buy vegs or grow them?

Which vegetables/fruits you find definitely worth growing yourself in terms of convenience and saving of money and which need a lot of attention therefore making it easier buying it in the shop?

I am quite unsure whether spinaches are worth it...

 

I don't grow veg, but if I had to choose 1 type, I'd be growing tomatoes (the small cherry type) ...

we eat loads of tomatoes (up to 4 times a week), either raw in salads or cooked, and prices are always at a premium no matter the month

cucumber is another that we eat almost daily, but I dont mind paying a pound for a decent organic one

we also buy loads of the packs of watercress/spinach/rocket salad .... costs approx £1.75 for a pack and we use 4-5 packs a week

 

I saw a whole pile of 2 kg bags of potatoes reduced to 19p/bag in Morrisons today.

This afternoon, in the heat of the day, I spent an hour digging up 20 kg of Kestrel potatoes that I'd spent £X.xx on seed spuds, where I'd cultivated, fertilized, planted, weeded, watered, risked the chance of blight, etc.

 

that's my point aswell, however ....

somehow, when you grow your own, they always seem to taste nicer?

take tomatoes as an example ..... taste a ripe cherry tomato that has just been taken off a home grown plant, and compare it to a similar ripe 'tesco finest' tomato ....

not even close .... it even smells totally different

 

I ate 2 shop bought spuds last week & thought i'd lost my sense of taste, thats partly why I grow my own. You can't often buy Pink Fir Apple Potatoes in the supermarkets.

Spinage is good for overwintering if you can shelter it, when there is not much else green to eat, bit surplus to requirements in the summer though.

I've been eating the Sugar Beet leaves as spinage, they haven't bolted like the Perpetual Spinage has & they taste the same.

 

Some good points and some bad, Ziggy is right the shop stuff has no flavour, it is full of chemicals though.
You don,t have to spend a fortune to grow veg, like anything, you can go over the top at the garden centre.
The most expensive item i have viewed is chemicals we don't have to buy them, we don't even want them. If we lose a crop of something we don't starve and if we get a good crop for the cost of a packet of seeds then brilliant!!

 

I don't have a lot of space to grow a huge variety, so my choice are the vegetables that are either expensive to buy or virtually impossible to find in the shops anyway. These include Globe Artichokes, unusual varieties of Climbing Beans, Jerusalem Artichokes, and Swiss Chard.

For freshness of taste rather than cost or availability, outdoor Tomatoes, Courgettes, Spinach, Shallots, Salad leaves first early Potatoes in large pots and a variety of Herbs.

a-a

 

I think I made my point without stating it (with the spuds), but Mrs Scrungee & I went to our plot this afternoon and sat under our willow tree and tasted cherry toms picked straight from plants which tasted just like sweets.

 

the little darlings picking green tomatoes...! Maybe another time you can plant them roots up in a container (I have seen it done several times).

 

Luckily he tends to be accompanied and OH only lets him have the Red ones. She doesn't know the word NO (when it comes to Grandson anyway - she's had plenty of practice on me though!)

 

I might try some hanging tomatoes next year .....

the hundreds and thousands looks good .... 4/5 for taste and 504 tomatoes per basket?

Best tomatoes for hanging baskets - Telegraph

 

Not seen this for sale in Tesco yet,

 

What is it Ziggy?