener can get an average return of $25 worth of produce for every $1 worth of seed you plant (with green beans being the most lucrative at $75:1 investment and potatoes being the least at $5:1).

In recent years, GRuB’s Kitchen Garden Project gardeners have weighed everything they’ve produced from their three 4×8 foot raised garden beds, and calculated generating over $600 of produce (averaging produce cost at about $2/pound) in one year. The beds should last around five years, meaning some $3,000 worth of produce. The gardens themselves, including seeds and vegetable starts, cost GRuB about $500 to put in.

Of course, the variable that isn’t factored into any of these equations is time. If you have a 100 square foot garden, you’ll find yourself working several hours each week to fight back weeds and keep your veggies happy. Once we put a monetary number on your time and include it as a garden input, suddenly the math gets skewed—unless you’ve got magic thumbs, your veggies will probably pay significantly less than minimum wage by the hour.

Lucky for us gardeners, when we’re out with our hands in the dirt, sun shining on our faces and kids laughing, it’s easy to not worry as much about money. Investing in a garden isn’t a guarantee that you’ll grow produce worth much more than the initial price—between deer, cats, and curious kids, things can go wrong. Things can also go very right.

Investing in a garden is a guarantee that you’ll spend more time outside, breathing in fresh air and waving hello to passing neighbors. A garden investment has a terribly high risk of improving your overall life satisfaction and personal well-being. Plus, it’s a guarantee that any curious kids who might be around will learn the powerful lessons of patience, appreciation, and wonder. You might just re-learn a few of those lessons yourself. Yes, starting a garden is an investment, and although it may not bear fruit financially, it will definitely bear many other things—including vegetables.

GRuB’s mission is to inspire positive personal and community change by bringing people together around food and agriculture. This year we are supporting even more of our community in making the investment in their land, their health, and their food by offering sliding scale gardens for purchase through the Food Investment Garden (FIG) pilot project. GRuB can get you growing with seeds, vegetable starts, and gardening workshop access in addition to building your new garden.

Contact FIG@goodgrub.org to get your order in today —help make this project a success and make an investment not only in your own well-being, but in the well-being of our community.

 

 

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