Although I have been gardening for most of my life in some way shape or form, I have always faced some sort of criticism for it. You can buy it from the store cheaper being the most common statement. But as I saw the health, flavor, convenience and money savings that growing a garden provided, I persevered. Some years the garden did better than other's and some years it was severely damaged by nature. But regardless, each year I always got something. So a couple years ago, I decided to start collecting data to see if gardening truly does save me money as I suspected. Although the previous year's data analysis shows that it does, what about gardening in a year when things become interesting as they did in 2025? This is what I found out.
2005 Garden Study Context
As in the later years of conducting this study, I decided to combine the data from all the gardens. But this year, in addition to my approximately 1000 square foot (92.9 square metres) Food Forest Orchard Garden, my 5000 square foot (464 square metres) main crop garden and the 96 square feet (8.9 square metres) of raised bed gardens, this was the first year for planting some squash into my Fruit Tree Guild. There was a number of reasons for doing this, not the least of which was being able to plant more squash. But in addition to adding a vining layer to the guild, the other reason for planting squash in this location is because of the distance from the other squash plants. The term squash is comprised of many varieties that are grouped within five main species classification within the Cucurbita genus. Namely, Cucurbita pepo, Cucurbita maxima, Cucrurbita moschata, Cucurbita argyrosperma, and Cucurbita ficifoliay. As these classifications can not cross with one another, it affords me the opportunity to save the seeds with reasonable confidence that they will be pure as long as I only have one from each classification planted in the guild. Which I did.
Although two varieties of squash I planted in the Fruit Tree Guild did not do that well, the Buttercup squash did very well. It accomplished everything I had hoped aesthetically and also produced well over 10 kg (22 pounds) of fruit despite having to reseed the original May 20th planting on May 31. Bonus to the production is that I can save all the seed I want from these winter squash.
With the number of gardens I have, it is necessary that I do it in phases, the first of which was the Fruit Tree Guild. Next up was to finish the preparations in the Food Forest Orchard Garden and seed everything that was going in there. With these two finished by June 1, on June 5th I finally had an opportunity to get the main crop garden mowed and tilled. As I explored in Seasonal Yard Clean up - Why I don't do much Fall Yard Clean up, I will pretty much always leave everything in the garden from the previous year to over winter. So once spring comes along, it is dry and I can mow it to shatter the old stalks and thereby allow me to incorporate into the soil. The initial tilling also helps to give a bit of a kill on the weeds that have also been growing since the soil warmed.
With the garden tilled once, I left it until June 11 at which time I gave it another tilling and then proceeded to lay out some woven weed fabric in areas and started to plant the main crop garden. I don't use landscape fabric everywhere, but in areas where the grass pressure is heavy, as I explored in 2023 with Does Gardening Save Me Money - A Year In Review, I do find the woven weed fabric from Grower's Solution does help a lot. Over the next couple days I got this section of the garden put in.
With the east half of the garden put in, it was now time to tackle the west half. I started planting on June 17 after I put down another section of weed fabric I got locally this time. It is not of the same quality as the earlier weed fabric, but as the grass was almost unmanageable in this section, it would be better than nothing. Squash, cukes and brassica's were destined for this part of the garden.
The next day, the rest of the garden received another till to knock back the grass and weeds and on June 19 the rest of the garden was put in, save the brassica's. The brassica's were finally put in on June 20 and 21. The garden was now left to grow.
June 21st may seem late to some. And in reality, it maybe is. But the truth of the matter is that the ground is warm and provided it gets the rain and appropriate weather, it germinates quickly and then grows very quickly after that. As I explored in Does Gardening Save Me Money - A Year In Review - 2024 Edition I never started planting until June 24 in 2024 with completion on June 28. I still managed to harvest 927.961 KG (2,045.8 pounds) of produce. So it can work. But even if it seems a little late, one has to try. Seeds left in the pack don't grow anything.
2025 Garden Study - The Summer
With the garden in, other than hand watering the bedding plants, I waited for a bit for the rains to come. But the rains did not come. So I decided to water everything as I have in the past. But little did I know the trouble I had getting the garden watered was only to be a precursor to what would turn out to be An Interesting Summer in the Garden.
Despite all the things that happened in the summer of 2025 come the end of August, things were growing, albeit not well.
The main crop squash was looking decent.
And the Fruit Tree Guild was looking pretty decent.
But unfortunately, this was to be short lived. On September 3 I got frost. The squash were hurting.
The tomatoes, peppers, melons and such were definitely hurting.
And although the potatoes were hit, it wasn't so bad. The brassica's were not even bothered.
Although I could have called it quits at this point, I decided that because the squash were now exposed, I would pick the larger ones and leave the rest to maybe grow a bit more. Not a bad harvest for 80 days of growing. Although it is preferred to let winter squash cure on the vine, I have found that once squash have made it to a bit of a tougher peel stage, they will finish ripening and curing off the vine. Once again, gotta try.
I also picked the softer fruits and vegetables as it was supposed to freeze on the 4th and I did not want to cover. I did round up enough stuff to cover the majority of the tomatoes though.
Everything else I left in the garden and although it froze lightly on September 4, things looked no worse for the wear. Moving forward, I continued to water occasionally for the next couple weeks as temperatures seemed to regulate back to more normal. And glad I did as by September 22 the less than mature squash developed more so that they would be able to be stored. Notice how the vine has started to dry.
The melons even finished ripening. They may be small, but man they were tasty.
Although the tomatoes were ripening on the vine, I noticed that quite a few of the green ones were dropping off the vines as the vines themselves were dying. So on September 22, I decided to harvest all 62 plants. It was not near the harvest that I would normally get, but none the less still not top shabby for 99 days of growing since transplant. Better than nothing I figure.
I harvested all the remaining squash to complete the 2025 winter squash harvest. Not bad at all. They all cured up nicely and I only had a couple rot due to incomplete ripening. Happy with that!
And what made me happy too was that the tougher flowers continued to bloom. Like these sunflowers. They can sure put a smile on one's face.
With the acknowledgement that the season is quickly drawing to a close, I worked away at getting the rest of the garden out. The sprouting broccoli kept producing and weekly harvests were froze. Leafy greens and cabbage were fermented and preserved.
Celery was chopped and frozen.
The root crops were harvested for storage, including the dismal potato harvest which was harvested on October 8, approximately 110 days after planting.
And yet, like me, the garden continued to hang onto summer, denying that winter was coming. The raised beds continued to grow and look decent.
Although I hung on as long as I could, with hard frosts on the horizon, on October 11, I finally harvested the last of the cabbage, cauliflower and the Rouge de Bordeaux wheat. This concluded the approximately 118 day growing season, unless you include the small harvest of sprouting broccoli I picked on October 30. Those Italian Sprouting Broccoli are certainly go getters.
2025 Garden Study – The Results
Although one always has a feeling about how their garden did, as in years past, I wanted to quantify it. To determine this, starting with the first asparagus I harvested from the Food Forest Orchard Garden, everything that was brought into the house was weighed in grams and recorded by garden and type. After being entered into a spreadsheet in the fall, I was able to determine that the 2025 harvest from all gardens came in at 296,056 grams,or 652.69 pounds, of fresh, low to no environmental footprint, organic produce. Although it was down considerably from the 927,961.3 grams (2,045.80 pounds) harvested in 2024, I was still pleasantly surprised by the harvest considering the interesting summer I had, as I explored in An interesting Summer in the garden - 2025 Garden Update.
As expected, the harvest varied. Because I plant varied amounts each year depending on what I need, it is hard to do a specific variety comparison. As an example, I planted fewer tomatoes in 2025, by about half. I planted about the same amount of Brassica's, squash, peppers, potatoes and most other staples. So although a cumulative comparison gives a better idea, the individual comparisons over the three years of data capture do certainly illustrate how each of the produce types did for me in 2025. As the Harvest comparison 2023 - 2025 graph illustrates, it was not great.
When I started out in the spring, I also wanted to see what my 3 raised beds, totaling 72 square feet (6.7 square metres), would produce. So I planted the beds with the mindset that it was the only garden I had. With limited space, the 2 tomatoes, 5 cabbage, 1 zucchini, lettuce, peppers, onions and carrots were seeded in close proximity, probably too close for some things. Through the course of the summer, I did come to the conclusion that I need to set up a better watering schedule for them and do some work on the soil. It was also clearly evident that because I put old feed bags at the bottom of the beds, for grass control, deep rooted plants like tomatoes are maybe not the best use of space. If you want to read about how I built the beds, check out How to container garden. But none the less, the raised beds still produced 24,407.5 grams or 53.81 pounds. Not great, but not too shabby either.
Although it is valuable information to understand what was produced, as the main focus of this study over the years is to determine if gardening really does save me money, some analysis needed to be done.
2025 Garden Study - The Analysis
As established in 2023 when I started this study, there were a number of things that needed to be considered in determining if gardening saves me money. In 2024, I decided that determining a cost of production that would be applied to each 100 grams of produce was the best way to determine cost. For 2025, using the methods outlined in Does Gardening Save Me Money - A Year In Review - 2024 Edition, I calculated that my total input cost in 2025 was $5,862 CDN ($4,217 USD). A drastic increase from 2024 due to more diligent recording of hours spent gardening and the purchase of another roll of woven weed fabric. With the increased expense coupled with the decreased production of the garden, this translated into a cost of production of $1.98 CDN per 100 grams or approximately $8.73 USD per pound. A staggering 266.7% increase over the 2024 cost of production of $0.54 CDN per 100 grams.
But I had to run some “what if's”. Interestingly, if the garden had produced at 2024 levels the Cost of Production would have dropped to $0.63/100 gram. And if I did not include the labor while maintaining the 2025 production, the Cost of Production would have been $0.30/100 gram, dropping to $0.09/100 gram if production would have been at 2024 levels. Just goes to show how even the smallest things can affect the bottom line.
Regardless of what the “what if's” are, the purpose of this study was to be real about the costs and so the rest of the analysis was done using the Cost of Production rate calculated with 2025 data.
As in previous years, the cost of my garden was compared against regular commercial produce and organic produce sold at a local grocery store. It was also compared against farmer's market prices of $3.00 CDN ($2.11 USD) and at $4.00 CDN ($2.85 USD) per pound.
Does Gardening Save Me Money
With this information in hand, I was then able to run the numbers to see whether I saved money in 2025. Although I suspected not, I still wanted to know how badly I did in comparison to other years.
The thing about gardening is that one is at the mercy of the weather and other natural factors. It is also safe to say that one can do everything by the book and still have a less than productive garden year. And we all know that life can get in the way too. At the end of the day though, the garden wants to bless the gardener, even if it's just a little.
Realizing many years ago that these factors play a part in success or less than ideal success, it is one of the main reasons I do not only plant what I need for the next year. Rather I will plant similarly each year and preserve the excess so that I have a year or two buffer in storage. When I have that buffer, I will then decrease what I plant of the produce type each year until I have used up the older stock. This methodology even works well for things one normally keeps in root cellar type storage to consume through the winter and replace the following year. Things like potatoes, squash and onions. But if one follows this method and preserves the excess by canning and/or freezing and/or dehydration and/or fermenting it gives me a buffer for the years when I have an interesting summer. That is what happened in 2025 for me. As an example, although I got a less than ideal crop of potatoes, my frozen and canned potatoes from previous years bounty are filling the void for the winter of 2026.
Although the buffer is there to continue to offset the food costs in a given year, it is also important and interesting to look at the cost of growing it. But that said, as I explored in Does Gardening Save Me Money - A Year In Review there are many more reasons why I garden. Money is just one of them. Would I still garden regardless of the cost. Short answer is yes.
But all that said, it is a good thing I have this mentality because once the analysis was done, it revealed that in 2025 I could have saved $3,557.85 CDN ($2,559.51 USD) buying regular produce in the store rather than growing it myself. Being that I for the most part grow organically, the analysis revealed that I could have saved $2,467.30 CDN ($1,774.97 USD) buying from the store. By buying from the farmer's market, I could have saved $3,903.92 CDN ($2,,808.47 USD) at $3.00 CDN ($2.16 USD) per pound, and, $3,251.23 CDN ($2,338.93 USD) at $4.00 CDN ($2.88 USD) per pound. A little disappointing, but not really a surprise.
What did surprise me is what some of the analysis showed. It showed that growing my own lettuce was cheaper than the store, both organic and conventional options. Lettuce is so easy to grow I expected to not realize a savings here, however, with other factors such as trucking costs contributing to the store cost, I suppose it makes sense too. Greens and herbs, both organic and conventional, were also seeing a savings by growing my own. Home grown cherry tomatoes and garlic also realized a savings over their organic equivalent. But for everything else, I would have been further ahead to buy.
I found it interesting to compare in chart form how things fluctuated, including cost of the produce. One can really see how things have changed over the three years compared to conventional produce over the same time frame.
And with an organic option comparison things look similar, but different in some cases.
Interestingly, the side analysis to see what my raised beds would save me showed that by buying most of it in the store, I would have saved $208.60 CDN($150.07) buying conventional produce. And, buying organic in the store would have saved me $124.94 CDN ($89.88 USD). I will continue to grow my lettuce in these beds though as the home grown lettuce was certainly cheaper than store bought equivalent. As I mentioned earlier, I will have to do some work to the beds to improve productivity.
Final Thoughts
When one looks at the amount of money I lost in 2025 by growing my own produce, it would likely make one think that it would be best to just go to the store and buy it. And one could be right. But as I mentioned earlier, if you want to know where your food comes from, eat more flavorful nutritious food and have less of an environmental footprint, then you need to grow it or buy it local.
In hindsight, I could have bought it all from the Farmer's market and saved the money. But the reality is that I don't have to. I can wait to try again next year. As I don't plant just enough for a year and preserve, I have bounty that I have put up from other years. When it comes down to it, it really is not imperative I have any of it, at least for one gardening year and maybe more. And the reality is that I can simply just go with out.
As anyone who has gardened for a while knows, some years are better than others and typically when one crop fails, another crop typically does better. So when determining whether gardening saves me money, it is a good idea, I figure, to look at things over a period of time. So that's what I did.
I have been doing this study for three years now and so I have data from which to determine whether I am money ahead or not. When I add the money saved (positive numbers) together with the money I would have saved by buying in the store, a loss (negative numbers), it showed that over the last three years I have lost $1,186.18 CDN ($853.54 USD) by growing my own food when compared to conventional produce. It also shows that I would have been further ahead to buy produce from the farmer's market and would have been money ahead by $1,344.41 CDN($961.17 USD) for $3.00 per pound produce and $105.01 CDN ($75.54 USD) for $4.00 per pound produce. But what it also clearly shows is that by growing my own organic produce I was able to save $1,143.55 CDN ($823.90 USD) over in store organic options, even though some produce was not available organically and in its place conventional pricing was used for comparative purposes. Had organic options been available for everything, the savings would have likely been more. Everything from my garden is all truly organic. And that's worth a lot.
So does the garden save me money? Yes it does. Maybe not every year, but overall, I am still money ahead by growing my own organic produce. And coupled with the added benefits, such as knowing where my food comes from, minimal environmental footprint, spending time in the dirt and exercise, to name a few, the garden does more than just stock the pantry. It's benefits…priceless!
With all the benefits of gardening and with the price of transporting food contributing to food prices in the store, I feel it is certainly a good time to continue to plant a garden. And if you don't already garden, I feel it is a good time to start one, small or large. There is never a bad time to garden. So I am curious, will you be putting in a garden in 2026?
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Thank you for joining me on the front porch of My Boreal Homestead Life as we explore this Homegrown, Homestead life, In a Modern World.
Additional Resources
- The Potato Trials - The Ultimate Storage Variety Search Continued in 2024
- The Tomato Trial - Results of 2023 Tomato Trial and What's New for 2024
- Preserving Potatoes - Best Ways to Preserve Potatoes
- 2025 Food Forest Production costing
- 2025 Main Garden Production Costing
- 2025 Raised Bed Production Costing
