The cost of dirt is “land”. It’s not actually free. And considering I have to work for a living, my free time is a resource I like to spend carefully, so digging, clearing rocks and weeds and spreading fresh topsoil is usually not my choice activity.
There’s a reason farmers get paid, and it takes economy of scale and subsidization to bring the cost of produce down to as cheap as it is.
Gardening can be fun and rewarding, but let’s not pretend that it just free food that appears by magic.
Funny. I’m growing oregano, tomatoes, squash in pots, inside on cold days. Your limited free time probably costs more work hours than a bag of dirt and a few seeds but excuse yourself any way you want.
“excuse myself”? I don’t need an excuse for what I enjoy doing in my free time.
What you’re missing is that I don’t enjoy gardening, and I don’t pretend that I’m saving significant sums of money by doing it. I do enjoy what I do in my free time, so I chose to enjoy myself, rather than spend my time doing what feels like work.
I’m not talking actual monetary costs, I’m talking the actual expenditure of time.
You enjoy gardening, and that’s good for you. The time you spend growing your tomatoes isn’t time taken away from an activity you enjoy.
Not everyone is in a place where spending time doing an activity they don’t enjoy is worth avoiding paying for produce.
Right… The reason peppers cost 75 ¢ is those horrible, horrible, no-good, greedy farmers. All they did was use dirt and water! Sooooo expensive.
I grew up in a family of farmers and lived in farm country most of my life. I didn’t say that, and you shouldn’t put your words in my mouth. That’s very disingenuous. You could dig up a documentary on corporate farming and investment bankers, but how dare anyone expect you to do anything so basic? -_-
