Fruit and vegetable prices are always changing making it hard to know when they are at a 'good price'.
Has anyone made a list of fruit and veg with a 'buy at this price or below'?
Fruit and Vegetable Price List? Buy at or below This Price!
Alex10 on 30/08/2019 - 10:59
Comments
generally true, but for some vegie you can set benchmark for each locality like carrot around $1-1.5/kg most time of the year, same for onion, banana probably $3/kg for most time (not now), milk $1/l now $1.2 :(. That's around melbourne not sure about other place
Vegetables are not identical products.
I'm not sure how you're going to factor size (ie. some fruits are exponentially more expensive or inversely cheaper if larger), condition/freshness of produce, origin, season…
Same as above. Eat what is in season & it will be a lot cheaper.
You could also grow your own veggies. Quick growing crops that don't take long. You can even use pots if you don't have much space.
Planter boxes. Aldi has them cheap. Simple modifications will allow you to make a wicking bed design and you're set.
Actually no, wicking beds need to be water tight and anything designed to have plants in it will have holes in the bottom. For wicking beds you want to start with a plastic 44 gallon drum sawed in half or an IBC sawed in half (and has to be a container that hasn't shipped anything poisonous to plants or bugs in it). It is pretty expensive to build and would take a while to get your money back so isn't worth looking into if saving money is your only goal (instead of having fresh veggies or herbs nearby, or the joy of gardening).
I used the planter box as structural support and added a few stakes to compensate for hydrostatic force. I use a pond liner to keep it water tight.
The wicking beds have been growing tomatoes for me for three years very successfully.
If you're worried about drowning roots, it won't.
@[Deactivated]: Oh yeah a pond liner would do it.
The other reason using a pot designed for planting straight into isn't practical for wicking beds is you need room for the reservoir - once you take 20 cm or so away from the depth there's hardly any room for the plants to grow unless they're very shallow rooted (like lettuce maybe).
Anyway by the time you add up geotextile fabric, scoria, pipes, pond liner, soil, it isn't really a good way to save money vs buying veggies unless you're going to keep it going through several years
@Quantumcat: Geo textile fabric? I used woven weed mat.
Soil is cheap if you buy from garden supply places that deliver with a tip truck.
Worked out to be about $80 per large Aldi planter bed all modified.
Try it. You only need two for a household. Three and you'd have veggies coming out the wazoo.
Don't plant mint or lemon grass in there, they'll dominate the box. I have a few large styrofoam crates for those.
@[Deactivated]: how did you get your lemon grass to invade the bed, mine barely stay alive with countless aids on them (mulch, compost and even water saving granule), in Melbourne winter they just look like dying weeds. are yours inside greenhouse?
@lgacb08: Nope. Outside. Actually, mine are in the ground but I will move them into a pot. They're a bush about 2m in diameter now.
Yes, I made a list. It factors in seasonality, recent environmental events, forecasted weather, listeria outbreaks, any increases in pin/needle sales, my overall hunger and planned recepies for the week.
I still need to tweek it slighly as last week I ended up with too many potatos.
Eat seasonal fruit and veg, and you are half-way there price-wise. There will be occasional impacts from climatic events etc., but generally you should be able to get the freshest items at the best prices.
Always have fresh herbs growing; they improve almost all dishes.
A decent way I can think of for comparing fruit and veg prices to see if they are at a decent price is using price hipster and looking at the price graph.
Also through the tips given above, looking through the seasonal produce guide is helpful.
https://sustainabletable.org.au/all-things-ethical-eating/se…
No, because you need to take seasonality into account and supply and demand. E.g. broccoli can get to $2/kg in winter but $10 in summer and impacted by supply shortage due to floods/droughts.
Guide:
Have an idea of what's in season - most plentiful supply.
Have an idea of the relative pricing of the seller vs others and also whether it's a special marketed by them or no.
Special cases: A. "Imperfect picks"/"odd bunch", etc. - sell for cheaper because some people are conditioned to "nicely" shaped fruits/veg. B. Fruits and veg are perishable so have a look at the save me sections for discounted items that might be over-ripe, etc.