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Comment by octocop | Hacker News Reader

Yes, one of the main reasons to have a garden. I guess the next article will be "Fishing instead of swimming in the Ocean"

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Where do you live that the majority of domestic gardens are used primarily to grow food?

Isn't that common around the world?

Not in the US

First, we need to come to a universal understanding of the term "garden". What the UK understands as garden would be considered the back yard in the US. Some people in the US choose to have a garden in their back yard while others do not. So for purposes of discussion, let's call garden the spot where you are actually growing plants for food as opposed to a flower garden.

Is that common with the stated definition? In the US, it is not especially if you add sustaining levels of production vs just hobby level

Is that actually how people use the word garden outside the uk?

In the US, garden is the area of the yard that grows plants. It is typically a small portion of the yard. The yard is pretty much any open space of the owner's parcel of land not containing the house or other structures. Also commonly used terms are "flower beds" or "plant beds". These are typically for ornamental plants vs food. Most people would consider a garden to primarily be for food plants.

For example, the Great British Bake-off has the tent in the garden. But no red blooded 'murican would consider that expanse of manicured grass as a garden.

Yeah possibly poor choice of words for an international audience. For non-brits, imagine I just said "additional, nature-y non-covered area of your place of residence".

It is in Scotland... if you are an 18th century crofter.

It's pretty common on earth that people grow food in proximity to their home and where the soil is fertile. It just takes an american to make it into an "Aha" moment, hence the snarky remark about fish and ocean. But there you go.

lol, I've been growing food-bearing plants in my backyard for about 10 years now. I plant jalapenos, tomatoes, bell peppers, watermelons, squash, zuchini, strawberries, eggplant and cantaloupe. I've grown maybe the equivalent of $100 worth of fruits and vegetables in that time. If I'm lucky I'll get three watermelons in a year. It's interesting to see and fun to do, but there's no way that planting vegetable plants is going to sustain you to any level on a typical lot.

Definitely not, but having fresh herbs veggies available is amazing. With herbs, I think it can be cheaper than buying them at the store (we normally waste tons of herbs if we buy at the store). With peppers and tomatoes, they just taste better :)

This year we may do squashes and eggplants ...

> having fresh herbs

That's true - there's nothing in the world that tastes like fresh-cut cilantro (definitely not day old cilantro). Unfortunately, it takes a lot of work to keep a cilantro plant from bolting.

I'm amazed that anyone pays supermarket prices for fresh mint. You can't stop it from spreading, it's essentially a weed.

We do this too. For me the garden has also been a gateway into preserving. This year, I put up enough tomatoes to last the year. It's not always cheaper than buying the cheap alternative from the store, but the quality difference between something home grown and store bought is huge.

In addition to the items you've listed, I'd add grapes/ muscadines, passionfruit (grows wild so cheating), fruit and nut trees (figs are easy if you keep them pruned), berries, tea, lettuce/greens, celery, potatoes, carrots, herbs. I used to hate gardening, but it's grown on me over the last few years. The only thing I don't like growing is squash really.

We garden a lot too. And it does produce excellent produce. But deep down inside I recognize that the farmers market has consistently better produce for -dramatically- lower prices, everything considered.

Gardening really is a hobby more than a practical life-hack. Although we did just get a hydroponic setup for greens in the house, and hopefully that can supply greens that are better and actually much cheaper.

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