Start Here: How to Use Garden ROI

The Problem With Most Garden Advice

Most gardening content treats every crop as equally worth growing. Plant tomatoes. Plant squash. Plant whatever looks good in the seed catalog. Then you spend a summer tending a crop that saves you $8 at the grocery store.

The math on home gardening is wildly uneven. A single well-managed basil plant returns $15–$30 in grocery value from a $0.25 seed investment. A zucchini plant returns maybe $4 in grocery value from the same investment - and you'll spend more time managing the glut than you saved at the store. Growing your own food makes sense. Growing the right food makes it make financial sense.

This site gives you the yield data, retail price comparisons, and break-even math for every crop we cover - sourced from USDA data and land-grant university extension publications, not gardening folklore. The Garden ROI app is where you log your actual harvests and see whether your garden is hitting those numbers.

How to Evaluate Any Crop in 3 Numbers

Every crop ROI calculation comes down to three variables. Here's what they mean and how to use them together.

Price per pound

What does it retail for at a grocery store? This is your value ceiling per pound harvested. Basil runs $12–$18/lb. Slicing tomatoes average $1.78/lb (USDA ERS, 2023). Zucchini: $0.80–$1.20/lb. Price per pound is the first filter - before you do any other math, high-priced crops have more upside.

Yield per plant

How many pounds does one plant actually produce? A determinate tomato delivers 10–15 lb per plant. An indeterminate can push 20–35 lb in a long season. A basil plant yields 0.5–1.0 lb total. Yield is where high-priced crops sometimes lose ground - basil at $15/lb but only 0.5 lb per plant is $7.50; a tomato at $1.78/lb but 15 lb per plant is $26.70.

Input cost

Seed or transplant cost is the main variable input. A $3.50 tomato seed packet starts 6–8 plants at roughly $0.25 each. At 15 lb per plant and $1.78/lb, your seed ROI is 107:1. That's before you account for soil, water, or infrastructure - but for an established bed, seed cost is the primary recurring expense.

A worked example: Basil vs. Green Bean

Price/lb Yield/plant Seed cost/plant Gross value Seed ROI

Sweet Basil $15.00 0.5–1.0 lb ~$0.10 $7.50–$15 75–150×

Green Bean $2.26 3–5 lb ~$0.10 $6.75–$11.25 68–113×

Both pencil out similarly on seed ROI. The real differences: basil requires active pinching every week or two; green beans need almost no management after germination. Basil stops producing in cold weather; green beans stop producing when pods go unharvested. The right choice depends on how you cook and how much time you have, not just the numbers.

Where to Start: High-Return Crops for New Gardens

These crops rank well on seed ROI, tolerate beginner mistakes, and produce enough that you'll notice the grocery savings. Each link goes to a full growing guide with sourced yield data and honest growing requirements.

Sweet Basil $15/lb · 0.5–1 lb/plant · 50–75 days Highest price-per-pound of any common herb. Continuous harvest if you keep it pinched. One $3 packet plants a full season. Garlic $5–$12/lb · 6–8 lb per lb planted · Fall-planted Planted in October, harvested in July. Occupies beds through winter when nothing else is growing. Save the largest heads and your seed cost in year two is zero. Arugula $6–$10/lb · ready in 28–45 days · cool season Fastest-payback crop in the garden. A scatter-sown row produces harvestable greens in a month. Succession plant every 3 weeks for continuous supply spring and fall. Tomato $1.78/lb · 10–35 lb/plant · 60–85 days Lower price per pound than herbs, but the yield volume makes up for it. An indeterminate in a long season returns $35–$60 per plant. Also teaches more growing skills than any other crop. Cherry Tomato $3.50/lb · 12–20 lb/plant · 60–70 days Twice the price per pound of slicing tomatoes and faster to maturity. A Sungold or Sweet 100 plant in full sun matures earlier and runs longer than most standard tomatoes. Best beginner introduction to the tomato category. Lettuce $3.50/lb · cut-and-come-again · 45–65 days Bagged salad greens at retail run $12–$20/lb. Looseleaf varieties cut and regrow 3–5 times before needing replacement. One of the clearest value propositions in a small garden. Kale $3.50/lb · 2 lb/plant · Zone 3–9, frost-hardy Produces in spring and survives into November in most zones - and gets sweeter after frost. The longest productive season of any leafy green. One planting covers both shoulder seasons.

See all crops with full ROI data →

Read These First

Four articles that answer the most common questions before you make expensive planting mistakes.

How to Break Even on a Raised Bed in One Season A standard 4×8 cedar raised bed costs $185–$360 to build and fill. This article shows exactly which crops to plant to recover that investment by fall - with the actual math, not estimates. First 5 Crops for New Homesteaders Not ranked by ROI but by which crops teach the most foundational skills. If you want to grow a significant share of your own food eventually, these are the five that build the right foundation. Spring Garden Planning: Design Your Best Season How to plan backward from your goals - not forward from a seed catalog. Includes a planting calendar tied to USDA frost dates, not generic advice. Companion Planting: Which Plants Help Each Other Separates the science-backed pairings (marigolds and tomatoes, the Three Sisters) from the folklore. If you're going to try it, know what actually has evidence behind it.

All ROI Articles → All Homestead Articles → All Guides →

The Site Tells You What to Grow. The App Tells You If It's Working.

Every crop page on this site gives you USDA-sourced yield expectations and retail price baselines. Those are population averages. Your garden has different soil, different weather, and different management than the extension trial plots those numbers came from.

The Garden ROI app is where you log what your garden actually produces - harvest weight, date, crop - and see your real break-even date against what you've spent. After one season of data, you'll know which crops actually perform in your specific conditions. After two seasons, you'll know which ones to cut.

Get the Garden ROI App