Growing your own - is it worth it?

[gradus]

An interesting thread for inveterate spud and tomato growers like me.
The hungarian Sarpo potato varieties - Mira, Axona, Kifli etc there are several more currently available with others to come, divide opinion quite sharply, some liking, some hating so I suspect that growing conditions play a significant role in reactions to the finished spud, just as Jersey Royals (aka International Kidney) really don't taste much like the CI originals where I grow them. What is universally reliable however is the blight resistance of Mira and Axona, so I tend to use them as an insurance crop in case of serious blight killing off the main crop spuds that I prefer to eat eg Blue Belle, King Edward etc
An alternative is to plant second earlies that store well and there are a number of candidates eg Kestrel, Saxon and Smile.

[MrGongGong]

Jersey Royals (aka International Kidney) .

Don't tell everyone
they might realise that they have been subject to an over hyped marketing scam

[Jonathan]

I saw this comment on Facebook yesterday: "I'd like to grow my own but I can't find any bacon seeds"

[amateur51]

I saw this comment on Facebook yesterday: "I'd like to grow my own but I can't find any bacon seeds"

[teamsaint]

Apologies if the new EU seed laws have been covered already in the thread.

http://www.realseeds.co.uk/seedlaw2.html

[doversoul1]

Apologies if the new EU seed laws have been covered already in the thread.
http://www.realseeds.co.uk/seedlaw2.html

Some of the points the article makes that I find alarming:
- The European Commision is currently drawing up a new law to regulate the sale of all seeds, plants and plant material.
- It costs nearly £3000 to test & register just one single variety of seed for sale.
- Even the big seed companies often only sell a few hundred packets of their more unusual and specialist varieties - and these simply are not economical to test and register, especially if there is an annual fee of several hundred pounds to keep them on the register

The article urges us to:
WRITE TO THE MEPs ON THE TWO EU COMMITTEES

However, the deadline for amendments is December the 11th, 2013. All the same, we should watch for another similar opportunity. Buying vegetable seeds has become a very costly thing to do in the last few years. If this continues, I may have to revert to eating broad beans and carrots from the supermarket (not that I can grow carrots thanks to those **** badgers!)

[teamsaint]

The EU has already enforced fairly similar laws , with similar "pricing out" mechanisms, on natural remedies.
So it can happen.

Write to your MEP.

I wish I knew who mine is !!

[jean]

Someone's just sent me this, which I'd never seen before:

[doversoul1]

Last night, I had the last pumpkin from last year’s harvest (and still three quarters of it left). It was in perfect condition although the skin was so hard that it was like chipping off a hard plastic casing. For this year’s crop, the plants are almost ready to be planted out. They are certainly worth growing your own.

Masses of flowers on the broad beans (dwarf variety). Peas are growing taller buy day but no sign of flowers. So far, it has been a very good gardening weather this year down here in Kent.

One complete failure last year: spaghetti beans. They didn’t even past bedding plant stage. I won’t try them again.

[french frank]

Someone's just sent me this, which I'd never seen before:

And why not? :-)

I took the 'risk' with my runners and have a wigwam of six plants which are looking very happy. Because I can't bear to throw away surplus seedlings, I put two more into deep pots (a bit like Greek wine jars) and planned to dwarf them. However, I was out at 7am this morning to inspect (with my Bucket of Death), and there was a huge snail wrapped lovingly round the remaining stump of one of them. Everything else rather slow here.

[Globaltruth]

And why not? :-)

I took the 'risk' with my runners and have a wigwam of six plants which are looking very happy. Because I can't bear to throw away surplus seedlings, I put two more into deep pots (a bit like Greek wine jars) and planned to dwarf them. However, I was out at 7am this morning to inspect (with my Bucket of Death), and there was a huge snail wrapped lovingly round the remaining stump of one of them. Everything else rather slow here.

My success story with slugs & snail (for the 2nd yr) is the use of nematode worms. This is v effective - just ( yesterday) applied second dosage of the year. For maximum result you do need to keep them wet - timing was spot on yesterday with torrential downpours for most of the day.
Here's a link to the product

http://www.gardening-naturally.com/acatalog/Garden_Slug_Nematodes.html?gclid=CI3LxYq3pL4CFSLlwgod6VYA2Q

It's not cheap but I can do about 75% of my patch with a large box, and I don't have to buy slug pellets...

The grandchildren were hoping to see hordes of killer worm rippling across the surface of the soil to attack & destroy helpless slugs and snails- but no, all activity is at a near microscopic level.

Needs to be kept in fridge, shortsighted guest confused it with a trout pate ...rescued in the nick of time.

[french frank]

Erm, y-y-yes :-/

I like the idea of the copper tape I go out early when it's still damp and and am finding fewer and fewer each morning. The wigwam is inside a plastic mesh compound which is too fine for any but the smallest snails to get through. And there they find ... pellets (and a ring of organic gravel stuff which apparently they won't get over.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The vegetable plot is looking good, apart from the newly built asparagus bed - only 4 out of 9 crowns have emerged to date.

[umslopogaas]

Great stuff, I'm all in favour of biological controls, but only when a. they work and b. they are economically justifiable and c., there is a good reason to use them. Nematodes for slug control score average on a. - they do work, but not easily - dubiously on b. - they cost - and rubbish on c. - there isnt any good reason to use them in place of metaldehyde pellets, which cost next to nothing and work really well.

Deep sigh, please bear with me. I do not work for Bayer, or have any connection with them. It just happens that in forty years of experience of plant protection, I never found any reason not to use metaldehyde pellets. Consider:

1. They are very cheap. I use them a lot, they cost me about three quid a year. The veg seeds cost more than that.

2. They are easy to apply. No need for a sprayer, just scatter them out of the packet.

3. They are safe for wildlife, which is the big issue. PLEASE note the following. They do not harm birds. If birds had the slightest interest in slug pellets, they would all be gone by the time you got up tomorrow. In fact, birds have no interest whatsoever in slug pellets, as you can observe any morning around now by putting some down this evening. Birds do not touch them.

4. They do not harm pets, by which in this context we mean mammals, (goldfish are not threatened) because the pellets contain a chemical that tastes nasty to mammals. So dogs and cats might taste one, but they wont come back for another, and one pellet (probably spat out in any case) doesnt kill dogs and cats - or even field mice as far as I know.

Pesticides work, because - BECAUSE - they are poisons. So, by the way, do pharmaceutical products, but I dont see anyone denying the use of paracetamol to cure a headache because two tablets will cure a headache but swallowing the whole packet at once will kill you. Poisons are just chemicals that have been used at the incorrect dose. And where would we be without chemicals used at the correct dose? Well, I have to take one small chemical pill every morning to stay alive and without it I would probably be dead, and you cant say plainer than that.

And ff, you do a brilliant job of running this forum and this is not a personal attack, but it is an attack on a point of view that has upset me a lot over the years, and when I can fight back, I do.

[MrGongGong]

I'm with Umslopogass on this one
If you grow a lot of plants, vegetables and others
there really is no substitute for good old slug pellets

What does seem odd to us sometimes is that at our allotment birds will, if allowed to get at them, peck away at young onions whilst leaving the more tender and easier to get at young broad bean plants.
Chicken wire works though ! (but IS expensive if you need to buy lots at once, it lasts for years though)