I dedicated a small 3' x 3' area of my garden this year to growing Sweet Corn (see this blog entry). After about 3 months, I harvested 16 ears of Sweet Corn (see this blog entry)
The local supermarket sells Sweet Corn for $0.25 to $0.33 each, so this 3' x 3' part of my garden saved me $5.
In this equivalent area, I could grow a Strawberries or Cherry Tomatoes.
Strawberries are going for $3 a pound at the local supermarket. I can get a pint of Strawberries from a strawberry plant in a season and a 6 foot tall Strawberry Tower can hold 36 Strawberry plants (see this blog entry). However, this part of the garden only gets sunlight in the morning (there is a big hedgerow behind it that blocks the afternoon sun), so I can only have 20 productive Strawberry plants in this part of the garden. A pint of strawberries is about 0.75 pounds, so 20 Strawberry plants would yield 15 pounds of Strawberries per year or about $45 worth of strawberries.
In this same 3' x 3' area, I could grow one Cherry Tomato plant. A pound of Cherry Tomatoes goes for $5 at the local supermarket. Although I have not added up how many pounds of Cherry Tomatoes a plant can produce in a season, I did record how much Cherry Tomatoes my garden can produce in 1 week (see this blog entry from last year). I think 20 pounds of Cherry Tomatoes per plant is a reasonable estimate or $100 worth of fruit.
So, I can grow $5 worth of Sweet Corn, $45 worth of Strawberries or $100 worth of Cherry Tomatoes. I really cannot taste the difference between my backyard Sweet Corn and the supermarket Sweet Corn, but I can taste the difference in the Strawberries (mine are sweeter). As for Cherry Tomatoes, I cannot even find Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes in the supermarket and in my opinion Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes are the best tasting Cherry Tomatoes.
From now on, no more Sweet Corn in my garden.
I converted this area to growing Cherry Tomatoes (see this blog entry).
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