Dig for Victory - Mark II

Lotus-eater

ceridwen wrote: »

so, looking down their list, the seeds I'd be after (if I wasnt already stocked-up) include: peppers, radishes, baby leaf salad, rocket. I see theres even a dwarf runner bean (says it grows to 30cm) - so I might contemplate buying a packet of their runner bean seeds at some point.

Very quickly trying to think of other things you can grow in it, as there are only so many salad leaves you can eat before you get sick of them

Round carrots, maybe try beetroot not sure if they would work, but definately worth a try, even if you end up eating them at tennis ball size. Cut and come again oriental salad I have found very good. Dwarf peas, you can let them hang over the side.
Can't think of anything else atm.

Your peppers would do better on a indoor windowsill and shoved outside when its warm.

tenuissent

On the subject of buying land and setting up a charity to preserve it for allotments into the future: you only have to look at what happened to the Manor Gardens allotments when the Olympics needed their long-established gardens for a pathway. http://www.shedworking.co.uk/2008/06/jan-stradtmann-at-manor-garden.html Bulldozed for ever.

SEE

tenuissent wrote: »

On the subject of buying land and setting up a charity to preserve it for allotments into the future: you only have to look at what happened to the Manor Gardens allotments when the Olympics needed their long-established gardens for a pathway. http://www.shedworking.co.uk/2008/06/jan-stradtmann-at-manor-garden.html Bulldozed for ever.

Heartbreaking:(

Primrose

I agree. Years of loving work went into maintaining those allotments and they were destroyed virtually overnight for the sake of a flash-in-the-pan one-off event which will put the country's finances into deficit for years and then be forgotten. It's always the "little people" who are trodden on by government.

SEE

Primrose wrote: »

I agree. Years of loving work went into maintaining those allotments and they were destroyed virtually overnight for the sake of a flash-in-the-pan one-off event which will put the country's finances into deficit for years and then be forgotten. It's always the "little people" who are trodden on by government.

The government have stated the reccession will last for 15 years. I forsee more and more people taking up veg and fruit growing.

ceridwen

Hmmm.....are they still usually using the word "recession" for this Mark 2 Great Depression then?:cool:

But - yes - growing what we can of our own food is one of the most constructive things we can do personally.

RAS

We were talking economics and food and one of the others pointed out that the Governments measure wealth as GDP, solely on the basis of goods exchanged for money.

If a farmer grows a carrot and sells it, it contributes to GDP and monetary growth. If a home grower grows a carrot and cooks it or swaps it for an apple, it does not contribute to GDP. But in both cases people are being fed.

So there could be a tension between the Government wanting to boost the economy by increasing monetary transactions and the grow your own and barter community which is essentially deflationary even though it is a reasonable individual response to a deflationary financial environment.

No person beef on this, just an observation ? Your thoughts?

Primrose

To be precise, if a grower grows a carrot and swaps it for an apple, nobody is paying income tax on the process. So the government gets less revenue and finds it harder to meet its financial obligations. But the grower of the carrot finds his savings are yielding no income so is forced to grow even more carrots and swap them for apples, butter, cheese to survive. Unfortunately we can't survive permanently on a barter system without the use of money but it's another example of how the money system and supply has got completely out of hand. We couldn't go on expanding it indefinitely. The warnings have been sounding for years but sadly few people have had the intelligence and wisdom to see where it would all end. Now it will take us the twenty years to get out of the mess that has been building up, year by year, over the last decade. And the expansion of the barter system and an inevitable growing black economy will mean it takes even longer to get out of the recession.

Davesnave

TBH the black economy has always been a feature, especially in the countryside, where people have more valuable things to exchange, but lower incomes in pure money terms.

mardatha

Ok. I'm all for growing more veg here and have a biggish plot earmarked for this summer. BUT. always a but eh !
I hate vegetables. I only eat them in soup. So apart from potatoes, is it worth my while going to all this bother, I wonder. Carrots are cheap, onions I like but dont eat many of, ok a lettuce is nice in salad in summer, but for me thats it. The tomatoes I did like, they will grow inside on the windowsill. So half of me is getting all excited and Victorian Farm , and half of me is thinking oh god I now have to eat the bloody things...