This Year's Balance Sheet - 2010

[SarzWix]

Mrs Dobby started this tradition, of posting the year's growing list, costs, harvests and approximate savings from Growing Your Own Veg.

I'm sure she'll be along soon to add her balance sheet for this year, but I thought I might have a go at it this year too, and mebbe some other folks might like to join in.

Here's a link to Mrs D's thread from last year http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...9-a_34244.html

The idea is to check your produce against the current supermarket price (you can do that on-line with most supermarkets) on the day you harvested it, and offset that against the money you've spent on rent/seeds/compost etc. (For the first couple of years outlay tends to be higher as you invest in pots/trays/propagators, seeds, sheds, greenhouses etc., etc. )

[SarzWix]

Costs for 2010

Seeds - £20.00
Seed potatoes - £25.00
Onion sets and garlic - £20.00
Compost - £30.00
Allotment rent (2 plots) - £60.00
Sundries - £10.00
Heritage Seed Library Membership - £20.00

Total = £185.00


Harvests 2010 (so far)

To June:

Savoy cabbage x 10 = £8.00
Spring greens x 6 = £4.50
Leeks x 20 = £20.00
Broccoli x 10 heads = £8.50
Swede x 5 = £4.50

Salad leaves = £10.00

June to July:

Strawberries x 4kg = £30.00
Black & Red currants x 1.5kg = £20.00 (ish)
Broccoli x 3 heads = £6.00
Cabbage x 3 = £3.75
New potatoes x 4kg = £6.00
Cherries x 0.5kg = £3.00
Garlic x 10 = £2.60
Onions (Red) x 20 = £5.00
Salad leaves = £10.00
Peas x 4kg = £12.00

July to August

Charlotte potatoes x 10kg = £16.50
Gooseberries x 2kg = £10.00
Whitecurrants x 6kg = £80.00
Lettuce x 12 = £14.80
Watercress x 1 small bag = £1.33
Cucumbers x 10 = £12.50
French beans 0.5kg = £3.50
Desiree potatoes x 2.5kg = £1.98

Total so far = £294.46


I'll edit this as the year goes on, and we'll see how we're doing.

[Snadger]

Wouldn't even try to make a balance sheet for my plot.............thats why Igo to the plot to get away from this type of thing!

[Mrs Dobby]

Lol Sara! As requested..... Our current balance sheet below!

Vegetable Balance Sheet 2010

So, currently growing we have.........

Herbs
Parsley, Marjoram, Chamonile, Lemon Balm, Lemon Verbenna, Coriander, Basil, Rosemary, Mint, Chives, Sage, Thyme, Lavender and Peppermint.
Fruit
6 crowns rhubarb, 85 Raspberry Canes (in fedge) , 2 pear trees, 3 eating apple trees, 3 cooking apple trees, 1 cherry tree, 1 grapevine (trained up the front of the shed, we've plans to build an arbour type extension to support it a bit better, hopefully this year), 300 strawberry plants, 200 in the plot, 100 in planters!
Maincrops
Garlic 3 varieties (Looking fab!) 150 plants
Onions
140 Sturon from set, 140 Red Barron from set (overwintered), 120 White onions from set , 60 spring onions (so far) Total 400 maincrop onions!
Leeks
Musselburgh, 80 seedlings growing away nicely to be planted once the first early spuds are out!
Spuds
30 first earlies , 30 second earlies, 30 early main and 30 late maincrops! Total 120 tubers!
Sweet Potatoes, 3 tubs full, 9 plantlets in total!
Brassicas
21 brussel sprouts (4 varieties), 61 broccolli (5 varieties) 20 caulies / romanesco broccolli, 80 cabbages (6 varieties, golden acre primo, red drumhead and greyhound)
Beans n Legumes
Broad Beans 60 plants (3 varieties)
Runner Beans 48 growing, 2 varieties!
Borlotti beans, 26 planted!
French Beans 50 plants of 5 varieties!
French Climbing Beans 24 growing!
Peas
2 x 10' rows Klevedon (approx 120), 1 x 10' row Twinkle (approx 40), 1 x 6' row Mange Tout (approx 30)!
Cucurbits
Courgettes 13 plants (4 varieties)
Cucumbers Marketmore x2
Roots
Jerusalem Artichokes, 1 bed full!
2 x 10' rows Swedes (2 variety, approx 40), 2 x 10' rows Turnips (2 variety, approx 60), 3 10' rows parsnips (3 variety, approx 60), 10 x 10' rows carrots (5 variety, approx 200)
Sweetcorn
150 plantlets of 3 varieties in total
Squashes / Pumpkins
43 plants from 9 varieties
Celery
20 plants (overwintered) Lathom self blanching (for seed to make celery salt) + 60 seedlings planted on the plot!
Salad
25 beetroot seedlings, 12 lettuce salad bowl, 20 lettuce little gem, 8 lettuce iceberg.
Radish, 4 varieties, interplanted with parsnips + 2 x 8' rows!
Tomatoes
38 in the 3 greenhouses, 18 in the polytunnel, 36 outdoor toms in the back yard, 12 varieties!
Peppers
8 on the plot in greenhouses, 8 planted up into pots in the back yard greenhouse
Chillies
7 plants of 7 varieties in total!
Aubergines
5 plants, 3 varieties!

Total Veg Plot Costs 2010
Rent + Subs for 2 full plots £100
Seeds £20
Seed Spuds £20
Onion Sets £6
Growbags £15
Chicken Manure Pellets £8
Plastic 'wannabe' Polytunnel £61
Bamboo Canes £8

Total Costs £ 238

Total Veg Plot Harvests 2010

Rhubarb £ 25
Fartichokes £ 4
Volunteer Spuds £5

Total Veg Plot Harvests £ 34

So the veg plot has currently left us £ 204 out of pocket as I write, but with none of the harvests yet in, we should easily break even and possibly surpass our £2000 profit that we've had from each of the past few years!

Beekeeping Balance Sheet

Between the 4 of us (Pat and Colin - our fellow beekeepers on Moss View - and ourselves) we've once again spent a fair amount of money on the bees again this year, setting up our second apiary cost over £200 in materials, buying another 5 hives (and frames and foundation) and then making stands for them and building the 4 nucleus boxes (to home the divisions from the existing hives) has cost again close to another £1000, bringing the total spend to well over £3000 in the past 2 years, but with 6 hives and 2 nucleii now on the plot we are poised to start reclaiming some of the outlay soon, though it could well take us another 18 months or so before we break even!

Last years total honey harvest was of 4 frames of capped honey, yielding abut 8lb of honey which we shared between ourselves (and gave to family and friends). This year we will be helping other beekeepers by selling on the divisions we get (above the 6 hives that we wish to keep for ourselves), which will probably be sold (once we are sure there are viable laying queens present in each nuc), then if we have a reasonable year we could get between 20lb and 80lb of honey per hive, so its possible that we'll harvest between 120lb and 500lb of honey this year, which will be sold to help pay for the bees and thier upkeep!

We will also be using some of the money from the sales of honey to donate to a separate projects fund for the allotment association, in the hopes we can use this money to give something back to the allotments for allowing us to have the bees on there!

So, our Beekeeping Balance Sheet is certainly deeply in the red at the moment, but as we took up beekeeping as a hobby (to help protect the honeybee that is facing problems in the uk and to increase our range of organic activities on the plots), then thats fine by us all! We arent beekeeping for profit, its a hobby not a business after all!

[Flummery]

Sarz, I thought HSL membership was £20. That's what I'm paying!

[SarzWix]

It may well be Flum! I haven't renewed yet for this year, so just going on (possibly dodgy) memory

[TallGirl]

Mrs Dobby, wow!

My balance sheet last year showed about a £500 spend (shed, compost bins, water butts, mower and strimmer - and some plants) and a £150 return. First year on a brand new plot. It's a half-plot but I'm only working half of that; a friend has the other half.

This year shows about £80 spent and £80 worth of crops in so far - mostly the sprouting broccoli.

[gojiberry]

Personally I don't see how it is possible to work out a balance sheet with any meaning. I have harvested about 25lb of strawberries and all have been used within my household. But if I had not grown my own I would not have purchased 25lb of strawberries from the supermarket, so what value can be put on those strawberries.

Ian

[rustylady]

OK Ian, maybe you wouldn't have gone to the supermarket and bought the strawberries, but you still ate them didn't you? Therefore your balance sheet should show the price of your harvest should you have bought them from a shop. BTW, anyone know what redcurrants are selling for at the moment??

[Alison]

Personally I don't see how it is possible to work out a balance sheet with any meaning. I have harvested about 25lb of strawberries and all have been used within my household. But if I had not grown my own I would not have purchased 25lb of strawberries from the supermarket, so what value can be put on those strawberries.

Ian

I agree with what you're saying Ian, however I know that I no longer pay £15 for a veg box every week or whatever else I added to the weekly shop as my purchase of fresh veg is pretty much zero. Even in the depth of winter I wasn't buying very much. Still buy fruit more than I'd like but haven't been paying for apples recently as I've been eating strawberries and raspberries. Not sure if it would therefore be possible for me to do a balance sheet which would be meaningful to me but I'm happy in the knowledge that I make a profit and plenty of exercise in the fresh air thrown in.

Technically it won't be a profit this year as I bought a polytunnel but as I bought that with an unexpected bonus I choose not to count that

[Guzzik]

My small contribution

Well, I actually never thought of doing something like this to be honest, costing against the local supermarkets etc.

We have had a piggin aweful "year" to date though. We have spent nigh on £750 on the plot with one thing and another getting it ready, buying in new fruit shrubs/trees, compost, Blood, Fish and Bone Meal and Growmore, weed killers etc.

We also spent some £125.00 on summer bedding plants to grow on and sell at our local market............They got wiped out by a minus six degree frost in mid May. The plugs were also not very good from the grower whom I will not mention, suffice to say that we will NOT buy from this company ever again.

Due to something not quite right with our soil, at least, this is the only thing we can up with, crops have not been growing well at all, all the first five trenches of peas failed to come up as did the second lot put in, broad beans, runner beans, french beans have all failed or did not do very well.

Basically, we are out of pocket to the tune of around £500 and I don't think this will get much better by end of season.

We suspect that the "muck" we got delivered is infested witht his weed killer, maybe not. We just don't know.

Anyway, I will definatly keep a working "book" on what we spend, grow and sell for next year on the laptop.

[Mrs Dobby]

Update at 7th July 2010

Well, the harvests of soft fruit are going well, the bees from our apiaries obviously did a good pollinating job, the summer fruiting rasps are absolutely dripping with fruit, took 3lb today alone! Strawbs are still producing, another 8lb today, peas and beans also giving us a lot, as are the courgettes!

Total Veg Plot Costs 2010

Rent + Subs for 2 full plots £100
Seeds £20
Seed Spuds £20
Onion Sets £6
Growbags £15
Chicken Manure Pellets £8
Plastic 'wannabe' Polytunnel £61
Bamboo Canes £8
Flower Plants £28

Total Costs £ 266

Total Veg Plot Harvests 2010

Rhubarb £ 25
Fartichokes £ 4
Volunteer Spuds £15
Lettuce £8
Radish £8
Garlic £15
Strawberries £50
Raspberries £5
Peas £10
Broad Beans £15
Courgettes £10
French Beans £1

Total Veg Plot Harvests £ 154

So we're now £112 away from breaking even, but with most of the harvests still to start, then its possible we will soon have a positive balance sheet!

[Two_Sheds]

We have spent nigh on £750 on the plot with one thing and another

Good lord I hope that includes a shed or three

[SarzWix]

I've just updated my original post to include this month's veg. To say that the main harvesting hasn't really kicked in (no tomatoes, cukes, peppers, beans etc., most potatoes still in ground) I'm pretty chuffed! Ooh, and I forgot the peas! We've had kilos of them!

I'm just checking the prices on T**co online, and Organic Strawberries are £9.97/kg and Organic Raspberries are £19.94/kg Can't find a price for red or blackcurrants, organic or otherwise, so I've guesstimated them as being more than strawberries but less than raspberries...


EDIT: Just checked Sainsbury's for redcurrants - £13.27/kg, same for blackcurrants

[Winged one]

Some year I will do a proper balance sheet - I reckon though I am coming close to break even point for the year. Got loads of rhubarb so far, over 3kg of redcurrants, almost 2kg of raspberries, and starting on the peas, broadies, brassica and spud beds. And the onions and garlic have yet to really get started too. Even the squash and courgette bed is growing but barely producing yet. And there are carotts and tomatoes at home as well!!