garden economics: first harvest

With the harvest of the arugula today, I can now start the "income" portion of garden economics.  I'm estimating that the arugula was worth about $2.  So here's the total:

Expenses: $274

Income: $2

Time: 16.5

All righty!  We're closing the gap. 

Please note: the expenses include many one-time purchases - tools, books, irrigation supplies - that won't need to be made again.  But I'm trying to be thorough, and I think that over the long term the gap will close and eventually move into the black, even with these big up-front purchases.  And more than half of the 16.5 hours was taken up in weeding the yard (still working on it, too), but, since those weeds are going to be reduced to compost used in the garden, I've decided to count it as time spent on the garden.

fall garden: first taste

First harvest of the fall garden this morning.  Arugula, no surprise.  We could have harvested several days ago, but waited until today when we had some tomatoes (thanks to our neighbors Fred and Amy for the pineapple tomato used in the sandwich).

Pretty much delicious.  I guess this would be a B.A.T. - bacon, arugula, tomato - sandwich.  The arugula was moderately spicy, and makes this sandwich way better than its cousin, the B.L.T.