How much would it cost to buy?

[happyhumph]

It's a tricky one as I grow a lot of stuff you just can't buy, & things I grow you can buy I wouldn't buy in that quantity - I would never buy as many courgettes as I grow for example!

[veggiechicken]

With the unusual things, you'll have to guess what they might sell for!
Multiple courgettes might be on BOGOF in the shop at the end of the garden

[mrbadexample]

Just picked some rhubarb - 509g and, out of curiosity, checked Morries' website to see how much it would cost to buy it!
50p for 100g Yorkshire rhubarb
So my rhubarb is "worth" £2.50

Surely yours is Welsh rhubarb, and therefore worth a little bit less than that from Yorkshire?

Although you could probably add a bit on for it being organic.

[veggiechicken]

Cheeky
Think I could add on summat for it being locally grown with nil food miles and organic?

.........and its Riwbob here

[mrbadexample]

Cheeky
Think I could add on summat for it being locally grown with nil food miles and organic?

.........and its Riwbob here

That's not cheeky, it's how it is! If it was leeks it would be the other way round.

But yes, a big bonus for nil food miles.

My Stockbridge Arrow is from Brandy Carr Nursery in Yorkshire, grown in Walsall. Is it still Yorkshire rhubarb?

[veggiechicken]

My geography isn't good enough to answer that - but I assume you know where Walsall is?

[mrbadexample]

Like my rhubarb, I was born in Yorkshire but reside in Walsall. Am I no longer a Yorkshireman?

[veggiechicken]

You can take the man out of Yorkshire but you can't take Yorkshire out of the man - and its the same with yer rhubarb

[happyhumph]

Well I just found wild garlic leaves online for £10.95 for 500g, which means after foraging from a friends garden today I have approx £24 worth of wild garlic in my fridge

[Snoop Puss]

This could turn into a very long thread once we get started!

[veggiechicken]

Page 4 and we only have 2 items
Could be a very long thread before April

[polc1410]

farmers don't pay income tax ..

What? Because they cunningly write stuff off to tax or because they have some exemption or because they are a business.

BUT - I think it HIGHLY unlikely that you'll get a government trying to measure what you saved. I also suspect if you write in your expenses you will barely break even if not make a loss which you could then write off to tax!!

Anyway - I tried this one year and got lazy and gave up. But this is well into my geek teritory...

It is fairly easy to develop a spreadsheet to do this but there are a number of questions that need an answer before it is done:

* Should it handle expenses as well as "profits"? If so, should those be per crop or cumulative?
* How do you handle waste? That sounds like "I saved £200 in the Boxing Day Sales" if you didn't need what it was you bought you didn't save anything...
* What is your reference cost?
- Which shop? Do you use your local / regular supermarket? Looking up prices is a PITA TBH. Ideally you'd have some master "spreadsheet" that people can contribute to and effectively crowd source the cost
- Which price? The price in Morrison this week is different from next week. So you ideally need a price per week which is what makes reference costing a PITA.
- Which comparison product? How similar do you want it? Does "New Potatoes" count, or do you want that specific variety?

Something makes me think we could get very geeky and try screen scraping the prices!

So I am imagining a per member table that looks something like this:

Week:     1  | 2 | 3 | 4 | ...
PSB(g)    300|220|270|400| ...
Spuds(kg) -  | - |0.5| 1 | ...

Another for the reference costs

Week:     1  | 2 | 3 | 4 | ...
PSB(g)    5  |5.5|6.0|7.0| ...
Spuds(kg) -  | - |200|175| ...

Which then produces...

Week:     1  | 2  | 3  | 4  | ...
PSB(g)    15 |12.1|16.2|28  | ... | 71.3 
Spuds(kg) -  | -  | 1  |1.75| ... | 2.75
-----------------------------------------
Saving(£) 15 |12.1|17.2|29.75 ... | £74.05

But could also feed a "National" total...

If it needs expenses it will get messier for national totals etc... people will calculate expenses differently!

But it would be interesting just to see total yields etc

My brain is already in over drive... classifying data sources by "garden" "allotment" / "organic" / "retired" "working" / "tap water" "rain water" "drought" / "bought seeds" "saved seeds" / "North" "South" etc...

Arghhh!

[veggiechicken]

^^^Aargh indeed
Me, I'm a back of the envelope kinda chicken. What would I have paid in my local shop for that item that week. Prices vary with the season - take the Iceberg lettuce scarcity a few weeks ago £2+ for a lettuce. They'll be giving them away in summer. So I don't think you can have a fixed value. Its the same with expenses - I don't have an allotment so no rents but I do pay higher rates for the house because it has a larger garden (maybe?).
Too many imponderables!

[roitelet]

I think someone did this years ago on the vine just can't remember who it was.

Mrs Dobby, there shows just how long I've been here!!

[polc1410]

So first harvest of the year really today!

200g of Purple Sprouting Broc (£8.75/kg from Tesco)
100g of Trimmed Leeks (£1.75/kg for cheapest leeks from Tesco)

---
£1.93 saved this week.

(But I did actually buy the PSB and Leeks as plants having had issues with seedlings last year!)