99p shop, Wilkos and our allotment!

newsgroup_monkey

As this forum is still about money saving and so on... I'll post up here my experiences and a bit about myself which may or may not help others in their quest to grow!

I have no affiliation to either shop (well, OK, my neighbour works at Wilkos, but I work in IT so I know nothing about shopping)

Firstly, I'm a fella. I believe it is a fellas trait that we don't grow anything that we can't eat. The exceptions are things like nasturtiums and marigolds which can be grown as sacrifical flowers.

Oh and Sunflowers (although of course you can eat them)

Last year, my OH and I were offered half an allotment by some very kind friends of ours. They knew that we liked growing, but for various reasons, we are in rented accomodation and both front and back gardens are shingled. Not one piece of grass! Whilst there is an awful lot you can do with pots, there's no substitute for a bit of earth.

We live in Bedfordshire and the soil is very very sandy. Even at the allotment, the water drains straight through and on a hot day it's pointless even trying to water before the sun goes down.

So... we tried lots of different things last year. I'll try and remember them all

• Broad Beans - Completely swamped by blackfly
• Sweetcorn - varying success
• Turnip - OMG! I mean OMG! They weren't so much turnips, but swede like! Lovely tasting, even though they were oversized. Made lots of stews and things and roasted them for Sunday lunch.
• Spaghetti Squash - Er yes. About 120. From only 5 plants. They just grew and grew. And we harvested them. And they grew more. And we gave them away. And still they came!
• Lettuce - We were given some small grown ones. Very successful.
• Onions. A couple of kilos, but a good start.
• Potatoes - 99p seed potatoes made about 15kg. Very successful.
• Cabbages - Savoy. We did get some attacked by some whitefly, but fortunately the wasps came at the right time (I never realised that wasps could actually be useful!)
• Runner beans. Left too long, they were quite stringy and there were thousands of them.
• Dwarf Beans - taken over by Runners. Remember to move them this year.
• Broccoli - planted too close together. Got mildew.
• Cucumber - see other thread. We were inundated with these.
• Carrots - These were the exception. I was warned we get carrot fly and as I had spent most of our budget building raised beds from old wood, I chose to spend 2 quid on some F1 resistant ones rather than building high wooden beds.

Wow! Looking at that lot, half an allotment is a lot of growing space!
This year, we have new additions: Pumpkins, baby sweetcorn, beetroot, parsnips, swede, leeks, Brussel Sprouts and early potatoes as well as main crop. We've ditched the broad beans and regular sweetcorn - it's too messy for such a small crop.

This doesn't include the tomatoes and peppers that we grew at home in plastic greenhouses.

Talking of peppers, did you know that many supermarket peppers seeds won't grow? Well, Tesco Finest Pointed peppers (10p in reduced section) are excellent for using the seed. To the point where we are using the seeds from last years fruit!

Now, thing is, we buy most of our seeds from the 99p shop. Either the packs of 6 or they do 4 separate packs for 99p. In addition, we buy the polytunnels, fleece, netting and pretty much all our other bits! Including their excellent compost (15 litres).

I am amazed how expensive seeds are from the proper seed places when half the time they are the same varieties. We have very high yields from all the seeds and end up throwing half of them away or giving them away to friends as young plants.

I mentioned Wilkos above: We use them for seed trays, propogators and such like. I have also bought my beans and peas from them (99p shop don't sell them)

Ooh and whilst I'm on the 99p shop trail, we currently have 6 different fruit trees/bushes on the go! Redcurrant, Blackcurrant, Gooseberry (Green) Gooseberry (Red), Raspberry and another (Can't remember). All of them are around 6 weeks old and are already double the size we bought them at (not to mention full of healthy leaves).

I'll probably add some more later (other things we pick up on the cheap - strawberry plants that simply needed some watering for 10p at Homebase and so on). Ooh and a couple of online bits and bobs - free seeds.

The one thing I did learn last year, if you have any squash (including cucumbers), keep the seeds, dry 'em out and then use again the following year. Same with runner beans, peas and so on.

so there you are. My sort of blog post!

rosie383

Wow! That is very impressive. I'm in Beds too. Where is the 99p shop? I have bought things from Poundland, like seed potatoes, but other things like weed resistant material were rubbish!

newsgroup_monkey

We are near Leighton Buzzard.

There's a 99p store here and in Bedford I believe. We also use the one in Hemel Hempstead at times.

Because most of them are old Woolies stores, they are much bigger than Poundland and there seems to be a higher turnover of stock.

So some weeks, nothing. Other weeks, there's loads! It's a weekly task for us as we pass.

I have bought some of the weed resistant material which is probably the same - I was going to give it a go with my Strawberries. I don't expect much, but anything is a bonus!

Other things I've remembered that I bought from 99p stores are:

Small metal watering can (these were £4 in Wilkos)
Bamboo trellis (they're huge!)
Willow trellis
bags of 10 canes (around 1.5m tall)
Rose bush (this is going great too)
Small pop-up bins

Lotus-eater

newsgroup_monkey wrote: »

The one thing I did learn last year, if you have any squash (including cucumbers), keep the seeds, dry 'em out and then use again the following year. Same with runner beans, peas and so on.

Not the same with them all at all.
Beans and peas you will generally have no trouble with, beans do cross, but if you only grow one type you won't have any problems, although you'll still get some sort of eatable bean out of it.
Squash and the like though, will cross with anything else cucurbit like and you will get anything out of it, but the likelyhood of it being worth growing, is in my experience, quite low.
You can save this seed, you just have to do it the right way. See Realseeds for advice on that.

Re, The Poundshop and Wilkos. Some of the stuff is good and some not. Often if you buy cheap, you have to replace often, expensive not quite so often and it usually does a better job.
Seeds, it doesn't matter where you get them from and obviously anything branded will be the same, but some of the really cheap stuff isn't very good.
I mean 15 litres of compost? Most people will use that on one pot.

ALIBOBSY

nasturtiums are tasty in salads, both leaves and flowers-peppery a bit like rocket. They are a real bargain plant, lovely looking, encourage beneficial insects, draw the bad bugs away from the veggies and edible !! smashing plant.

ali x

malamala

newsgroup_monkey wrote: »

Spaghetti Squash - Er yes. About 120. From only 5 plants. They just grew and grew. And we harvested them. And they grew more. And we gave them away. And still they came!

That sounds interesting! May I ask where you bought the seeds from? I'd like to have a go!

newsgroup_monkey

Lotus-eater wrote: »

Not the same with them all at all.
Beans and peas you will generally have no trouble with, beans do cross, but if you only grow one type you won't have any problems, although you'll still get some sort of eatable bean out of it.
Squash and the like though, will cross with anything else cucurbit like and you will get anything out of it, but the likelyhood of it being worth growing, is in my experience, quite low.
You can save this seed, you just have to do it the right way. See Realseeds for advice on that.

I'll let you know. We deliberately kept the squashes apart (I'll find a visio diagram I put together somewhere). So far, they're looking excellent and the cucumbers are flowering well.

I'll go have a look at RealSeeds.

Lotus-eater wrote: »

Re, The Poundshop and Wilkos. Some of the stuff is good and some not. Often if you buy cheap, you have to replace often, expensive not quite so often and it usually does a better job.
Seeds, it doesn't matter where you get them from and obviously anything branded will be the same, but some of the really cheap stuff isn't very good.
I mean 15 litres of compost? Most people will use that on one pot.

Your right, we probably will have to replace fairly often, but looking in garden centres, online and even DIY stores, we found that things like netting was 4 or 5 times more expensive. It is all currently in its second year (we have a LOT of netting out). I question whether it is going to last 4 or 5 times as long?

Also, we spent quite a lot of money setting-up last year (including the set-up at home with plastic cold frames and so on) so our budget was hampered.

As above, we only had a couple of failures. The Broccoli was our fault (too close together, missed a few days of hot weather watering etc.) The Broad Beans were branded too.

Ooh: Edit too about the compost. Yes indeed, 15 litres doesn't go far. The cheapest compost we could find locally was £12 for 180 litres. This works out slightly more expensive, but we can afford to buy 4 bags at a time. The Aldi stuff works out cheaper (£8.73)

malamala wrote:

That sounds interesting! May I ask where you bought the seeds from? I'd like to have a go!

They were these F1 Hybrids

http://www.thompson-morgan.com/vegetables/vegetable-seeds/pumpkin-squash-and-courgette-seeds/squash-hasta-la-pasta-f1-hybrid/373TM

Lotus-eater

newsgroup_monkey wrote: »

Your right, we probably will have to replace fairly often, but looking in garden centres, online and even DIY stores, we found that things like netting was 4 or 5 times more expensive. It is all currently in its second year (we have a LOT of netting out). I question whether it is going to last 4 or 5 times as long?

I always buy my netting from Wilkinsons, well I haven't bought any in a few years, but I would again.

jamsandwhich

I use Home Bargains around here (Teesside) the seed potato's @ 99p also are great and they get branded feed and pest control (westlands, phostreogen) at 99p / £1.99 etc.

I got a load of seeds frpm Focus DIY last September - they were selling them all off at 50p a pack and most didn't go out of date until 2012 - they had dumped the lot in two wheelbarrows in the store and I had a fab half hour rooting through. Spent £15 and got loads of packs to use / swap.

The only trouble I have had this year is I tried to sow my own Dhalia seeds - paid full price for two packs (the only thing I didn't manage to get from focus!) and none have germinated - Have had the same problem with some Alpine Strawberries. I followed the instructions on the packs but suspect I may have overwatered or they have been too warm in the greenhouse. Back to the drawing board on that one.

Am going to get some spaghetti squash - we love sqaush and seems good to grow with a decent crop.

Thanks for the post OP

newsgroup_monkey

OK, I'll update my own bloggy thread (probably as much for me as anyone else)

We've spent the last couple of weekends down the allotment busy busy and planting out windowsill stuff. I'm behind in some areas and ahead in others.

We identified that at the end of the the allotment, we could actually get back another 6 foot that we'd allowed to get overgrown with weeds and nettles. You can imagine, this has not been an easy task! We've turned it over twice. I reckon twice more and we'll be able to use it.

So before the weekend we already had planted out:

Purple Header Broccoli
Turnips
Parsnips
Cabbage
Onions
Carrots
Spinach
First Earlies (Pentland Javelin)
Main Crop (Maris Piper)

This weekend we added:

Main Crop (Pink Fir - 50p from Wyevale)
Cucumbers (Marketmore)
Pumpkin (?)
Spaghetti Squash (Pasta-la-vista F1)
Beetroot
Cos Lettuce
Dwarf Green Beans
Runner Beans

In addition, in the house we've moved on (or up):
Chillis (mild)
Sweet Peppers
Leeks
Sweetcorn (Mr Bojangles F1)
Peas (round 2)
Melons
Aubergines

Also planted more seeds (some to replenish, some because things failed)
Cauli (all-year-round)
Cabbage (all-year-round)
Brussels (Dark something or another)
Pak Choi
Dwarf Green Beans

Still have plenty of Lettuce in our pot (trying to slow it down so that it doesn't come all at once)

To move on if I get a minute this week:

Tomatoes (final position)
Strawberries (not this year)
Bell peppers
Shallots

In addition, we now have somewhere to grow stuff at home. We've bought a couple of 1mx1m veg plot thingys from B&M and a kind friend gave us some railway sleepers which we'll use to prop the sides up. Oh and we have about 400 litres of compost (we'll need some more).

Our outside looks like a garden centre at the moment.

Oops, almost forgot - we picked up all sorts in various garden centres over the weekend:

Bay tree (50p)
Shallots and Pink First (50p)
Peach Tree (looked dead, but now has new shoots) - 50p
Apricot Tree (as above) - £1.50

And some flowers and stuff (I know little about flowers, but apparently these are good perennials)

I'll probably remember some more in a minute...

Emma_whitnash

I bought 2 packs of seed potatoes last year from 99p shop (charlottes and Maris Peers). Charlottes were successful, however due to the weather (very dry up until late July from what I recall) I lost most of my maincrop. This year have bought 2 bags of pots from B&Q for £3 - 1kg of Charlottes the other King Edwards, Charlottes are just starting to flower and are looking good. King Edwards are coming up now so am pleased with those. I must say your list looks very impressive!

Am hoping this year is more successful than last year, the plants are looking a lot healthier thankfully. We've had no rain for quite some time (in Warwickshire) so am watering as and when I can. Fingers crossed though.

Look forward to reading your next blog