Two weekends ago, I did the first till on the area. Last weekend, I added 4 bags of top soil ($4.98 each), and tilled that in along with it. Between the two tillings, I probably spent about 2 hours. I’ll guess that my wage for this is about $20/hr, so I spent $40 on the tilling. I also had to purchase fence sections to keep our dogs out. 6 sections ($9.97 each), plus 7 poles ($3.97 each).

Bell Peppers	Big Boy Tomatoes	Cherry Tomatoes	Cucumbers

Because of the dead seedlings, I restarted the garden with starter plants. 3 Cherry Tomatoes ($3.95 each), 4 Big Boy Tomatoes ($3.95 each), 3 Bell Peppers ($3.95 each), 2 Cucumbers ($3.95 each) and some watermelon (free, left-over from someone else). I also planted some Squash from seed ($1.95) and some Green Beans ($1.95). The planting took me almost 2 hours. I then purchased some tomato cages (7 in total, $4.98 each), and put those in. Another hour there.

So far, in labor and materials cost, I’ve spent $283.73. The beans and squash are already starting to sprout.

The squash.	The beans.

Like J.D., I’ll be comparing the price of my food items to the price in-store, and seeing how much money I saved or spent. But for me, this is still an experiment to see if I can even get things to grow (which some did last year).