Growing your own - is it worth it?

[gradus]

Rarely do I grow anything that would pass muster for a supermarket shelf. I only throw away veg theat is diseased eg club-rooted brassicas or white-rotted onions, garlic etc although it's sometimes possible to peel off the affected layers on garlic bulbs. As I don't spray fruit from bush and tree, I rarely get blemish free results but they still taste good.

[doversoul1]

I scrape the last shoots of curly kale and purple sprouting well into May until I have to dig them up to prepare the ground for the new season but when I buy vegetables, I choose better shaped ones, as there is less waste when I prepare them.

I read The Guardian’s article in which Hugh Fearnley-W's talks about wasted parsnips but I am not quite convinced about the story of the grower. I have a feeling that people waste a lot of vegetables by cooking all those fancy dishes they see on TV or in best selling cookery books that uses half of this and one third of that etc. What’s left is nobody’s interest. I don’t think many people make effort to eat up what they have. What Hugh F-W can do is to educate the viewers by showing how to use up the vegetable they have rather than showing forevermore how to cook new dishes.

[jean]

I read The Guardian’s article in which Hugh Fearnley-W's talks about wasted parsnips but I am not quite convinced about the story of the grower.

Why not? It happens all the time. Supermarkets prefer suppliers who produce vast quantities of a single crop - then when the supermarkets reject too large a proportion of the crop (perhaps because it didn't reach the required size that year) or decide to cancel an order altogether, the farmer is ruined because he's no loger growing anything else.

I have a feeling that people waste a lot of vegetables by cooking all those fancy dishes they see on TV or in best selling cookery books that uses half of this and one third of that etc.

What we see is people buying far too much without thinking how they intend to use it, and then paying far too much attention to the 'sell by' date on what they've got.

I often used to marvel at people with supermarket trolleys piled high with vast quantities of produce - how (I wondered) could they have planned for it all? It turns out they hadn't.

[umslopogaas]

There is an issue here about connection, or rather, the lack of it. I am connected, however distantly, to the process of production. I and my parents grew food. We actually planted vegetables, nurtured them, harvested them and ate them. i am not surprised that modern children think peas are grown in fields of freezer packs, or that chickens have detachable thighs. Ask a modern child where an egg comes from and I wouldnt be at all surprised to learn it came from a supermarket bag.

[doversoul1]

Why not? It happens all the time. Supermarkets prefer suppliers who produce vast quantities of a single crop - then when the supermarkets reject too large a proportion of the crop (perhaps because it didn't reach the required size that year) or decide to cancel an order altogether, the farmer is ruined because he's no loger growing anything else.

I am well aware of the ruthlessness of supermarkets and how farmers suffer but faming is business and any vegetable growers who are large enough to supply supermarket should have some sort of a business plan. I can’t think any growers would grow parsnips as their only crop. Or come to that, I doubt any growers would depend on a single vegetable*. Also, the entire field of wrong sized or wrong shaped parsnips sounds a bit incredible. Plus, parsnips are not like grain, you don’t harvest the crop in one go although I suppose they could be rejected by the result of the first harvest. My local Sainsbury’s sells parsnips of all sorts of shapes and sizes.

*There may be some exceptions like asparagus, I think, but I doubt parsnips are one of them.

Still, this is only my guess.

What we see is people buying far too much without thinking how they intend to use it,

They are probably thinking that they would cook something they saw on TV but never do.

umslopogaas

Talking about connection, these days, (some) primary school children are not allowed to take fresh vegetables for Harvest Festival at school. Only packets or tins. How sad is this?

[doversoul1]

The first truly blight tolerant tomato

Crimson Crush is the name of the variety. Did anyone try it?

A friend gave me three plants in spring. I was sceptical to say the least. They were meant to be for outdoor cultivation but I grew them in the greenhouse. Admittedly, this summer was an exceptionally blight-free but even so, these three plants remained green until mid-November when the rest had been eventually blighted. The tomatoes are large-ish and as for the taste, I couldn’t tell any difference in salad with other varieties. Plants are not cheap but you can buy seeds. I shall definitely try them next year.

[umslopogaas]

Trying them outside would be a better test, because blight isnt usually much of a problem under glass, the air is too dry: the fungus needs quite long periods of leaf wetness to infect. Thanks for posting about it, I hadnt heard of it. Plant World Seeds in Devon specialise in tomatoes and have nearly fifty varieties in their 2016 catalogue, but not that one.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Growing tomatoes outdoors here is a frustrating exercise, so I always grow them indoors.

Maybe that's why I've never had a blight problem - that has occurred only with potatoes, grown out of doors.

Some nice Christmas potatoes growing nicely in bags this year. (I had a peek this afternoon. )

[gradus]

The Suttons blurb for Crimson Crush is unequivocal - they are blight resistant not just blight resisting like Ferline, so I'll get some seeds for next year as I generally prefer outdoor grown well-ripened toms for flavour although my polytunnel plants produced some good flavour this year.
Blight can strike covered plants as I have found to my cost in the past.

[doversoul1]

The ordered seeds, including the blight resistant Crimson Crush tomato, have arrived. The first seeds to go will be the lettuce (all year round and Tom Thumb) on a tray. The weather being so mild, I am tempted to start tomatoes earlier but if it turns cold, the seedlings will be spoilt. I’ll be growing climbing Borlotti beans this year. The weather was too wet last autumn for dwarf type to mature properly

The first thing to do in the garden is to put up a fence to keep the rabbits away. These days they look rather too at home for my liking.

[Anna]

I've just read the results of a survey that says Britons are saving an average of £268 a year by growing their own and that Wolverhampton is a hot spot with people in the city saving £579 a year - more than twice the national average. That's a lot of money and makes me think that Wolverhampton has a lot of spare space to site allotments!

However, the survey was done by the Edible Garden Show so I guess the respondents are really dedicated self-sufficiency practitioners. I wonder if anyone here has calculated how much they save per annum? (Off-topic the show sounds interesting and is to be at Stoneleigh and then Alexander Palace in March)

[subcontrabass]

I've just read the results of a survey that says Britons are saving an average of £268 a year by growing their own and that Wolverhampton is a hot spot with people in the city saving £579 a year - more than twice the national average. That's a lot of money and makes me think that Wolverhampton has a lot of spare space to site allotments!

However, the survey was done by the Edible Garden Show so I guess the respondents are really dedicated self-sufficiency practitioners. I wonder if anyone here has calculated how much they save per annum? (Off-topic the show sounds interesting and is to be at Stoneleigh and then Alexander Palace in March)

Wolverhampton has 1100 allotment plots over 31 sites (for a population of around 250,000). There are also large areas of the city where the houses have substantial gardens. The current city also includes some semi-rural suburbs.

[gradus]

The savings look on the high side to me but who cares, growing your own has so many virtues that even if it doesn't break even, there's the pleasure of another season to anticipate.

[doversoul1]

The vegetable patch has been fenced off. 4 rolls x 10m wire. I am not thinking how may kilos of carrots I could have bought.

I planted out the first broad beans, the peas are out being hardened off and the potatoes are waiting to go in. The weather looks as if it’s going to stay dry, so it will be a busy few days.

[gradus]

Blightwatch has announced that it will be issuing Smith Period warnings 24 hours in advance instead of in arrears thus giving more time to protect your spuds against blight. It's easy to register with them if you visit the Blightwatch website: http://blight.potato.org.uk/signup.html