> A basil plant which lives on your windowsill and regrows the leaves you pick to add to sauces with essentially zero labour is certainly more efficient than bu

> A basil plant which lives on your windowsill and regrows the leaves you pick to add to sauces with essentially zero labour is certainly more efficient than buying a plastic bag too-full of perishable leaves for 80% of the plant cost from the supermarket every time. ... until you get thrips, spend hours investigating the best natural remedies and buy jugs of neem oil to start mixing natural pesticides, and end up having to throw out the thrip-infested basils (which is half of them by now). Then you spend a few more hours investigating why you now have fungus gnats all over the house, and start looking into alternative soil media, hydro, and semi-hydro, and you start filling up the odd corners of your house with various liquid fertilizers, and you spend a few hundred on grow lights because you live an an apartment with no balcony and your windows don't get enough light. Source: started growing herbs over the summer Still a fun hobby though! I wouldn't give it up for anything, but if I valued my gardening time at a pay rate equal to my work time, I've spent thousands upon thousands of dollars for probably < $100 worth of food