omg the price of milk!!!!

shinkyshonky wrote: »

Time to start growing methinks....seriously it is going to get worse, as andybk says Gordon brown was warned about these scenario`s years ago...add in a society bred on convenience, and munters who do not know how/or will not cook....recipe for disaster

i quite seriously think allotments / small fields near housing would be a good investment ,(buy now and rent out later) there are few left and many gardens have now been built on , could be a good money spinner for those who want to grow their own .
Even the farming community need big fuel hungry machines which all add to cost .and more and more people want local food .
Went to cheddar yesteray where they grew early strawberries , now nearly all the growers are gone , but found some on a roadside shop (little car)the taste is completely different to the things you buy in most stores , there is just no comparison

shinkyshonky wrote: »

Time to start growing methinks....

I started growing my own fruit and veg last year (simply as we moved to a house with a garden big enough last April) and I love it!

Bet the strawberries growing in my garden will taste even better than your roadside ones Andy Seriously though, strawberries in supermarkets at the moment will be Spanish Elsanta or similar, not a patch on British strawberries which are noticeable by their smell (I find Spanish strawberries do not smell of strawberries, they don't really taste of it either!).

After last years washout summer, most of my produce is being grown in containers for drainage and move-ability! Unless we have 3 feet of water, I should be all right!

Golden Granulated Sugar up from 99p to 1.15
Pk of 6 crusty rolls up to 59p from 45p
Milk from 1.96 to 2.12

I think alot of things have gone up by at least 10p, my weekly shop consists of about 70 items so thats about £7 a week increase and then theres the cost of diesel, gas and electric prices - don't start me on those!
See that alot of other Countries are protesting about the cost of fuel - why do us Brits just sit back and moan and do nothing about it?

Surely something has got to happen soon, it can't carry on like this.

Quillion wrote: »

I don't have a big enough garden to grow my own stuff

You would be very surprised what you can get in the smallest of gardens! My house is new build, so you can hazard a guess as to how big the garden is, I just got creative with space. Strawberries and cherry tomatoes are in hanging baskets on each fence post, plus terracotta strawberry pots that house about 8 plants in the space of one pot, I'm about to put up metal rings for holding plant pots (iyswim, can't describe them better than that really) on the brick wall of next doors garage which is in my garden by about 2 metres (should get around 10 - 12 pots on there), I have fruit trees in pots (not the straight up 'stick' kind of patio fruits, some are dwarf trees, some will require creative pruning), I have a spare iron patio table from a tesco deal last year (reduced to silly price but only came with 2 chairs so had to buy 2 sets hence 2 tables) which, as well as the table top has a shelf lower down connecting the legs so I have my herbs on both shelves of this, I have dug one corner of ground in the garden as a 'veg plot' which is no more than 1 1/2 metres squared which currently houses the rhubarb and the raspberries (I also have 2 flower beds the same size), I have potatoes in tub trugs, tomatoes in troughs down one side of the path, peppers on kitchen window sill and the rest is in pots on the patio/garden. It actually doesn't look as crowded as it sounds - a friend who hasn't seen it since it was all grass last year commented on how much bigger it looked and the 'cottagey' feel to the garden.

I've got an RHS (I think - I'll look for it) book on container growing veg which is fantastic. I haven't found anything I'd eat that I can't grow in containers yet!

ETA The book is " Kitchen Harvest: a cook's guide to growing organic fruit, vegetables and herbs in containers" ISBN 0-7112-1898-6 (It's not an RHS one after all, but I'm sure they do one).

andybk wrote: »

Honestly Quillion dont waste money on the word organic , all plants need nitrogen , phosphate and potash to grow whether from organic or inorganic sources ,its the same chemical food ,
sprays are so tightly regulated these days that none are put on needlessly and most used here are over safe ,
i would be more suspicious of organic from abroad where standards are lower than for uk inorganic produce .
just buy good quality local or at least uk sourced as you are doing

The difference between intensively grown crops fed with concentrated macronutrients (NPK fertiliser) and a balanced feed with decomposed vegetation as their basis, as opposed to NPK salts, is vast. This is true in both iheatlh and quality of the plant and it's fruits, and the subtle flavours and nutritional value it contains.

All to do with secondary metabolites, which can't just be encouraged by bulking up the plant with growth-encouraging fertilisers.

However, much easier to implement on a smale scale, and admittedly difficult for modern farmers. However that may hold a valid argument against modern farming techniques.