Low Cost Living - Vegetable gardening

Vegetable Gardening

How many times do we suddenly have to pop down the shop because we haven't enough potatoes, carrots or some other vegetable.
Environmentally speaking, we are then buying things whichhave spent their time being sprayed with goodness knows what else and it's costing us more money because of that.

No matter what space you have in your garden, there's a spot somewhere in which you can grow your own produce, even if it's just a Grow Bag with a few tomato plants in it.

Let's start by taking a packet of carrot seeds, an average packet retailing at £1.50 will have about 200 seeds in it! That's 0.0075p a carrot, or about 13 for 1p.
Think how much 13 carrots would cost in the Shop, it's quite startling!
There is the point of course as to how you're going to eat that many! But you can stagger the sowing getting the produce at intervals, or you can grow the lot and freeze them for the winter months.
The soil space to grow that many should realistically be about 25 feet, but try sowing each carrot seed at 3" intervals! 15 feet would be about the mark.

There's a view that to grow vegetables you have to have a vegetable plot or Allotment and although this may be the absolute best idea, there is no harm in having them growing between flowers and other plants.
Searching through books or the Net will show that manyvegetables like partners. For instance having Nasturtions close to broad beans will distract the black fly giving your crop a better chance.

Many people are put off about vegetable gardening because they think it's hard work, they attract slugs and insects plus it's unattractive.
The answer to that is quite simple - it's as hard as you want it to be - predators can normally be kept under control and a full vegetable patch can look wonderful especially when everythings green and flowering.

There's a very good little gardening book called 'Square Foot Gardening' which basically explores the values of having one vegetable per square foot. So a little patch 10 feet by 6 feet would be enough for 60 types of vegetable - are there that many !!

Some begetables such as potatoes will take up a lot of space however and that may be about the only thing which may not always be possible to grow, but buying in large bags from a Farm Shop will not cost the earth.

But vegetables are not just for the plate, you can make much extra produce from them. Should you wish to go heavy on tomatoes and onions, the relish and chutney recipes are abound. The joy of this is that you can use these things to barter with other people who also grow their own and a kind of Office commune system can start out "I'll give you 3 cabbages for a jar of Chutney" etc.,etc.

A feast of money saving at the bottom of your garden

The satisfaction of seeing the finished product

The first thing to do is to ask yourself what you would like to grow and plan the space to do it in. After that, look at the 'comapanion vegetables', like sowing carrots between onions will distract carrot fly etc.
Then sequence your sowing so as there's something out there most of the Spring, summer and Autumn.
Make sure the soil you have is suitable for what you want to grow but don't go over the top or your outlays will start getting high. Do what's right for you, take advice from people who've grown for years and 'know their onions' !

Finally, seeds. Seed companies will put 'use by' dates on all their packets, rightly and legally so - but most seeds will last two or more years if you store them in a dry place through winter.
If in doubt, sow the year old ones early enough to see if they start growing. If not, go and buy another packet.

Personally, I have a plot at the end of the garden about 30 feet square and I can grow enough on that to be about 90 per cent self sufficient through the year and during the summer there is nothing better than a stroll down the path and have a fresh Ploughmans lunch on tap.
The in-laws will be pretty impressed too !

Don't forget there are many plants we don't have to pay for atall.
Horseradish is found all over the place - dig up the roots, chop or grate, add water and there you are.
When looking for that, look for wild garlic, wild strawberries as well!
Blackberry, elderberry and loads of other bounty are just a car door width away!