Is growing your own food a waste of time?

Let's look at another gardening myth that Paul wants to dispell through the GAMCOD project discussed here on his podcast.

I've always thought of permaculture as lazy ways of gardening - finding less labour intensive ways of doing things by working with nature instead of against it.

So we have threads about different time saving techniques:



Is it a waste of time to grow your own food - does it take such a lot of time that you could just earn the money instead and buy the food? How much time does growing your own food take, and what are good time saving techniques?

It is literally impossible to purchase food (at any price) that's up to the standard of what I grow for my family. I guess I could employ a person to grow what I want using the methods that I want, if I could figure out how to afford that and manage the relationship and so on. But also, I enjoy doing the gardening.

In the US, I have noticed most people relentlessly pursuing comfort and leisure. It has not made us any healthier, having a lot of "free time".

I guess I would want to ask what the "time saved" would be used towards.

We enjoy gardening and dare I say, weeding. We use the "time saved" elsewhere, on gardening and animals.

I think if you are saving up time to watch tv and play video games, gardening may not be enjoyable, no matter how easy it can be.

So for us, I make way more per hour at my job than I do as a return on gardening and animal care. But, it is not about that or time saving so we don't measure it that way.

Dispelling myths about growing your own food is a good thing. However, I think the barrier to entry for most people, that do not grow their own food, is that they don't want to.

I think the time is only part of it.  The quality of the food is a huge part.  That makes the food more valuable than what I can buy.  

Having fresh food right outside my door saves me time too.   I don't have to go to the store as much if I can grow lots of veggies.


I am now producing all my own meat, eggs and milk.   It feels great to go to the grocery store and not really need anything.  

Definitely if you look at it that way if you got skills. I could buy many times over what i can grow and then eat toxic rubbish, become fat and fall ill. Maybe start drinking as well because i miss my green outside time. I could stop handing out trees, shrubs and sharing while i'm at it. Feel moody and disconnected with no purpose in life, maybe buy some more "shit i don't need" can compensate for that. Get a faster ride than the neighbor and a blonder gf...
Can my gardening improve? Always. In many ways, that is the journey i chose to take with sustainable gardening as a life style.

If I ever break even on what I spend growing food , I'll be delighted and surprised, but it's not why I do it

I leave my paying job exhausted, having done something close to nothing for 10 hours strait.

I spend  10 hours doing labor in a garden, not even my garden mind you, it could be just about any garden, and I am bone tired but absolutely invigorated.

It's like making pizza with kids.
I spent about 80 bucks making pizzas with kids at church.
It was a chaotic mess, and a lot of work.
I could have bought plenty of pizza for that much money, but eating pizza was only a fraction of what we accomplished that day.

I don't think measuring homesteading by dollars or time is very helpful.

Due to subsidies and poisons in conventional food, it is hard to make sense of grocery stores costs and the real cost of eating foods you don't grow or get from a trusted grower.

I think the GAMCOD info will be very helpful, but it would only be so after you have had some sort of "awakening" about our conventional food system.

GAMCOD is the "I can do this" model of information once you decide to try something other than what is normal in our culture. A very informative initiative.

For me that is a mixed bag question....

I have been buying from Azure Standard for bulk purchases like beans and rice, as I can't do as good a job as a combine does for harvesting beans / rice / oats that are  quality food without the toxic gick.

The question I ask is,    is the most valuable use of my time using my computer skills  over food growing skills?         One need to look at their hourly rate they get for growing food verses using the skills they have, as $  buys quality food.

Myself,   as a prepper,   I have been preparing for  war to cut our supply lines,  it appears the new tarrifs will also cut supply, or raise the price on goods that once came our way,   thus having a backup plan of how to get calories just seems wise to me.

What if you are a poor gardener?      What if when you grow organically the bugs destroy your crop?

Is it worth your time?        other questions,.....

If you were sick, do you have enough food stored to cover that time of illness?

Do you have ground that you can get a good crop out of, or do you have to bring in soil to fix problem soil?

Does what you like to eat grow in your area?

Do you know how to do long term storage?

Can you barter for the food you want with your skills?


The answers to these questions probably will be answered different for each person..

William Bronson wrote: It was a chaotic mess, and a lot of work.
I could have bought plenty of pizza for that much money, but eating pizza was only a fraction of what we accomplished that day.

I agree! I feel bombarded at times with the message, "just throw money at the problem," but that increases the problem, generating packaging pollution, waste food pollution and many more issues.

I know a number of people with limited space and/or energy. I encourage them to have at least a worm or bokashi composter so they have some quality plant food, and then at least grow in my region, Walking Onions and Parsley. These two will provide some quality micro-nutrients for diets that are generally unable to provide enough of.

Most years, I plant some sort of mini-tomato on my front porch so guests can snack on "real food" on their way into my house.

To answer the title of this thread... no, it is not a waste. But there are a lot of ways to make it look like it, if you don't look at the whole picture. Similar to the question of whether it is cheaper to raise your own eggs. The end products are so different, and there are so many side benefits that people do not consider.

Ways to reduce time and effort... I would say mulch is probably the number one thing I can think of to save time. Mulch helps to reduce weeds and helps to preserve moisture. And I would say that watering and weeding are probably the two most time intensive pieces of gardening.

I'm pretty new to all this, but I am certain that in the future when I eat blackberries, carrots or apples that I've grown, they will taste infinitely better for the simple fact that I've grown them myself. A holistic experience. Something money can't buy, to echo a point others have made. [edit: or sort of the inverse point, that others have also made, "something worth more than any dollar amount" - like William's making-pizza-with-kids-at-church story. something that may be costly in money-terms but if you prioritized saving money, even if only in the short term, you'd be robbing yourself of something far greater. of course, for many people, the money & time may simply not be available anyway, so determining affordable ways like Paul's project aims for is important]

On a more immediately practical note, I'm definitely aiming for perennial and long-lasting food plants. It's too bad I can't reasonably grow edible bananas here; they are a staple of my diet. Maybe I can eventually replace my breakfast bananas with my trees' apples. It's kind of insane I can buy bananas for basically pennies, but I'd still replace them with my own fruit.

bonus points on the holistic pleasurable benefits if my crops feed other people too

I spent 83 hours last year growing 230 Lbs of corn. I can buy sacks of corn for $10 for 50 Lbs. So for $50 I could replace all my labor. A singe overtime shift would pay for all the food I grew last year. Gardening to 'save money' is simply silly in my situation.

I enjoy my job and it's an important job. But when they call me to work overtime I almost always say 'no'.

Thom Bri wrote:I spent 83 hours last year growing 230 Lbs of corn. I can buy sacks of corn for $10 for 50 Lbs. So for $50 I could replace all my labor. A singe overtime shift would pay for all the food I grew last year. Gardening to 'save money' is simply silly in my situation.

I enjoy my job and it's an important job. But when they call me to work overtime I almost always say 'no'.

I have learned I cannot compete with a combine....     I love those machines  

It's about pursuit of quality that turns out to have very high price. Vegetables is something that will never be successful in my climatic conditions, but the fruits are doing very well and better each year, despite losses and constant investment. I find some vegetables from the store (especially in season) to be acceptable to some extent, but 99& of fruit is just atrocious. Cultivars that explode with flavor or melt in your mouth because of ripeness and are also 100% natural just can not be acquired at any price.
It's art not a business.

Thom… did you take the variety into consideration? I have seen Painted Mountain corn sold for ten dollars a jar—these were maybe a quart or so? I never saw them again. So depending on the variety it could be far more economical to do what you did.

I would say that it’s a waste of time to cultivate plants who are not well adapted to the climate or situation. Annual gardening in my view can be a waste of time because of that. But often it isn’t; I’d say especially compared with buying food, as opposed to comparing it with foraging; for reasons elaborated on by others.

Most often an intact ecology can provide for most if not all of our food needs which is the point of “food forest” systems. To return the ecology to the point of intactness, diversity, and productivity such that we don’t need to grow food. In my view one of the more important things in forest gardening is not so much the introduction of new plants but the nourishing of the entire earth, the whole land. But new plants, or moving plants around, can often help with this.

I’m in the opposite of Cristobal’s climate. Vegetables are what we are swimming in and they grow out of every nook and sprout up in abundance from every place of good enough soil, without planting (whereas fruits are rarer and more precious). Parsnips are called an “invasive weed” because they do so well here, not to mention the innumerable variety of wild vegetables. We live in a jungle of goutweed, a perennial celery/parsley relative, so I will not need to plant any parsley greens, for a hundred years… thus in my climate encouraging a little more sun and varied ecosystems via disturbance, and tending the balance of soil nutrients, might be better for fruit and nuts. But the fruits that do grow wild tend to be flavorful when the soil is right. The apples are often excellent, especially when dried; the hawthorns are often sweet and very flavorful; bramble berries; wild cherries; wild strawberries.

It would be hard to find the store stocking garlic mustard, one of the best sources of vitamin C; or nettles, a good source of… almost everything… and milkweed! Rich in protein and tastes better than anything at the store. And I would say at least as good as anything growing in your garden. And—mushrooms! That is a point of economy as cultivated or wild mushrooms can be quite expensive. Knowing how to forage or grow them is a useful skill, and they can make up the large portion of one’s diet in late summer and early fall when they are most abundant. So when we compare the three things instead of two, yes, it’s worth growing your own food more than buying it for many reasons, but sometimes it’s not, when we look around and find the excellence of wild nature.

I have forgotten some things as my mind isn’t the clearest now; but that should be enough.

Many wise thoughts in the posts above.

Too many young people are being fed the dual narratives of "you must consume" and "you are doomed." For them, I think planting and harvesting some of their own food is a joyous act of hope and defiance against these false narratives, akin to unplugging (a bit) from the Matrix.

It's a super-conservative and super-radical act all at the same time. I find that sharing bits and pieces of the historical stories of how our grandparents and great-grandparents survived and thrived doesn't bring the eye-rolls you might expect. It plants the seeds of a positive narrative -- if our ancestors could make it in those tough conditions, maybe we have a chance too.

Maieshe Ljin wrote:Thom… did you take the variety into consideration? I have seen Painted Mountain corn sold for ten dollars a jar—these were maybe a quart or so? I never saw them again. So depending on the variety it could be far more economical to do what you did.

I have been growing this corn since 1998, and blending in other varieties. I like it. It's my diet staple food. My time and work is well-spent. I could spend that time at work, or mowing the lawn, or fishing, or whatever I wanted to do. Gardening suits me.

Some yes.  For example potatoes 2 years ago I bought 2 ten pound bags of big nice looking potatoes for $4 at the grocery store.  They had plenty.  In my soil I couldn't reliably grow that nice a looking spuds and I would have had a lot of small ones in what I did grow.  $4 wouldn't have covered the cost of the seed potatoes that year and I would have had probably 20 to 40 hours invested besides that.  Gas for the tiller for prep.  Something to control potato beetles because they are endemic here.  Electricity for pumping.  And I am totally happy with the store bought spuds typically.


For some no.  For example I am a bit of a snob about tomatoes.  I want particular flavors and textures.  None of those can I buy thru the store or even thru local farmers markets.  So if I want them I am forced to raise the varieties I want.  So there the answer is yes.

Now there are some things that as I get older become harder.  Bad back means weeding is a problem so I really wish in younger years I worked on taller raised bed stuff rather than at ground level.  I should have also worked harder at doing things like making trees closer to self watering.  I wish 30 to 40 years ago I had worked harder at working smarter and going for lazy.  That lead to things like the floating tomato garden for most of a decade for example.

Then there are some I really want because good local is nearly always better.  So for those the answer is probably yes.

Josh Hoffman wrote:In the US, I have noticed most people relentlessly pursuing comfort and leisure. It has not made us any healthier, having a lot of "free time".

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2023/07/23/the-comfort-crisis/

Late edit: I should have added context right away, but Just to be clear, I agree with Josh Hoffman. The link expands on this observation and explores the psychology behind it. I found it interesting.

Yes, absolutely. I'm a teacher. I could pick up online tutoring at somewhere between £40 and £80 per hour, which I could do from a comfortable heated office. I could easily pay for all my food just with a few extra hours of that - far fewer hours than growing it myself, and much less effort.

I don't grow food because of the time; I grow food because I like the process or gardening, like spending time outside and moving and away from my desk, and like bringing fresh produce in to cook immediately for dinner.

Could I set up more efficient "lazy" systems? Maybe. But getting to that point would require a bigger upfront investment of effort/materials etc... instead I'lljust keep plodding making incremental changes.

I see so many YouTube "gardeners" promoting the galvanized raised beds and I always wonder how many new gardeners think they're a necessity?  Not that these beds are necessarily bad, but they are expensive and must be filled with soil.  Of course a permie would use what's available to fill those beds but it would take several dollars of bagged soil.  Also buying transplants and seeds contributes to the expense though the produce will be of a much better quality.    

Last year I spent many, many hours in my gardens and expanding one to include berries and perennial edibles.  If I figured in my time and labor, it probably wouldn't be worth it on paper, but we're still eating stuff I harvested and preserved last year.  My produce purchases are usually cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and carrots and that's simply because I either haven't made a storage area or in the case of carrots, I just haven't tried growing them.  The process of growing and experimenting makes it worthwhile.  Plus there's the knowledge that I grabbed at least one fresh strawberry just about every morning from May until late October and the store bought ones just don't compare.  Plus gardening and improving my property is therapeutic, so if I factor in the cost of a weekly session with a therapist, it definitely is worth it.

Would it be easier to go back to work and earn the money to buy produce?  Hell no!  I left that life behind during the pandemic and my mental and physical health greatly improved.  Plus I get to spend time with my daughter and hopefully influence her outlook on growing.  

I've been growing food for as long as I can remember and there's always failures and room for improvement.  Last year I had what I thought was a mild sprain and I'm still dealing with the effects, but it changed the way I do things.  So in a way I'm also working smarter and not harder.

I love the GAMCOD concept as I think society has programmed us into thinking we need expensive machinery and chemical fertilizers in order to have a successful harvest, when in fact out ancestors survived many centuries without it.

A lot of comparisons have been made to growing your own food versus buying at a large scale grocer. A more interesting comparison would be growing your own food versus buying from the best grower at your local farmers market. Even with prices significantly higher than a big grocer, it would be hard to economically justify growing your own food due to all the efficiencies of specialization. I suppose if you could lived in a community, you could have one person specialize in tomatoes, another in pigs, another in tree fruits, another in grains (and so on) and just trade amongst yourselves, but that's basically just a recreation of the farmers market.

"It is the great multiplication of the productions of all the different arts, in consequence of the division of labour, which occasions, in a well-governed society, that universal opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people." -- Adam Smith

John Wolfram wrote: A more interesting comparison would be growing your own food versus buying from the best grower at your local farmers market.

I do wish we had that option.  The closest farmers market is twenty miles away and only one day a week.  The few growers there rarely offer anything besides the normal tried and true varieties and many don't grow everything they sell.  Can any of them assure me their produce has been grown without chemicals?  Rarely.    Will I be able to find green beans besides Blue Lake and State half-runner?  Not likely.   Some of the larger towns have better farmers markets but that's a minimum 100 mile round trip.  I used to think that was odd as rural areas should want healthier produce but it also seems they don't want to veer from the tried and true varieties.

John, it is good that you mention that. I notice that sometimes people try to grow everything (I did at first!) rather than growing the plants suitable for their particular place on the landscape. Some plants like it drier up in the mountains, others like poor soil, some need it very rich or moist, others high elevation, cool and moist deep in the ravine.

If you live in a mountain ravine then maybe peppers are not the best for you. Likewise, in a hotter, drier valley area, hobblebush may be your favorite fruit but I am doubtful… so it does make sense to either exchange/buy or forage a good portion of food considering that not all is well suited to every environment.

I look at it from an environmental and self-sufficiency point of view. Our way of life creates so much harm, that whether we like it or not, this cannot go on indefinitely. Monocultures, chemical fertilisers, pesticides and antibiotics in animals not only  produce inferior food, but destroy the land we rely on.

Learning how to grow at least part of your food makes you healthier, fitter and harmonious while also teching you skills that you may one day sorely need.

It's not possible to "just start growing our food" with a snap of your fingers. You must learn and make looooots of mistakes and trials before it works.

I have plenty of time to garden, but not much energy to put into it. Which means I have to choose plants that are very low care.

My favourite zero-care plant is prickly pear. For that, I harvest young pads when I want one with my lunch. I harvest fruit when it's ripe and process it to freeze so I have a year-long supply whenever I want it. And I cut pads off when they are getting too big, ideally giving them to other people so they too can have zero-care food after they've planted them and remembered where they put them and waited for a couple of years.

Fruit trees that are well suited to the climate are also very low care, especially if you have a watering system for the summer months. I'm still doing mine by hand once or twice a week during the hottest months but I'm hoping to get the grey water system properly set up so that all I have to do is move the outlet pipe to the next tree every time I do a load of laundry. Every other year they get a dose of well rotted compost from the humanure heap, and occasional additions of pee and wood ash, which has to go somewhere... Apart from that, a bit of pruning to keep them at a sensible size and shape, then harvest when ready.

Olives - I haven't had the energy to harvest enough for oil for a few years now. I do however pick enough for the table. An  hour or so to pick, and a couple of minutes a day for a week or two to process them. The trees need pruning occasionally so you can reach them, and also to thin the branches out so the olives are fewer in number but bigger, if that's important to you. The pruning yields wood for the rocket mass heater though, so it's still a form of harvesting. We just leave the pruned branches on the ground for a few months so the leaves fall off to enrich the soil and for the wood to dry out.

Jerusalem artichokes - dig some up as required. You never get all of them so the patch is pretty self-sustaining.

Galega cabbage - harvest what leaves you want when you want them. If you remove the flowers when they are at the broccoli stage the plant should live for around seven years. Some of mine have grown as volunteers and never have any care except to harvest and take seed from when I've decided I can't live without their babies. They grow more lushly if you water them but I don't bother with the volunteer plants.

Comfrey - it does like a bit of water, but again apart from that it's pretty indestructible.

Rhubarb - likes a bit of water and manure. Otherwise just harvest. In our climate, I like to harvest a bit more than other people would because they lose so much water through the leaves so I like to reduce the number, by harvesting the stalks they're growing on.

This year I want to work towards growing a whole bed of chives, which I'm hoping I'll be able to harvest for the rest of my life with minimal input except the effort of snipping some off whenever I want them. I bought seed in though, and none of it has germinated yet...

John Wolfram wrote: I suppose if you could lived in a community, you could have one person specialize in tomatoes, another in pigs, another in tree fruits, another in grains (and so on) and just trade amongst yourselves, but that's basically just a recreation of the farmers market.

Somebody said, "specialization is for insects"! I am currently part way through reading an article about a fellow in Canada who's built a completely automated lettuce factory.

Here are a few select quotes (it's behind a paywall): "We set an annual yield target of 100 kilograms per square metre,"
"At the end of 2022, we saw massive price shocks for leafy greens due to crop diseases in western states like California and in northern Mexico."

OK, so he's trying to grow something for what would be considered today to be a "local market" because California is a very long way away, and he sounds like he's genuinely growing a better product, but if he corners that market, and the crop disease shows up near him, a lot of people will suddenly not be eating lettuce!

So I understand John's point of view, but would want locals to specialize in their knowledge - not be the only ones doing certain tasks. At the very least, I would hope the "knowledgeable ones" would be mentoring their replacements, but I've seen too many situations where people were so scared of a little competition, that everything was such a well-guarded secret that the knowledge was lost.

Like so many things in nature and permaculture - balance is key. Too much diversity for many people leads to difficulty keeping all the knowledge accessible. Not enough diversity, and one is no longer mimicking a ecosystem.

Yes, my ecosystem is better at growing apples than tomatoes, but my family really likes tomatoes, so I'm willing to put a bit more work into doing so. With their love for tomatoes, it would be great if I could plant and harvest a year's supply, but I know my ecosystem can't reliably do that, so I will settle for a few plants in heat traps because I can.

Farming as a hobby scratches a similar itch to the strategy games I still occasionally play. An epic strategic campaign to extract resources and defend against/eradicate invaders.

Plus it's exercise.

That being said, if it's just that and you're losing money consistently over an extended period of time it's only as sustainable as a video game hobby or a gym membership.

Gotta make it cost efficient for it to make sense as a means of food production in my humble opinion. I'm not talking mega profits. The equivalent of a mediocre side hustle is what I'm shooting for.

I remember how in native California the concept of property was something like this: there was a tribal land with strictly regulated borders, but within that land everyone could move around freely and did not own the land. But what they did own was the rights to tend and harvest from certain places, certain trees, etc. That might be relevant.

Maybe what I’m saying would be a little more clear this way. If you want calamus and you live on a dry slope, rather than trying to dig a pond for the calamus you could go down to the nearby swampy areas and transplant some to establish there. It doesn’t have to be “your land” necessarily but having that patch, you can help with the establishment and then go down when you need calamus. It doesn’t need to be so much that the knowledge, activity, harvests, and so on are specialized but that we are more flexible about where we do our tending or harvesting. This is also much easier in a food forest and permaculture context because of the decreased labor cost per plant with perennials.

Microclimates are another very helpful thing. A combination of these two approaches (and maybe others) should help us eat well and diversely while making the most of our effort.

Sam Shade wrote: it's only as sustainable as a video game hobby or a gym membership.

Actually that is a point I hadn't thought of in terms of time use - if you do normally do other exercise instead of gardening, then that part of the time used for growing food instead would be saved.

Nancy Reading wrote:Is it a waste of time to grow your own food - does it take such a lot of time that you could just earn the money instead and buy the food? How much time does growing your own food take, and what are good time saving techniques?

I don't think it's a waste of time, at all. There truly is a great deal of excellent information, here already. But, one thing I've not seen yet, is one of the reasons I think gardening is so much better: the ACT of gardening is wonderful for your health. It gets one outside, moving, breathing fresh air, gets the hands, feet, and often knees in the soil, absorbing from the earth that which cannot be obtained from any other source. No health club can offer those benefits, regardless of the cost. If the money spent on health clubs is included in the cost savings of gardening over purchasing, the savings can be huge.

There is also so much more variety, flavor, and better quality of nutrient availability literally at our fingertips, than any grocer can provide, because we can grow what we want and need, without concern for how well it will harvest, pack, travel, and last on a shelf before its even purchased. We can grow according to our tastes, abilities, and health needs. Many herbs considered as 'medicinal' are also incredibly tasty, and many things that are commonly grown can't hold a candle to them. Most folks consider things like the stinging nettle (that has already been mentioned), purslane, plantain, dock, dandelions, chickweed, and *so* many others to just be weeds, and yet their real value far outshines most of the grocery veggies and fruits sold simply because they are convenient/ easy/ economical to grow and distribute en masse, by way of mechanization.

My tip? Forage, first. Grow intentionally only that which can't be foraged.

Carla Burke wrote:I don't think it's a waste of time, at all. There truly is a great deal of excellent information, here already. But, one thing I've not seen yet, is one of the reasons I think gardening is so much better: the ACT of gardening is wonderful for your health.  

Yes! And not just for physical health -- for mind, body, spirit. It is the priceless antitoxin to the poisons of modern life.

My experience with sunchokes made me much more positive on the idea. They are so darn easy to grow.

It is a waste of time unless I grow food that can't be purchased.  Sweet lemons,  kumquats, figs,  honeyberries, sour cherries, kale/collards, pears & peaches with flavor

For me, there is a distinct quality issue regarding produce from a store vs. the produce I grow. My produce is way better, across the board. Plus, store-bought produce can be quite pricey here.

The other quality issue is the chemical quotient. We have lots of potato farmers in my area (sandy soil). The end product seems nice enough in the store, but the amount of times I see them in the same field with chemical application equipment really concerns me.

Can you put a price on your health?

What about on the connection you build with the land itself?

Can you put a price on what your kids learn while doing it?

What about preserving older varieties that would disappear without small growers like us keeping them around?

What about rediscovering the indigenous wisdom that was stolen from us by colonization?


Money could save time, for sure. But how better could you possibly use that time?

One of the "problems" not mentioned so far, is the tendency for everything to ripen at once.

This is where advance planning and re-learning traditional storage techniques may become as important as growing your own.

I have 3 productive apple trees - one ripens late July, one mid August and one mid to late September. Even with a decent cold cellar, I'm not going to save those late July ones without freezer space! I could delay the August ones through early September, but that's about it. Depending on the weather, I've had the late September ones last past Christmas, but they're quite a small apple, so a bit of a nuisance to deal with, and not quite sweet enough for Hubby to use as an eating apple. However, I rescued 2 more apple trees and am hoping they've settled in enough to give me a crop this year, and they are a later cooking apple. Theoretically, they should store well also, but it hasn't been tested.

You can look at squashes and their relatives with the same lens! Some will store an incredibly long time. Even tomatoes, if picked here in early September and stored well, may last for months, although they don't taste nearly as good as ones fresh from the vine!

Nathan Burton wrote:Money could save time, for sure. But how better could you possibly use that time?

It's  a good question. I think everyone's situation is different. Some have obligations with work and family that must take priority. And to be honest, not everyone has the "farmer gene."