A question for those of you who grow your own...

If anything I will be down by quite a bit, cash wise, by the end of summer. I shelled out for a poly grow house (£50 ) various large pots and containers (about £70 ) bags of compost, young plants, seeds, couple of new tools... probably £250 all told.
I reckon I'm looking at six to eight kilos of new potatoes as my biggest crop. Now I'd probably never eat that much, so some will go to Mother in Law, some to work colleagues, all for no gain. I should also get 40 or 50 tomatoes, and again I'll not eat quite that many so they'll be given away.
Fingers crossed, I should also get a dozen or so courgettes, two dozen peppers, and 3 or 4 dozen chillies along with plenty of herbs, which I will use all of.

So, a £250 initial outlay for what, £100 worth of vegetables? I certainly don't do it for money, but I've found it really interesting and enjoyable so far and the enjoyment and the learning has been worth the outlay.

I dare say I could "catch up" money wise at some point, but as a beginner the cash thing was never the incentive in the first year.

 

I don't doubt the taste and pleasure of growing veg at home. It was a purely hypothetical question I was thinking about this week - I have no room or inclination to grow my own at the moment, preferring flowers instead:wink: Short of me getting an allotment there will never be room here either - the chickens take up space, but if its them or veggies, they win every time!

 

This year I've spent most of my money on compost totaling £22 so far and maybe £3 on seeds and £2 on a few reduced strawberries and brussels(I don't know what I did to my seedlings but they didn't look good)

Thankfuly I've managed to either recycle things or get as gifts, My spuds and sacks were part of my b/day pressis from the OH, I've had tubs from neighbours that were going to throw them away coz thay needed a good clean and freecycle is good. I've bought alot of stuff like canes, tubs and seeds in previous years I'm using for this year.

I think that if I've managed to grow enough for me and my son then that's enough, any glut will be delt with and frozen or traded with like minded growers.

It's got to be about whether you can grow what you and yours will eat without having too much at the end of it, the taste is far superior to supermarkets but then again that will depend on variety too.

Ohh as a bonus I've been given a green house and should have it next week

 

"If I were to try it, I would probably try to work out what we use/need/want per week and try to go from there..."

I did just that :thumb: and I worked out we needed 8 a month and so I sowed 18 a month. And, I have to tell you, Maths was my best subject at Skool :D :D :D

"So, a £250 initial outlay for what, £100 worth of vegetables?"

By your own admission you spent £120 on poly house, pots & containers (plus a few tools which come to, say, £150), so you will have £100 worth of vegetables for £100 input, plus £150 capital cost. Say the capital items last 10 years that's £15 a year ... so you are down £15 only. See, I told you Maths was my strong subject :D :D :D

I also reckon your prediction for crop weight is low. 40 or 50 tomatoes would be about right for a single plant, have you got more than one? That's 4 a week over, what, 10 weeks - only 4 per week, doubt you'll give many away!

a dozen or so courgettes - again, you should get that per plant

two dozen peppers now that is optimistic in my view. I reckon you will get 3 or 4 per plant (don't know how many plants you have, of course ...)

3 or 4 dozen chillies - Depends what size chillies you are growing, but from the little ones I grow I got this from three plants:





they have lasted me all winter, and I've enough to keep me going until the autumn.

(The thread on drying the chillies is here: http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/fo...ng-our-surplus-16584.html?p=256755#post256755 )

 

Yes, I have three plants, one (Shirley) is four feet high, looking very strong and full of flowers, the other two (Italian plum and Ailsa Craig) are playing catchup at 3 feet or so with closed flowers, but they're doing okay. I had no idea that one plant produced 40 fruits plus.

Yes, I only have the one strong plant, unfortunately my other is ailing and is unlikely to improve. So a dozen is about right.

I have 3 plants, so about a dozen sounds right again.

I'm growing smallish apache red chillies (3 plants) and Habanero and Scotch Bonnet (one plant each) so I reckon I should get 3 or 4 dozen at least... I've read your blog carefully and I saw (and was envious of) your great chilli plants. If I can get anything approaching the success of that sort of crop I'll be very proud.
I'm a huge fan of spicy chilli infused food, so they'll get used I'm sure.

Thank you for your views on crop weights Kristen, that's extremely interesting.
Who knows, maybe I'm drawing even then, but that is assuming that everything comes out well.

 

That also represents an average of about 6.9 man / woman hours of labour per week (at the current Minimum Wage) so if you take that into account the 'savings' are reduced.

The reason we started was basically because I love fresh vegies, needed more exercise and my Daughter wanted to learn "how to Garden".

Mrs Doogal has been growing flowers, shrubs, designing Gardens for people etc. for about 20 years, so until we had the idea of using the spare land at our local pub as an allotment we didn't have any space to grow Veg. I don't think we ever thought whether we'd save any money or not.

I'm just looking forward to nipping down to the local on Chrismas morning and picking the Brussels and Parsnips to have with Christmas lunch, hopefully the freezer will be packed with our runners and we'll still have some spuds left. If only I could find some horesradish

EDIT: Just had a thought, I would save thousands of £s growing Tobacco !

 

Brilliant thread you send us to Kristen. We are seriously thinking to buy a dehydrator it would bring a fun hobby to a new level wouldn't it?

 

I doubt overall i save money - but i get a huge amount of pleasure from doing it and for me its a valuable stress relief, when i can come home and faff (as my husband calls it) in the garden for an hour or so.
I also enjoy knowing that i eat home grown veg, that hasn't been flown hundreds or thousands of miles across the earth and can be days old when you buy it (to me thats not properly fresh).
Admittedly i do buy some, but i'm hoping that when we move next month and eventually get the garden how we want it that i'll ultimately end up buying less.

 

We have a target that from 1st June we won't buy any fruit & veg.

I still need to buy Tomatoes for salad for another couple of weeks though ... my Tomatoes have got set back a bit being planted out, I probably should have planted them out sooner, and risked then getting a cold shock [they have moved from cool conservatory to cold greenhouse, but were large when I moved them ...]

 

I dont think I have saved money either. I do know that I am growing fruit that I love but wouldn't normally purchase due to it being so expensive. I also wanted to make sure that the plants in my garden were safe for children and animals as my toddler is in the stage of eating everything he sees.

Donna

 

My greenhouse was free and came with loads of trays and pots all i had to buy was the grow bags etc

i also bought some tom,cucumber and chilli plants only around £1 each so the cost of 1 plant is around the price of portion of toms/chillis

the rest were bought as seeds only 99p a pack and are coming along great a lettuce in the shops sells for anything from 50p upwards so i have saved a fortune there

sweet peas are stupid money for around a dozen so when mine crop i will have saved quite a bit there also great in stir frys

overall i would say i will be money up once its all been harvested

left over chilies will be dried and some will be used with the left over toms to make chutney along with my onions

a jar of decent chutney is around £3 so if i get a few jars of that made im well into saving money

 

you can buy the roots and grow your own