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The great, good and not so good bits about growing your own dinner 2017
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Welcome aboard Suffolk lass. Good to know you've got something growing. Storm Doris seemed to 'do' for a few of us. The thread is really helpful and it's great to hear how everyone is growing.
I will be potting on lettuces and brassicas this morning and checking around the green house.
I seem to have done very (too) well with my cucumber this year as most have germinated and are about six inches high. Tomatoes are also doing well and are sunning themselves outside.
I sold a few of the marjorams and chives out at the gate this weekend and the produce pot stands at £22 at the mo. So that's the good new.
On the not so good side - none of my yellow courgettes have germinated - I sowed 4 but they were a few years old. So I think I may have to buy some more. Other than that everything is ticking over nicely.0 -
I will try to pot on various seedlings today if I can find the time. And thanks for the boiling water tip.Spend less now, work less later.0
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Thanks for the welcome, lovely OPs. Ooh, boiling water! As a child I used to do that (and to ants, which was not nice of me!)Save £12k in 2025 #2 I am at £4863.32 out of £6000 after May (81.05%)
OS Grocery Challenge in 2025 I am at £1286.68/£3000 or 42.89% of my annual spend so far
I also Reverse Meal Plan on that thread and grow much of our own premium price fruit and veg, joining in on the Grow your own thread
My new diary is here0 -
Hi Suffolk lass
Zafiro hope the bruises heal soon
More done today in between helping OH to level out the decking base we have laid, strawberries planted in their containers, more tomatoes potted up (think I may have too many!) and gave everything a good ol' water. Expecting frost tonight so put a few of the tenderest things in the greenhouse. The potatoes I started indoors are well away and will have to go in the garage overnight as they are too big to go in the greenhouse, its one of those little lean to things. The potatoes that I planted a couple of weeks ago outside are breaking the surface so I added a couple more inches of compost to the pots so the frost doesn't get the shoots.
Hope you all had a good easterLet's get ready to bumble! :rotfl:0 -
Good tip Kantankrus Mare - thanks
Fruittea, you are way ahead of me in the money stakes. However, having read what you were saying about selling tomato plants at the gate I've now gone ahead and sown my spares. They didn't cost much as I picked them up from the garden centre last August for 50p a pack so I should show a profit on that.
Smeeinnit - I didn't realise it was going to be frosty tonight, I must watch the forecast later, looking at the sky there is quite a covering of cloud so maybe it could miss us
Thanks everyone who commented on my bruising, it's stopped hurting and I can now bend over without seeing stars but I still look as if I've gone five rounds with Mike Tyson, at least looking like this it will keep me away from the shops.
Today I sowed all my freebie magazine flower seeds, I sowed them into modules and hopefully they can be planted out without having to pot them on. (I just used a word where you move the seedling on beginning with pr...... this programme doesn't like that word and threw it out) They're for my daughters garden just to fill in the gaps as she's putting the house on the market in a few weeks. Now to light the fire and find something for tea.
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I potted on my big tomatoes, can't remember the variety, but they are those huge ones. Took them out to the green house to do it and left them there all day. Have just brought them back in the house as they looked very sorry for themselves.
Will try to do more tomorrow.Spend less now, work less later.0 -
Just watering for me today as I had to go to work at 12.00 and have just got in. Would much rather have been digging!!
For those of you that sell at the garden gate......how do you do it?
Do you put an honesty box out or ask for money to be put through letterbox?
Would love to have a go at this. I live in a dead end street but there are lots of people around at school dropping off and leaving time as school at end of street.Make £10 a Day Feb .....£75.... March... £65......April...£90.....May £20.....June £35.......July £600 -
I sell eggs and spare fruit and vegetables at the gate. My DH built me a table with a roof at the gate, it looks a little like a very small lych gate sideways on. I have an honesty box well bolted to the table and a wire dog cage also well bolted to the table. the eggs go in the cage to keep the squirrels or rooks/magpies from helping themselves, the veg, fruit and egg boxes go in plastic mushroom boxes.
The problems I have had are people taking things without paying and the honesty box being broken into.
We are on a very small lane and the gate is about 100yds away so I can't see it from the house. I didn't want the table to be near the house and people coming to the door so I have to put up with a few problems.
My thoughts are:-
If you sell eggs people expect them to be there every day otherwise they get out of the habit of stopping and buying.
People want a bargain and expect supermarket prices for what is usually fresher, and of a higher quality but once they have tried things they usually come back for more. Word of mouth is also very valuable.
Your honesty box would go missing very quickly if it wasn't bolted down so maybe posting money through the letterbox would be better.
On balance it's been good, and I would do it again if we ever moved to another place.0 -
Touching on the honesty box idea, but not really knowing the demographic of whose buying from you, would it be worth having a plastic envelope or waterproof container of some sort with little compliments slips on with a Paypal address? Just write on there to say 'send as Friends and Family and add a note to say 'veg and egg honesty'?Wealth is not measured by currency0
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Lovely bright day here in Gloucestershire but it's a bit chilly.
I only put out plants and any extra produce I have. I don't have that much so it's usually at weekends only.
I don't have anything fancy just a chair and a blackboard. I just mark up the boards with a ditty of some kind and whatever I have - Like 'Herb of the day keeps the pests a bay'.
I put out a jar for the money but I pop out a lot and the gate is just yards from my window. I can usually hear people put the money in and when they leave I pop out and collect it.
It's mostly neighbours that buy things. I've had a couple of dodgey coins and Euros instead of £s but other than that very few problems. I've even found more money than expected or neighbours knock to say they took something but didn't have the change on them.
My road is a dead-end but the church and the river are at the top so there's some passing trade but not much.
I only do it for a bit of laugh and the neighbours always come to me for their toms and cus and ask me to put aside some runners.
Some I won't take any money from and some I do - I always grow yellow courgettes for one neighbour and try to keep him suppled all summer as he's the one that helps me with any chicken problems.
I never sell eggs and I only have 5 chickens and only get a few a day. One is retired (Madalane) she must be nearly nearly 8 and is blind in one eye, the others are a bit hit and miss. If I have any extra I give them to friends or neighbours I house-sit for.0
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