Does gardening make cents?

I stopped by my local Whole Foods last night to pick up some mussels and white wine for dinner when I happened to pass the radishes. One could purchase an entire bunch of gorgeous organic radishes (10-12) for $1.64. Finding fresh, healthy, vegetables at a reasonable cost is usually a red letter day for me, but the low price tag made me glum. I was disappointed to price out my radish crop as being worth $10 at Whole Foods... Let's just ignore Walmart's radish prices to protect my fragile ego for the time being.

I know on some level that my dismay is somewhat silly. I wasn't planning to sell my radishes anywhere and was thus not expecting to actually receive any cash regardless of the price point. Given that I only paid about $2.50 for the seeds, I am not loosing money on the deal. Gardening is still a more affordable hobby than knitting, golfing, or anything beyond reading books in libraries and running in parks. Furthermore, I will still most likely conduct clandestine radish drops on the front steps of my friends' houses to get rid of my excess harvest.

Yet, I have to admit that it bothers me that vegetables that I can grow with some success are actually really cheap to buy when they are in season. I avoided the zucchini and jalapeno aisle last August to remain in blissfully ignorant that these items are essentially given away during the late summer. Although I still cling to the idea that I am getting a deal on tomatoes and peppers, William Alexander wrote a book entitled, The $64 Tomato, which would seem to dispute my ill-founded hope.

American Public Media's MarketPlace Money did a story on whether victory gardens actually saved one money and came up with conflicting results. Check it out, and make up your own mind.

Market Place's "Grow your own Garden"

In light of the cheap prices for some of the veggies that I grow, I am coming to terms with the fact that I am probably more like what David Brooks would call a Bobo (without that great paycheck) than a penny-pinching hippie. Gardening also brings numerous perks such as:
1) I have a nice tan
2) I have lovely community gardening neighbors hailing from all over the world
3) I can eat spinach from my garden without worrying about E coli
4) My radishes tasted better than Whole Foods (Yes, I did try it out for comparison.)
5) I get to play in the dirt
6) I like watching things grow. I am not sure why watching grass grow got such a bad rap. Watching my bush beans inch up ever so slowly is indeed infinitely pleasing.