Herbs and spices are tricky to measure. I typically don't account for any of the fresh herbs I use, even though those would really drive up the total of my garden. This year, I was able to add fresh oregano, basil, thai basil, sage, dill, thyme, and mint to my dishes, all by walking out into my garden.
On the other hand, I do try to account for the herbs I dry or otherwise would have to buy in dried form. That netted me nearly $30 in herb savings, namely:
Dill: At the beginning of the year, I harvested 12 oz. of volunteer dill, and I harvested a few more batches of "purposeful" dill for the rest of the year. This gave me about two spice jars of dried dill put away, which would have cost $3.39 each at the store if I had bought the organic spice.
Thyme: Likewise, I have a full jar of dried thyme that would have cost $3.39 at the store. I have the possibility of harvesting and drying more, because the plant is fairly cold hardy.
Basil: Basil was fairly tricky, because I used a ton fresh, and I froze a lot in oil. Sometimes, I count this by the price of prepared pesto, but this year I used the price for fresh greens, because my store didn't have those little clamshells of "fresh" herbs. I had 12 oz. of fresh basil that I I froze.
Lavender: My 3 oz. of lavender buds will keep the house smelling nice this year and keep me from buying potpourri.
Feverfew: Even though I eat my feverfew fresh, I priced a $7.89 bottle of 180 capsules that would be my option if I weren't growing it myself.
My other mystery is how to count my St. John's Wort. I grew a ton of it and hurried to make the extract, and I really benefited from taking it, mood-wise. Unfortunately, it didn't play ball with the rest of my system, causing some female side effects. In retrospect, this makes sense as women sometimes take St. John's Wort as a hormone replacement herb during menopause; I'm not at that point, so those warnings didn't seem to apply to me. But certainly my system was confused, and I had to discontinue. Right now, there is no price in this tally for St. John's Wort.
So here we stand. Going into the month of October, we stand at a $260.44 profit for the year, with October still to account for.
2012 Tally to Date
155.404 lbs. total harvested
$29.58 value of harvest of herbs
$457.09 value of harvest for 2012
$196.65 expenditures for 2012
$260.44 profit to date
Fast, Cheap, and Good is a philosophy of homemaking. I believe that we can care for ourselves and our families by adopting simple lifestyle habits and techniques that will improve our health, our connection to and stewardship of our world, and our finances, all without depending on a larger organization to help us through.
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