Growing your own - is it worth it?

[Anna]

Thanks gradus, I did wonder if I could do that, I did hurriedly put in some short sticks which they latched onto, I'll keep pinching out (I hate throwing any sort of healthy plant away) My fault, I just assumed they were dwarfs as that's the only kind of french bean that I've grown! So hopefully I'll have dwarf climbers ....

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It's been a great year so far for soft fruit. We picked all this today from the garden.

[doversoul1]

Huh. You show off. You’re not my friend any more. I’m not talking to you…

How do you keep the birds off / away from your fruit? I gave up nets long ago, as I almost spent more time releasing the birds from the net than picking the fruit.

[umslopogaas]

Never mind the birds, how do you keep the squirrels off your strawberries?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Huh. You show off. You’re not my friend any more. I’m not talking to you…

How do you keep the birds off / away from your fruit? I gave up nets long ago, as I almost spent more time releasing the birds from the net than picking the fruit.

The birds are more attracted to the cherry tree. Some years they eat the lot, but this year, things seem better.

Oh, and we have a cat.

[doversoul1]

The B*** rabbits have eaten ALL my dwarf/French beans. Not the plants. The beans. All I have left now are stumps of the beans left on the plants. We never had rabbits here until this year. I wonder what’s changed? We’ll have to fence the vegetable patch next year but as it is very large, it will cost far more than we can buy beans for the rest of our lives, and for the next ones if that. Is growing your own worth it….?

[umslopogaas]

doversoul, that's an interesting question. I decided several years ago that if I was to grow anything here in east Devon, I would have to fence out the rabbits, so I paid a man to put a wire netting fence around the whole garden. It cost a lot more than a year's worth of vegetables, but in the longer term I think it will be worth it and anyway, I grow vegetables because its fun, not for economic reasons. Never had a sign of a rabbit since, so I think the fence works.

[gradus]

As a fellow sufferer I can only offer confirmation that rabbit fencing is the way to go but I have to confess that I haven't yet done it. A moderately satisfactory approach is to cover every vulnerable crop with fleece but it is a bit unsightly although it protects young plants until they get to the stage where the rabbits are less interested. Currently I have fleece over fennel, lettuces and sprouting broc,cabbages various, sprouts and kale - fleece will also protect carrots from carrot fly. I find netting can also work when strung over plastic conduit or similar. As I mentioned upthread rabbits have actually helped my runner and french climbing beans by nipping out the growing shoots leaving the plants very bushy - eventually the rabbits lose interest and the beans then climb. The dwarf beans planted earlier this week have been ignored though the foliage on the celeriac has been attacked.

[umslopogaas]

I can only say that the expense on the rabbit fence was worth it. As a back up, I have a point 22 air rifle and though it has not yet drawn blood, I am just itching for a rabbit target.

[doversoul1]

Has anyone harvested his/her (their?) potatoes? I did a couple of weeks ago. Not a single blighted potato and very little slug damage. A very good crop of nicely varied sizes. Looking at them spread out on the ground, I wondered who thought about eating them or how they found out that they were eatable.

The broad beans have now been cleared away. Another summer is passing… I must think about ordering the logs. Oh, and thinking about the rabbit fence…

[umslopogaas]

I've dug a few of my Pink Fir Apples. No blight, but quite a lot of scab and slug damage. I could leave them for another month, but I think I will dig the rest fairly soon, the longer I leave them the more the slugs will eat them.

I guess it was the Incas who first discovered that potatoes were edible. I expect they fed them to some captives to see if they died, and when the captives asked for a second helping they realised they were onto something.

Have had the first of the runner beans and the French beans. Dont do broad beans, I dont like them. Peas were very good, but now finished. Onions are coming along nicely, its going to be a big onion year (= a year for big onions).

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Slug pellets?

[umslopogaas]

Pellets would help, I think, but I fear I have left it too late, by now the slugs are probably underground and out of reach. Anyway, the spuds are ready to eat and most of the tops have died away, so another month in the ground wont provide much extra growth.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Scatter the pellets and the slugs will come up to get them.

[Serial_Apologist]

I heard this morning that a survey has found that a large percentage of children in this country think that strawberries grow in fridges.