Spill the beans... on tricks for cheaply growing fruit & veg

poppysarah

s_glover wrote: »

Possibly a silly question but how do you turn one cane into many, do you need to take cuttings?

I bought a couple of rapsberry and blueberry canes in Lidl earlieer this year and would love to get more from these.

The real question with raspberries is 'how do I stop them spreading'.
They are prolific once they get established and if we stopped mowing our lawn we would have it full of raspberries as they send out roots and pop up all over the place.
Whilst I'd think that was a good idea my OH doesn't and just grumbles.

raeveth

I personally find it way cheaper to grow my own than to buy. Given there is only two of us, I can't buy a huge bag of carrots etc. because they'll go off before they get eaten. If I had unlimited freezer space, this might be less of a problem. The other factor is that I grow everything organically, saving every seed I can, so if you compare what you reap to organic fruit/veg in supermarket, it is an incredible saving.

Making your own compost and leafmould (very very cool) is essential. Save everything, re-use everything, recycle everything. We even have our own bamboo growing for pea and bean poles.

Someone mentioned old tea water and vegetable water from boiling/steaming. I usually turn this into soup but sometimes there is so much left over and I hate pouring it away, so I usually just put a little salt in it and drink it! I never thought to put it on my garden, but that is a great idea!

Did you know, you can also grow watercress, even if you don't have a stream? You just change the water every day. I have had success with small trials of this in old ice-cream tubs.

s_glover

poppysarah wrote: »

The real question with raspberries is 'how do I stop them spreading'.
They are prolific once they get established and if we stopped mowing our lawn we would have it full of raspberries as they send out roots and pop up all over the place.
Whilst I'd think that was a good idea my OH doesn't and just grumbles.

So if I'm patient given time I should have more and more bushes?

In that case I'll hold off buying any more canes

RAS

I started with 4 gifted autumn rapsberry canes, of which three took. I now have 20 odd and I have to keep digging up runners to stop them spreading.

Where have you planted the rasp canes?

Primrose

A couple of years ago I planted 6 Autumn Bliss raspberry canes. Two years later, now they're established, they have put thrown up lots of extra shoots every Spring from the original roots so if you are patient you will get extra canes for free.

cardidai

Top tip; buy your seeds for next year NOW, al the garden centres are selling their stock from this year at half price and most is dated well into next year.
You may have to be flexible and miss out on a favorite variety but you save£££