Growing your own - is it worth it?

[umslopogaas]

EA, I'll give it a go, I just checked and there is more life left in the haulm than I thought.

I've heard similar tales of the disconnection of modern kids from the sources of their food. Its said a lot more kids would become vegetarian if they knew that lamb chops are actually made by chopping up dead lambs.

[gurnemanz]

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.

Been digging for several weeks (Charlotte, new variety for me.) It's the best crop for a few years and no damage at all. Runner beans are slow getting going. Plenty of flowers but only sporadically setting pods. Outdoor tomatoes just tentatively ripening - not quite warm enough. Parsley rampant. Pears looking promising but few plums.

[Stanfordian]

I have, over the years, tried to grow various things on a small scale - tomatoes, radishes, lettuces, strawberries and in the last few years potatoes.
Nothing very serious, and work and weather have prevented larger scale production. The success has generally been variable - mostly poor indeed.

This year I tried to scale up potato production slightly, with 5 bags of a variety of new potato which I wasn't sure of. These required quite a number of bags of compost, most probably costing £15 in total, which with the cost of the bags, plus the seed potatoes is likely to have cost £20 in total.

The yield, of what turns out to have been Anya potatoes is rather poor, with a modest number of reasonable sized potatoes, and many very small ones. The taste, however, is quite good.

Last week I bought a modest bag of Anya potatoes from Sainsbury's for £1. The potatoes in the bag are a reasonable size. Probably 3 or 4 such bags would more than equal my total yield, so from an economic point of view, growing your own would not seem to be a very good way to spend one's time and money.

However, we've not tried the shop bought potatoes yet, so possibly there would be a flavour difference, but in this case I doubt it.

There are some things which might be worth growing for taste reasons - such as tomatoes, and some which might be worth growing because of being able to have them at different times, but now with so many things being readily available in supermarkets it seems hardly worth worrying about that.

Unfortunately potatoes are a pain, as the compost cannot be reused for the same purpose again, though can be used for other non related plants. If I do it again next year, I'll still have to buy more compost.

So, why do it? For fun? For the experience? Despite this, I probably will!

Hello Dave2002,

I'm not going to trail through over 400 posts to check, so what I have to say may have been said already. Everytime I read this thread 'Growing your own - is it worth it?' for some reason I think it refers to growing cannabis.

[Serial_Apologist]

Hello Dave2002,

I'm not going to trail through over 400 posts to check, so what I have to say may have been said already. Everytime I read this thread 'Growing your own - is it worth it?' for some reason I think it refers to growing cannabis.

That too can involve pot luck!

[Anna]

A query about haricot verts resulting from a conversation with a friend. Her husband is desperate to grow what we think may be called fine beans – those super-skinny, dark green, with very pointy ends that only require a minute to cook that are always plentiful in France. I’m sure you know what I mean. From an initial look I can’t them listed in the online catalogues, are they difficult to grow in the UK (lack of warmth?) Any help gratefully received.

As to runners, I’m so full of beans I’ll be glad when I can stop picking! (I always plant too many ‘just in case’ of failure) Some (outside) tomatoes ready for harvest in a couple of days, rest very slow in ripening, I wonder why I bother with them.

[umslopogaas]

Anna, I think what the French call Haricot Verts are what we call French Beans. The RHS book on veg doesnt actually use the name Haricot Verts, but does say that French Beans ripen to Haricot Beans, which can then be stored as bean seed for winter consumption. If I'm right its easy enough to grow French Beans in the UK, but they are not frost hardy and can only be planted outside after all danger of frost has passed (early June in the south of England). I've got mine in big pots and have just started harvesting. I have not only green ones, but yellow and purple ones as well. Closest to what you describe are Annabel and Tendergreen, which are both green though I wouldnt describe either as super-skinny.

[gradus]

I grow dwarf french beans and they certainly resemble the description you give Anna but perhaps, like for example mirabelle plums, breton onions and La Bonotte spuds, the real things aren't much grown here. Might be an idea to try a french seed website eg Vilmorin http://www.vilmorin-jardin.fr/

[umslopogaas]

Dunno about mirabelle plums and La Bonotte spuds, but I bet breton onions look just like the ones in my veg garden. Since there is a bit of a glut, I think I might buy a stripey top, a beret and a bicycle and go around annoying the neighbours.

[doversoul1]

A query about haricot verts resulting from a conversation with a friend. Her husband is desperate to grow what we think may be called fine beans – those super-skinny, dark green, with very pointy ends that only require a minute to cook that are always plentiful in France. I’m sure you know what I mean. From an initial look I can’t them listed in the online catalogues, are they difficult to grow in the UK (lack of warmth?) Any help gratefully received.

As to runners, I’m so full of beans I’ll be glad when I can stop picking! (I always plant too many ‘just in case’ of failure) Some (outside) tomatoes ready for harvest in a couple of days, rest very slow in ripening, I wonder why I bother with them.

Anna
They are Kenyan beans (I think commercial type comes mainly from Kenya) and usually called Safari. Very slim/thin French/dwarf beans.

http://www.marshalls-seeds.co.uk/dwarf-french-bean-seeds-safari-kenya-bean-pid1934.html

I used to grow them because they could be grown for later use than other French beans but I don’t think they were any tender than normal French Beans. Does your friend grow her own French beans? Home brown beans are very tender indeed and not so fiddly like Kenyan beans. You need to pick and prepare three times more in number than normal beans to make up for a meal, as they are so skinny. I think this was the reason I gave up growing them. Taste-wise I didn’t think there was any difference, less flavour if anything.

Potatoes: There is a variety called Vivaldi. An all year round variety, do you think?

Ignorance about food:
My other half went to see his diabetic nurse and was asked if he ate broccoli. He said no (broccoli and cauliflowers are two vegetables we don’t grow). The nurse was shocked and lectured him how important it was to eat green vegetable. My other half said he ate a lot of vegetables as he grew all sorts of vegetables. The nurse looked blank. Another diet specialist told him he could eat seven new potatoes a day. This was in November. He said he didn’t eat new potatoes that time of the year, and besides what size of potatoes? The specialist looked blank. Not vegetable but when he was advised to eat a lot of fish, he asked what sort of fish. ‘Sardines and pilchard’……

[subcontrabass]

Outdoor tomatoes just tentatively ripening - not quite warm enough.

At least you might get some decent green tomatoes - much better than red for grilling/frying and wonderful in chutney.

[umslopogaas]

Vivaldi? Dont bother, you can hear it for free in any supermarket, whatever the season.

[jean]

Got to be Waitrose.

[Anna]

Who would have thought there were so many variations of the humble green bean!! Dovers, my browser will never let me look at Marshalls website but I'm pretty sure what my friend is looking for is a filet bean and stumbling upon the Real Seed Co. site they have one called Cupidon which looks just right, extremely skinny with a tail and able to be used raw in salads, so I'll pass on all the info here and let her carry on the search. They also sell the Greek Gigantic ones (for drying), not sure if anyone has had Greek baked beans using these monsters but they're absolutely delicious. <yummy emoticom>

I think next year I'll branch out and grow peas (for the first time) I had from Waitrose in the week what were labelled 'Jumbo' peas, unfortunately the packaging didn't give the variety - only that they were from Warwickshire - but they were extremely tasty (local runners were on sale in our market for £1.50 per/lb - sometimes it makes you wonder why you bother growing your own) Anyway, I've ordered some seed catalogues for reading and inspiration during the rapidly approaching dark evenings ...

[umslopogaas]

Anna, if you are giving peas a go for the first time, try Hurst Green Shaft. I grew them this year for the first time and they are much more productive than old varieties like Onward. I had a glut, the freezer's full and I ate so many peas its quite a relief they are over and I can move onto the beans!

You'll need something for them to climb up. Traditional hazel pea sticks are expensive unless you have your own hazel trees, and they dont last. I use plastic netting, such as you can buy in Homebase. Its very cheap and you can re-use it year after year.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Got to be Waitrose.

Agreed. No aural pollution there, though their goose eggs this year were 7 times the price of those in the local butcher's shop.