Article: The Economics of Growing by Hand
Gardens at Lower Farm
Charles Dowding, an organic grower with over two decades' experience growing vegetables without soil tillage looks at the economics of small-scale and low-impact vegetable cultvitation.
I offer here some figures of my inputs and outputs, to establish some idea of possible livelihood from small areas of land, using hand labour only. However, do remember that these numbers are peculiar to me and my situation, as follows.
Most of my purchased labour is for harvesting and most of the harvesting is of salad leaves, twice weekly from March to October and once weekly in winter, if not too cold. I pay £8 hourly, aiming to hang on to whoever I have trained up, just one person for the most part. Doing a good job of picking leaves is skilled work, as are many of the undervalued tasks of a grower.
Other expenses come in dribs and drabs and always add up to a higher total than one imagines. Some of the larger items include repairs to a barn roof (materials only), a pallet each year of West Riding multipurpose compost, green waste and mushroom compost, seeds - which could be reduced(!), accountant’s fees, servicing my lawnmower (yes I do need one petrol engine), part costs of running the car for deliveries and other jobs (about 1600 miles per annum) and polythene bags for salad leaves.
