The answer for value of time will be different for everyone. It depends partly on what you’d otherwise do with your time, partly on your pay-level. And partly on how much you’ve got of it.

If you’ve got little money, a lot of time, and few things you consider important to do with it, your time has a reasonably low value. Say if you’re unemployed and have no children. Having something useful to do would probably even be a good thing, even if it paid only a bit.

On the other hand, if you’re making $50/hour, paid by the hour, and could work more if you wished, then your time is worth atleast $50*(1 - your marginal tax bracket).

You shouldn’t forget value other than money though. Being outdoors and getting some exercise is value too — some people pay dearly for what you can get for free by walking stairs. (i.e. exercise)

U-pick is an EXCELLENT idea, for many reasons, I listed some of them above.

My entire point was that financial savings typically ISNT one of those reasons.

The fact that we can save extra money by growing our own fruits and vegetables is icing on the cake!

Miss Gisele B.

I expected maybe $100-200 worth of vegetables in yield; I got 4 cucumbers, zero tomatoes, and 1 bell pepper that “might” be ready by frost. Seriously thinking of applying for federal farm aid…

Ah well. The morning glories did excellent, at least. There’s nothing edible in the yard, but it’s gorgeous.

I certainly wouldn’t go 25 miles out of my way to go to a u-pick farm (especially if there were a farmers market nearby), but in my case, it’s very worthwhile. I guess it all depends on your situation.

Trust a few to ruin it for everyone else.

I like PYO flower farms too.

@ Gunnar - Picking your own veggies is exercise too. So you saved an hour at the gym, which you’ll likely need if you spend those extra 15 minutes at work… Do it often enough and you won’t need the gym membership whatsoever.

Plus, there’s the factor of whether time spent at the office is *actually* worth more than time spent with people you care about… doing an activity solely for pleasure (instead of productivity)…

Aside from the GHG emissions perspective, you have to realize that the “store” prices include transportation and picking. Leaving the time of picking out of the equation (because it could have been fun and therefore avoid opportunity cost arguments), it may simply have cost you more to drive out to the farm and back than you saved (i.e. $.50*mi >?< $.40*lbs of green beans). Based on this equation, you would have buy 1.25lbs of green beans for every mile you drove to get to the farm and back. That means if the roundtrip to the farm was 25 miles (and the roundtrip to the farmers market is 5 miles), then you would need to buy 25 lbs of green beans (20*1.25) just to break even (without putting a price on carbon or your labor).

So, trying to not be a negative Nancy, support your local growers!

Now, if all that food was put on a transport truck or even a 1 ton cube truck that gets 5 MPG and brought to an area where those families can walk or bus then you only burn 4 gallons of fuel, plus say 4 for the bus trip for 8 gallons.

Hmmm, I think we’ve established that U-Picks cause global warming, I should get a grant and write a paper.

18 quarts you write, that is how much, 20 pounds of actual beans ? Something like that. At $0.60/pound this cost you $12.0, whereas at the farmers market it’d have cost you $20 — So you saved $8.

However, it cost you travel, plus one hour of time, times two people, so two hours of time. I don’t know how far you had to travel, me I’d have to travel about 10 miles, which ends up costing $3 or so.

So, I’d be left with $5 in savings, for two hours of work. Which frankly, makes no sense at all, not for someone who is employed and normally makes $30/hour, the savings amount to 1/10th normal salary.

So rather than sweating for 2 hours, I could stay at the office for 15 minutes more. This is only a “saving” at all if the value of your time is ZERO, or pretty darn close.

I still recommend it though; but for reasons ENTIRELY disconnected from financial savings. You’ll support the local farmers. You’ll have fun. It’s healthy both to get outdoors more, a tiny bit of exercise to do the harvest. And you meet nice people. All well and good. At the end of the day you aren’t any richer though.

…kind of like you inspired me to search for a U-pick place around here. I found out there’s one ten minutes from my house! Sweet.)

18 quarts, huh? Sheesh! She must reallllly like beans if you won’t eat them.