The Rising Cost of Food

ceridwen

Churchmouse wrote: »

Allotments are rarer than hen's teeth in my area too. Long waiting lists, and I shan't be putting my name down. I do think it's a resource that could be handled much better. Why, for instance, are the plots in an area all the same size. Surely, to be fair, there should be different sizes allocated as to whether you are a one person household, a couple or a family of 4, 5, 6 or more? And maybe priority should be given to flat dwellers who don't have gardens. That way lots more households could be accommodated. Obviously too sensible for the powers that be

I think "landshare" sounds very good in theory, but I'd be wary of elderly people allowing unvetted total strangers access to their property. Much better if it can be arranged through someone known to the owner who can vouch for the gardener.

Whilst people dont put their names down on waiting lists - then the authorities can tell themselves there are fewer people wanting an allotment than is the case.

There is a certain logic in different size allotments - and I think this is catered for already to some extent by the number of Councils that do half-size allotments and the like. Personally - I think its the way to go to give a half-size allotment to a single or couple and a 4 person size allotment to a family (ie 2 adults/2 children). I would not envisage providing allotments that are bigger than 4 person size nowadays (as that would mean a single or couple having to do without one to cover a family being given more than 4 peoples' worth and therefore discriminatory). Anyway - it will take a while for all standard size allotments to come back into the Councils hands and get "cut down to two-third size" - ie because allotments were originally designed in an era of bigger families (ie 2 adults and 4 children) and need re-designing for todays standard size family (ie those 2 adults and 2 children).

Re Landshare - I would say the "worst case scenario" as to what would happen would be the "gardener" half of the garden-sharing scenario didnt keep up the garden to the extent they had promised. They wouldnt have access to the house any more than anyone else would (except possibly for access to the loo when necessary - and the householder can ensure they are somewhere in the vicinity if they havent fully sussed them out yet) - so I dont see how any problems could arise in that respect anyway. Also - by the time the likely garden providers got to old age - I would imagine the vast majority of people would have learnt how to suss out other people just by looking at them anyway and few will still be making errors of character judgement in assessing people.

3v3

Amazing discovery this weekend in a charity shop ... it's a little notebook (circa 1968) with each page filled with the weekly shopping list for the local co-operative and the prices beside the listed items. Not too sure (yet) if this is someone's personal record, or, if it is the co-opreative's record for that particular address ready for delivery. Haven't had an opportunity to analyse it properly yet, but, "Lurpak" butter features pretty much weekly and it will be interesting to see how the price alters over the 2/3 yr period the notebook covers. Little bit of "living history" for me to mull over

Churchmouse

Regarding waiting lists, I'm quite sure they are not accurate. How many people when moving away from an area think to get their names taken off the list. Same goes for anyone who dies while on the list, I'm sure their relatives wouldn't give it a thought. I know from managing a waiting list myself, that when we do contact to say we now have a vacancy a lot of people say they're no longer interested, but very very few ever concern themselves to contact us to be taken off the list. I shan't be putting my name down for personal reasons I'm not prepared to discuss in a public forum.

As regards size, I wonder ceridwen how you think denying a larger family a larger allotment is NOT discriminatory. I know from other posts of yours you don't think anything over two children should be counted, but what of families that comprise more than two generations? A family that is loving enough to take in grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, maybe even family friends is to be denied the land appropriate to their needs? Or do you think the "others" should have entitlement under their own name? To allow a single the same space as a couple seems rather generous.

Regarding landshare, well I'm pleased you can tell a person's character just from looking at them. Never found looks to be that reliable myself, and evidently neither have a lot of other people that fail to see the "criminal" behind the face. Maybe I'm being over cautious, but better that, than another elderly person losing confidence at the hands of a conman/woman.

nannyboo1

bonnie_bumpkins wrote: »

I did laugh in Waitrose yesterday when I saw a tub of frozen veg stock... for £2.99 :rotfl: I'd love to know how many they actually sell and if the people that buy it realise they have it already on a daily basis if they are cooking veg for supper every evening.

I always laugh when I see people paying for frozen ice cubes

ceridwen

nannyboo1 wrote: »

I always laugh when I see people paying for frozen ice cubes

Never seen anyone actually buying them - but someone must be:cool:

A supreme example of "added value". I walk round supermarkets repeating the phrase "added value" to myself at intervals and reminding myself that any product that has involved work by someone else means they take a cut of the price for it - so the fewer "cuts" to others the better.

The only "added value" product that I've noticed that isnt dearer is ready-grated cheese and we know why thats cheaper (as, I gather, its various odds and ends we wouldnt use ourselves....?). Having said that - I spotted a bag of ready-grated cheese on sale with other cheeses at a farmers market the other day and bought that (as I figured that would be "okay").

valk_scot

Churchmouse wrote: »

Regarding waiting lists, I'm quite sure they are not accurate. How many people when moving away from an area think to get their names taken off the list. Same goes for anyone who dies while on the list, I'm sure their relatives wouldn't give it a thought. I know from managing a waiting list myself, that when we do contact to say we now have a vacancy a lot of people say they're no longer interested, but very very few ever concern themselves to contact us to be taken off the list. I shan't be putting my name down for personal reasons I'm not prepared to discuss in a public forum.

As regards size, I wonder ceridwen how you think denying a larger family a larger allotment is NOT discriminatory. I know from other posts of yours you don't think anything over two children should be counted, but what of families that comprise more than two generations? A family that is loving enough to take in grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, maybe even family friends is to be denied the land appropriate to their needs? Or do you think the "others" should have entitlement under their own name? To allow a single the same space as a couple seems rather generous.

I'm on the committee of a self-managed allotment site. We lease the plots from the council, they provide some of the groundkeeping as part of the deal but we manage the waiting list and enforce the rules.

One thing we do is "prune" our very lengthy waiting list every year. We write to everyone on the waiting list and ask them if they want to be kept on it. As you say people do move away (to apply, you have to live within the parish boundary), die, get a house with bigger garden etc. If no response within a month you get a second letter then if still no reply you get taken off. We can drop 20% of our very long waiting list like this, every year, so you're absolutely right. The normal waiting list is about 80 names long. On a good year four or five plots change hands on our 50 plot site.

As to being discriminatory about small or large families well....our only criteria for getting a plot is to be on the waiting list. Most of our plots are 1/2 plots at 20' x 80' and that's what you get when you come to the top of the list. You only get a 40' x 80' plot if you proove that you can run a 1/2 plot over a couple of years and express interest in a full plot. (We can split full plots or twin half plots so the situation is fluid.)

We don't look at home circumstances. How is this fair? You might be a single person into total self sufficiency, you might have six kids and be into having a plot for fun and education rather than serious veg production. What happens if your family circumstances changed anyway? How about the plots that two families share, or two olld couples, or as you say the extended families? It's our experience anyway that most busy young parents can't cope with the work a full plot requires and are perfectly happy with a half plot while the retired couple that spend every day on the plot can really get the max out of it. No, the only criteria here is that it's being looked after to a reasonable standard (this is not magazine tidy, just reasonably good) and that it's actually producing some sort of food crop. But basing the plot assigned on the number of people that it's supposed to supply is totally unworkable, belive me. Some of the old timers have been on their particular plot for 30 years or more. We couldn't just heave them off ionto a restricted corner because the missis has died and anyway, they're probably growing for four families of grandkids.

valk_scot

ceridwen wrote: »

Anyway - it will take a while for all standard size allotments to come back into the Councils hands and get "cut down to two-third size" - ie because allotments were originally designed in an era of bigger families (ie 2 adults and 4 children) and need re-designing for todays standard size family (ie those 2 adults and 2 children).

Actually in Scotland at least the standard size of an allotment was arrived at to allow one man(!) to be able to feed a family of four for one year with veg and some fruit. Historically this was 10 rods or approx 300 square yards. If you had a bigger family you took on two plots. (Not allowed at our site.) I'm pretty sure this 10 rod size is the benchmark over the UK, though obviously plot sizes can vary due to constraints in land lie and also private plots may have used different criteria.

Our plots are around this size btw and I have to say that there's no way you could keep a modern family of four self sufficient in veg for a year, let alone add in fruit. If you ate nothing year round but spuds, carrots, leeks and keeping strictly to seasonal produce maybe, but it couldn't cope with modern tastes for all year round salads and beans! I've run a full plot for 14 years now and I would estimate I cover not quite half of our basic veg and fruit intake at best, growing a very wide variety of crops, and that really is for four of us. A half plot is a nice contribution to a family budget but it certainly isn't something you could become completely self sufficient on. I would say you'd need a full 300 sq yd plot per 2 people for complete self sufficiency in all veg and seasonal fruit at modern recommended input levels and you'd be eating stored, frozen and preserved produce a lot of the time rather than fresh.

Uniscots97

Personal triumph over the weekend, on way back from seeing family we stopped into Mr M's to get bread, milk, butter etc. OH loves Lurpak and when he saw the price of it (£3 for the small tub) he was appalled and said "we're not buying that, thats awful!". Woohoo, personal triumph!

I'm finding to stretch the budget I'm doing the following:-

making soup from veg peelings (waste not, want not)

having more hearty soup with a little meat in them and lots of veg served with bread rather than a stew with a lot of meat

puddings (tinned rice, custard with stewed fruit which I've gotten at a reduced price)

I also found a pack of mince pies (the sweet kind you have a xmas) at the back of the cupboard left over from last christmas, would these be ok to eat?

Flibsey

3v3 wrote: »

Amazing discovery this weekend in a charity shop ... Little bit of "living history" for me to mull over

omg I'd LOVE to read that!

ceridwen wrote: »

Never seen anyone actually buying them - but someone must be
.

my mum did when she and dad had a short spell of being "well off" lol. also she still does for parties and such. personally I have a bag in my freezer, make ice cubes and shove them in the bag as I make 'em so on the rare occasions we do have a party, there's a bag ready.

bonnie_bumpkins

unixgirluk wrote: »

Personal triumph over the weekend, on way back from seeing family we stopped into Mr M's to get bread, milk, butter etc. OH loves Lurpak and when he saw the price of it (£3 for the small tub) he was appalled and said "we're not buying that, thats awful!". Woohoo, personal triumph!

Butter and cheese are soooo expensive now. I'm a cheese freak (being vegetarian I convince myself it's not too bad an obsession ) but locally I can't get an average size block for under £4.50 now :eek: Shopping with teenage daughter last week she grabbed the butter she liked and shoved it straight in the basket; when I asked her now much it cost she said she didn't know. Butter was swiftly put back on shelf and we had a little talk about the fact that NOTHING goes in the basket unless price has been checked and compared with other products. And I might still decide not to buy anything if it's too expensive.

unixgirluk wrote: »

I'm finding to stretch the budget I'm doing the following:-

making soup from veg peelings (waste not, want not)

Yes I've been doing this over the last few months too. I make enough soup from veg leftovers to give me lunch every day and it tastes lovely (well usually, except for the carrot top fiasco... yuk).

unixgirluk wrote: »

I also found a pack of mince pies (the sweet kind you have a xmas) at the back of the cupboard left over from last christmas, would these be ok to eat?

I would!! Yummy.