Is growing your own food like printing money?

silverwhistle

twopenny said:

I once had to price mine, sprouting broccoli and strawberries mainly, because the firebrigade couldn't turn off the main and flooded my garden. A whole seasons crop of both, organic, came to about £25. I was surprised.

Blimey, you priced your labour cheaply! Joking aside that you priced on output not input,  I think it does illustrate that compared with the cost of stuff in the shops you're on to a loser. But as everybody has pointed out, freshness, quality, nutritiousness, taste are all major gains.

DiggerUK

I remember a keeper of chickens relaying a phrase that can be adapted here....chickens don't keep you, you keep chickens.
I also  like to huggle my leeks in the privacy of my own veg bed.....I was once given a police warning for doing the same with a Buff Orpington, but leeks aren't covered in the same legislation..._

clive0510

My grand dad had a huge fruit n veg plot. sometimes he would spend the whole day planting, weeding, digging etc etc. and the stuff that he produced- so much of it. more than he and my grand mother could eat, so they gave a lot of it away or sold it. so with that in mind I decided to grow my own stuff when we 1st moved here. but I never had my grand dads success. most of the seedlings got eaten by the birds as soon as they appear. my beans all got black fly or something. and the spuds I grew were full of holes made by wire worm. needless to say I gave up.

twopenny

Yes, it's war out there. But you have to cover/net/pick off and keep an eye, only takes minutes.

I love sitting by my raspberries with the morning cuppa and picking off some raspberries fresh and warm before breakfast. The flavour is vastly different to the punnets of bland stuff in the shops.

When people say they can't be bothered I don't understand it. A lot of stuff like fruit you basically stick the plants  in and they give you fruit. No trawling back and forth and queuing at supermarkets.

Farway

clive0510 said:

My grand dad had a huge fruit n veg plot. sometimes he would spend the whole day planting, weeding, digging etc etc. and the stuff that he produced- so much of it. more than he and my grand mother could eat, so they gave a lot of it away or sold it. so with that in mind I decided to grow my own stuff when we 1st moved here. but I never had my grand dads success. most of the seedlings got eaten by the birds as soon as they appear. my beans all got black fly or something. and the spuds I grew were full of holes made by wire worm. needless to say I gave up.

If your granddad was like mine your lack of success is possibly down to not spraying with DDT or Nicotine coupled with failure to use red lead powder & Jeyes fluid in copious amounts

Plus buckets of pig poo everywhere

Owain_Moneysaver

John_ said: I think Sainsbury’s charge about 60p for 1kg if carrots, I can’t see me doing it myself for that amount.

You can also choose cultivars that the supermarkets rarely have, tomatoes produced for flavour rather than appearance, for example.

That's the real point. Waitrose posh carrots are £1.50-3.50 a kg. Topped Baby Carrots £13.34/kg.
If you can prepare the beds and wait for the harvest, Waitrose asparagus is £17.45/kg. And as asparagus sugars turn to starch as soon as it's cut, you really need to eat asparagus within 1 hour of cutting. 

-taff

If you can grow wasabi  you'll be on to a winner.

Farway

-taff said:

If you can grow wasabi  you'll be on to a winner.

And saffron

twopenny

Soooo last year!

Kale, cauliflower and brussel sprouts are the latest according to UberEats. Two not easy to get right and the third the butterflies love.

silverwhistle

Owain_Moneysaver sai
If you can prepare the beds and wait for the harvest, Waitrose asparagus is £17.45/kg. And as asparagus sugars turn to starch as soon as it's cut, you really need to eat asparagus within 1 hour of cutting. 

Yes, I splashed out on some crowns for my new allotment and they've come up a treat. I'll do a test one or two spears for my old mum next year before they really get going. But I do have some sweetcorn to go in this year; another crop where I'll be cycling home like mad to cook asap.