Dig for Victory - Mark II

ceridwen

Hear hear - some very good points:T

BTW: since starting this thread I have still been experimenting away a bit and making notes of useful and/or interesting info. as I came across it and have "stored" this info safely away in the form of another blog:

http://mygardeningnotes.blogspot.com/

I am doing this now as a twofold exercise -

- the notes total amateur me needs to help me grow food in my restricted circumstances (ie very little space and not much time).

- useful links to encourage/inform about other people growing food in restricted circumstances - I'm very well aware that many of us (including me) cant get an allotment for love nor money - so I'm putting on there everything suitable I can find about growing food on balconies/roofs/etc and about community foodgrowing groups.

I've got the majority of the info on there that I want to add - but its still a work in progress and theres gaps. Comments welcome.

mum_of_4

I think people are starting to turn their lawns into veg patches.

I've been contacted by almost 4000 people some who just want some advice on what they are already growing but over 3000 have asked more the planting plans and lots of members have started to take up lawns in both back and front gardens. I'm asked a lot about which crops they could mix with flowers to go in the front garden.

I am still amazed that people pay the high prices that supermarkets charge. The best way to help people would be for the govenment to create more allotments or shared gardening schemes.

rhiwfield

Originally Posted by rhiwfield
Overall I think it will take a seismic event of some kind to shake the dependency on third parties/foreign countries for our food production

Isn't that already under way?(Davesnave)

I was thinking more of a sudden shock rather than a slow trend of rising population, a finite amount of agricultural land and some mediaworthy palliatives. Perhaps not in my lifetime but at some point governments will need to tackle population increase because the pressure on finite natural resources and wildlife is increasing inexorably.

Many posts on MSE are concerned with avoidance of waste and minimum use of resources. Yet as a race we make the big decison to introduce ever more resource hungry mouths into the world (and I'm as guilty as anyone!) while preaching conservation of energy, water and food.

Still, as individuals, we can try to nibble at the edges of the problem.

Yategirl

mum_of_4 wrote: »

I think people are starting to turn their lawns into veg patches.

I've been contacted by almost 4000 people some who just want some advice on what they are already growing but over 3000 have asked more the planting plans and lots of members have started to take up lawns in both back and front gardens. I'm asked a lot about which crops they could mix with flowers to go in the front garden.

I am still amazed that people pay the high prices that supermarkets charge. The best way to help people would be for the govenment to create more allotments or shared gardening schemes.

I get a lot of people showing amazement at what I grow in a small space plus a lot of "goode life" comments at my front garden being used to grow veg... and I get a lot of people saying "oh I couldn't do that" in regards to growing... but what amazes me more is that we have a good greengrocers here - lots of local and english veg (marked cause I asked him to ) as well as other good veg and same price on average or cheaper than Mr T...yet he is struggling as people can't be bothered to walk round to him than go to Mr T's :mad: (same with the butchers - and both shops are next door to each other)

we don't have an allotments in this parish - we have to go outside.. I have been on the waiting list for 5 years with no luck as I am in the wrong parish.... apparently the council are "looking for land" - they don't seem to be looking very hard......... :rolleyes:

SEE

My Front garden is going this year in favour of growing beans and squash. It will give me extra space in the back garden for other bean varieties and roots:beer: Love this thread, its getting very interesting to read:beer:

SEE

Davesnave wrote: »

Quote:
Originally Posted by rhiwfield
but I'm off to join the country set, as I don't fancy the city during the coming years of adjustment, reality check, or whatever you want to call it.

Can you take me with you:p

SEE

This is what I achieved from a building site in my back garden last year

Larumbelle

Yategirl wrote: »

I get a lot of people showing amazement at what I grow in a small space plus a lot of "goode life" comments at my front garden being used to grow veg...

Me too. My usual retort is that it's called the 'good' life for a reason!

Yategirl wrote: »

and I get a lot of people saying "oh I couldn't do that" in regards to growing...

Same here. I used to say it too. Then when I started, I found that it's all variation on a theme, really. I tell people to start by bunging a seed in the ground, water it, and see what happens. Then start worrying about the other stuff! It does help people to overcome their fear of failure, but they have to have that little glimmer of interest to start with. Because we were really skint this year our gift to quite a few friends were 'salad kits' or 'stir-fry kits' (cut and come again lettuce or oriental cabbage in a seed tray with a few spring onions and radishes chucked in) that I grew on our windowsill. Essentially it was just a plastic tray of dirt and a few seeds, but you wouldn't believe the reaction they got. It's like some of them finally twigged that 'growing your own' doesn't have to mean digging up your lawn and spending every weekend weeding. So much so, that they've all asked for seeds to do it themselves. It's great, and I've got people growing by the back door Growing something is better than growing nothing!

Yategirl wrote: »

but what amazes me more is that we have a good greengrocers here - lots of local and english veg (marked cause I asked him to ) as well as other good veg and same price on average or cheaper than Mr T...yet he is struggling as people can't be bothered to walk round to him than go to Mr T's :mad: (same with the butchers - and both shops are next door to each other)

Isn't that depressing! Our greengrocers was in the same shopping centre as Mr T's, and a few months ago it went spectacularly bust when bailiffs arrived and seized the tills. A lot of people round here were going on about how sad it was. None of them actually shopped there :rolleyes:. We have a wonderful farm shop a mile or so down the road that is also in danger of going. A lot of their crops are grown on their own farm and make Tesco prices look criminal. The problem isn't just price, it's laziness. A good friend won't buy a sack of spuds there, even though the price per kilo is a fifth of what she pays at Tesco, because she says (in all apparent seriousness) that she can't be bothered to wash the dirt off the spuds. :wall: And when my lovely butcher retired, his son stopped selling the good meat from the local farms and small abbatoir his father had worked with for forty years and started selling deep frozen and defrosted 'exotic' meats because apparently people only visit the butcher for novelty value now, and that's where the money is.

Yategirl wrote: »

we don't have an allotments in this parish - we have to go outside.. I have been on the waiting list for 5 years with no luck as I am in the wrong parish.... apparently the council are "looking for land" - they don't seem to be looking very hard......... :rolleyes:

Call the NSALG and see if you can speak to their lawyer, Bryn. He's a lovely, lovely man and he might be able to help you exert a little pressure on your council. Along with public libraries, allotments are the only leisure amenity councils are obliged to provide. If there are six or more of you in the parish who want one, he might be able to ask for evidence that they're looking for land and generally be a pain in the backside on your behalf. I know that he's successfully fought for provision in the past, and has also prevented site closures, although unfortunately he's only human and isn't always able to intervene successfully. Worth a try, anyway.

Davesnave, I think you're going to have rather a lot of us squatting on corners of your plot :rotfl:

Larumbelle

SEE, that is an awesome set of before and afters! Can I be really cheeky? I've got a little project in mind, could I use your pics (they'd be properly attributed etc) because it is the clearest illustration I can think of that makes my point!

Primrose

I've planted soft fruit bushes in our front garden instead of shrubs, as well as having a very successful strawberry bed there which yields enough to stock the freezer & keep our need supplied for several months. Front gardens are often "wasted spaces" which you simply walk through to get to your front door so I'm surprised more people don't make use them more profitably.