How much does it cost to grow things organically?

Answer 1

$22.50, plus tax.

Just kidding. The truth is that your question can't really be answered, but I think I can help.

If one enjoys gardening enough, then it's possible to make an organic garden completely self-sufficient beyond the initial investments on seeds and tools, and perhaps the occasional replacement, though if you're dedicated enough, even these can be obtained or made freely through the use of the glorious DIY.

For instance, take compost. I live in an apartment, and the only compost bin I have is an old cat litter box with a few drainage holes knifed into it, but I still easily produce 40-50 pounds of pure humus (finished compost) every month, free of charge. It's made up entirely of "waste" products--banana peels, used paper towels, spent coffee grounds, etc.--and it produces something which is gold for a garden. As a mulch it fertilizes while controlling weeds, retaining moisture, and stabilizing soil temperature, when mixed into soil it improves the texture, breaking up clay soils while increasing drainage, and giving structure to sandy soil while increasing water retention. There is no such thing as too much compost, because it will never burn your plants like chemicals do, and the more you add to the soil the healthier and more fertile the soil becomes, creating a perfect environment for all the microorganisms and insects which are beneficial for plants, thus controlling the population of the insects you don't want, and of course the stronger a plant is (and compost will strengthen it), the better its ability to combat diseases.

So you could either make compost or spend money consistently on synthetic fertilizers which actually gradually decrease the natural fertility of the soil.

You could also make garlic and pepper tea to spray on your plants to repel only the insects you don't want, or have to buy synthetic pesticides regularly because they kill all the good insects too, thus allowing the pests to come back with a vengeance unless you continue to spray regularly.

However, if by Organic Gardening you mean that you're just going to grow your plants with the store-bought fertilizer that says "organic" instead of the store-bought fertilizer that doesn't, and buy pre-made organic insect repellents instead of the synthetic ones, then that's a different story, and since that's not at all the approach I take I really don't know.

What I know is not the product of generations of farming, but just reading a bunch of books and using wikipedia generously, and if you do the same you'll be able to get a much better answer.