Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[mtncats@planetcomm.net]

Hi Pat,

Nice to cross paths with you again.  My situation, opposite of yours, is what 
you pointed out.  I do give consideration to my labor "cost" when 
contemplating a new enterprise.  Self-employed with several marketable 
skills, I turn down more paid work every year than I accept.  I have an 
apparently "endless source of paying work".  Fortunately, I also have the 
option of substantially less paid work than is considered standard in our 
society.  You only need to earn as much as you want to spend, plus a little 
reserve.

On another list I had a good exchange concerning green(er) diesel.  I looked 
at the material cost and the amount of my labor that would be involved.  The 
capital cost was very reasonable.  But the whole, insufficient return to 
merit my time.  I'd happily pay someone else more than petroleum diesel 
currently costs for an alternative, but that doesn't exist here.

A consideration for me is after-tax cost.  Another is transportation cost.  
While growing food on our roof, the return is well worth the time spent.  It 
takes us 1/2 hr to get to a store that has anything we want to eat.  I'd much 
rather spend that hr raising a crop and not start the van or buy fuel for it. 
 My labor rate starts at $45/hr.  Sounds like expensive veggies, but in the 
overall picture, it isn't at all.  Not to mention the luxury of top quality 
produce.

We live in the woods, don't commute, and don't need decompression time.  What 
I have found is that it takes me very little time to grow what we consume.  
Surplus usually gets informally bartered for whatever we don't grow.  We have 
a small circle of local growers, including one who likes to market produce 
outside a nearby country store.  For instance, I don't bother with corn, he's 
very happy to have my surplus tomatoes.  Surplus shiitake go elsewhere.

I looked into wholesale disposition.  Know some who have sold shiitake, 
basil, onions, eggs, etc.  Their return wasn't sufficient to get my 
attention.  In no small part, due to the cost of transportation.  So we are 
content with approaching the self-sufficiency (with a little barter) to 
assure us of a good diet.  In addition to eating better, strikes me as very 
affordable.

Tom (in central Va)

On 5/4/06 at 12:39 PM Pat Meadows wrote:

>It depends on the circumstances.  Discussing it without
>knowing the circumstances is like discussing how many angels
>can dance on the head of a pin, IMHO.
>
>Example: I'm not a position to make money at present.   For
>various reasons, I can't work even part time.
>
>OK, so my available time is basically whatever 'productive
>time' I have per day or per week.  (This is after tidying
>the house, doing dishes, laundry:  routine stuff that has to
>be done on a daily basis.  I don't count the daily routine
>as 'productive time'.)
>
>In my case, I believe I average about 1 to 2 hours per day
>'productive time'. Health problems make this time small for
>me, someone else may average 10 hours per day productive
>time.
>
>When you know how much 'productive time' you have available,
>then it just comes down to how you can most profitably spend
>that time.
>
>So the only cost, as I see it, is the 'opportunity cost';
>that is, you can only do one thing at a time.  If I'm
>transplanting plants, I cannot simultaneously be making
>soup.  Etc.
>
>So I balance one thing against another:  which is more
>profitable?  Not profitable in the sense of money saved,
>necessarily, but which is more profitable in the sense that
>it will benefit our household in one way or another.  Some
>things make life more pleasant for us, other things I do
>save money.  Some things I do make life more healthy for us
>(grow veggies, etc.).
>
>But I don't fool myself into believing that someone's going
>to pay me $10 for NOT growing green beans, for example.  So
>I don't count my time spent planting and tending the green
>beans as a dollar 'cost' of the green beans.
>
>On the other hand, if you have an endless source of paying
>work (i.e., someone is willing to pay you for all your
>waking hours), then maybe you would count your time as a
>'cost' of the green beans.
>
>Pat