Over the last few months, I've seen the term "recession garden" pop up in my news feed, a financial crisis equivalent of the "victory garden" grown by Americans during WW2 that supplied around 40% of America's fresh produce during the war years. It appears that the interest in growing-your-own is growing as unemployment..um...grows. The recession garden is invoked as a means to help the middle class subsist through the leaner times. The recession garden is meant to be sized as less than David Shennan’s veritable estate but more than my half-assed guerrilla garden. Little other detail is mentioned.

I've had an interest in the subsistence aspect of urban gardening for a while, an interest that in my more committed moments crosses the line into the new survivalism rather than the more explicable but prosaic middle class pastoral fantasy. Subsisting from the produce in an urban backyard is possible but the economic justification is weak.

The initial costs to start a garden is indeed low: good soil, seeds and water is all you need and of these water and soil are almost cheap enough to be free. Gardening organisation Digger’s Club even do a deal for low income earners that is too outrageous to be believed - $19.50 of vegetable seeds that can yield up to two tonnes of food from the average Australian backyard. Can you build a garden for less than $20 to survive on for a year?

Justifying that you grow a garden because you can save money is a common fallacy because it means that the labour that you put into the garden is valued at nothing, which is fine if you're otherwise unemployed or just have spare time on your hands (but can still afford to own a plot). If I worked an equivalent amount of time in paid employment rather than in my home garden, I'd easily be able to buy the amount of fresh produce that I can feasibly grow. This may not take into account the entire environmental cost of shipping me the equivalent food, but at the very least is a more accurate assessment of the cost of home gardening.

The issue is that it's impossible to replicate the freshness or the variety of what can be grown at home and the moments that home gardening feels like work rather than play are rare. It is deeply satisfying to see your soil improve over time rather than degrade. The need to potter about with a loosely defined goal seems universal for anyone that can afford leisure; a need amply satisfied by growing something.