God I love growing our own

[JamezF]

Whilst I can believe it's true that you can buy some vegetables more cheaply from a supermarket than growing your own, as pargyle and enrico say there are still other good reasons to do so, and of course you should be comparing like with like: harvesting fresh produce from the garden half an hour before you eat it is not the same as buying produce from the supermarket that may have been in cold store for months or packaged in a "modified atmosphere".

For me the compelling reasons are that I can grow varieties based on taste rather on, say, how well they keep on the shelf or how easy it is to harvest; everything is organic; I know the provenance of everything I grow -- given that we know a good deal of supermarket "honey" is likely to be fake, how confident can you be that anything else is actually what is printed on the label?; and there are zero food miles (other than my occasional compost deliveries). Come to think of it, growing vegetables even reduces the amount of waste we produce, partly because the need for so much compost means that I put as much as I possibly can on the compost heaps, but also because the only packaging involved is when plants grow it themselves. I find it's also a very therapeutic way to spend my time as well as being exceptionally rewarding when sitting down to a meal where almost everything on the plate came from our own garden.

James

 

[philat98]

Spread the manure on top and let the worms and other soil fauna do the digging for you

This will be my fourth winter where that's pretty much all I've done (mostly with compost rather than manure, but it's not that different). The beds I've made since then were grass in relatively poor soil with little sign of life. The first year I spread about 10cm of compost on top of a layer of cardboard (to help smother the existing grass and weeds), then about a third to half that each year since. I think there are now more worms than soil

I think the only time I do any digging now is when I have a parsnips that are trying to reach Australia or if I find a really deep-rooted dandelion or dock. Even with potatoes I pull the entire plant out by the haulms and then just scrape about in the compost with a trowel or similar size fork to find the stragglers.

James

I think no dig is the way to go. There seems to be a lot of evidence now that turning the soil over does more harm than good. I like Charles Dowding's youtube videos. I have learned quite a bit from them. I have had good success with his method of onion cultivation. I was buying sets but now I sow seeds and get a good harvest in a clay soil.

 

[Goran]

Exactly what You say about harvesting and eating fresh.. First, they harvest vegetables and fruits when are technologically ripe, not physiological ripe. Next thing is as the time passes, less and less " good things" remain in veg and fruit..
Next thing as You said, label endure whatever You write on it, like when I eat pickles bought in shop I change the colors as traffic light - no matter what label say. For instance they spray with fungicide in the evening and harvest in the morning - each morning. Even such fungicide has 3-7 days non harvest period. But hey, who will and can do something..
Next thing, eggs from a shop like the vampires sucked all the color from it, never mind the taste..
Pork meat we have grown and pigs were given food by the book - excellent taste and smell. Other side, bought from a shop - when processed - HORROR. So I conclude they were not fed by the book and with God knows what..
And now people get surprised when kids in elementary grades have diabetes, high pressure, etc.. Not to mention, today rarely someone die of " natural" causes.
So we try as many things we can to grow by ourselves, our fitness is hoe..

 

[philat98]

Lidl and Aldi sell free range corn fed chicken at £5 per kilo. Even if you can buy corn at 15p-20p a kilo it is still going to be difficult to make a profit from raising a chicken. It would be curious to visit a free range farm and find out how this miracle is achieved.

 

[JamezF]

I think no dig is the way to go. There seems to be a lot of evidence now that turning the soil over does more harm than good. I like Charles Dowding's youtube videos. I have learned quite a bit from them. I have had good success with his method of onion cultivation. I was buying sets but now I sow seeds and get a good harvest in a clay soil.

I do onions that way too as well as salad onions, beetroot and probably a few other things besides. I reckon around 700 onions, some brown, some red, will see us through the entire year and there's no way I could justify buying that many sets but it's easy with four seeds to a module tray cell and two or three packs of seed. This year I'm thinking of making some small beds dotted around the garden where vegetable plants can be allowed to produce seed, but with the onions I might just put them in flower beds.

Charles Dowding's videos have provided me with lots of ideas though I get the impression that he's perhaps struggling a bit for new ideas at the moment. I still use his "Organic Gardening" book as a reference quite often though.

James

 

[drex]

Spread the manure on top and let the worms and other soil fauna do the digging for you

I hate this Devon red soil, despite being told by local farmers that it is very fertile.
When I dig it, I find very few worms. It is clay like, easily waterlogged, dries hard in summer. If I leave manure on the surface, the dog eats it. I shall just keep digging in as much manure as I can ger

 

[enrico]

I hate this Devon red soil, despite being told by local farmers that it is very fertile.
When I dig it, I find very few worms. It is clay like, easily waterlogged, dries hard in summer. If I leave manure on the surface, the dog eats it. I shall just keep digging in as much manure as I can ger

Funny, ours is so different.we are on blue lias clay. It is a dark soil over thick blue/ green clay!

 

[alancooper]

Yes ... If I included all the costs plus my labour at a reasonable rate I reckon it would be cheaper to have my fruit and veg delivered personally from Fortnum and Masons, by a flunkie, in a taxi from London to Fareham . but where's the fun in that ?

Nothing beats watching seeds germinate, those green shoots growing into strong healthy plants and the edible bits maturing into luscious fruits and vegetables and then being able to eat the miserable pickings left when the pests, diseases, weather and predators have taken their share as soon as they are ripe or ready to eat ....

And of course it beats driving to the nearest grocer - it‘s my fast food.

 

[Amari]

I hate this Devon red soil, despite being told by local farmers that it is very fertile.
When I dig it, I find very few worms. It is clay like, easily waterlogged, dries hard in summer. If I leave manure on the surface, the dog eats it. I shall just keep digging in as much manure as I can ger

A few years ago I told a local landowner about the clay on our allotment. He pointed to his large heap of bonfire ash and advised me to take and spread it - which I did via his mini-dumper truck, maybe 1-2 m2. Because I didn't think to have a 'control' plot for comparison I can't be sure if it helped - but 15 years on the soil is much easier to till.

 

[fian]

The use of wood ash improves acidic soils by providing phosphorus, calcium and magnesium.

 

[fian]

https://esupervivencia.com/60-usos-de-la-ceniza/Although some uses are repeated. Ashes are really a good resource for agricultural life.

 

[Antipodes]

Exactly what You say about harvesting and eating fresh.. First, they harvest vegetables and fruits when are technologically ripe, not physiological ripe. Next thing is as the time passes, less and less " good things" remain in veg and fruit..
Next thing as You said, label endure whatever You write on it, like when I eat pickles bought in shop I change the colors as traffic light - no matter what label say. For instance they spray with fungicide in the evening and harvest in the morning - each morning. Even such fungicide has 3-7 days non harvest period. But hey, who will and can do something..
Next thing, eggs from a shop like the vampires sucked all the color from it, never mind the taste..
Pork meat we have grown and pigs were given food by the book - excellent taste and smell. Other side, bought from a shop - when processed - HORROR. So I conclude they were not fed by the book and with God knows what..
And now people get surprised when kids in elementary grades have diabetes, high pressure, etc.. Not to mention, today rarely someone die of " natural" causes.
So we try as many things we can to grow by ourselves, our fitness is hoe..

This is a Divinity (Aussie 1950's) ) apricot that had a good fruiting this year with an excellent dry pollination period. Lovely flavour and beautiful slightly red blush. The Moorpark is also a great example of a really terrific tasting apricot that I've not seen in shops, I'm guessing because it ripens so much earlier on the sunny side and of course won't bounce around on the shop shelves for any time at all without bruising and "going over".

 

[JamezF]

Found a second dead roe deer today when I was digging some stuff out of a barn to make a chicken house roof. No idea how long it had been there -- anything up to a month I'd guess, though the lack of any attack by other animals perhaps suggests that it hadn't been there long. It didn't look unhealthy (except for the being dead bit) despite weighing relatively little. Given that we've had two in relatively quick succession with no obvious sign of injury I'm wondering if poisoning might be the cause.

Now transferred to the compost heap.

James

 

[enrico]

Found a second dead roe deer today when I was digging some stuff out of a barn to make a chicken house roof. No idea how long it had been there -- anything up to a month I'd guess, though the lack of any attack by other animals perhaps suggests that it hadn't been there long. It didn't look unhealthy (except for the being dead bit) despite weighing relatively little. Given that we've had two in relatively quick succession with no obvious sign of injury I'm wondering if poisoning might be the cause.

Now transferred to the compost heap.

James

That's weird and sounds like poisoning to me. Might be worth an autopsy. Any friendly vets near you? Must be illegal.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

it's the wrong time of the year really, but apparently a diet of OSR is toxic to deer!

 

[Ely]

My strawberry plants were getting a bit old so I spent some time pulling them all up out of a raised bed. Does anyone have recommendations? I'm going to grow some more from seed, looking for a large and sweet variety. I'm not too keen on sharp strawberries. Does anyone have any recommendations on a seed variety?

 

[JamezF]

My strawberry plants were getting a bit old so I spent some time pulling them all up out of a raised bed. Does anyone have recommendations? I'm going to grow some more from seed, looking for a large and sweet variety. I'm not too keen on sharp strawberries. Does anyone have any recommendations on a seed variety?

I am setting up a new strawberry bed this winter. Or I will be, if it ever stops raining I chose three varieties for early/mid/late season, though honestly I think half the plants have no idea what's happening any more (not that different from me, really). They are Honeoye, Cambridge Favourite and Florence. I've grown Cambridge Favourite before and been quite happy with it. The other two are more of an experiment based on what information I could find online.

James

 

[pargyle]

My strawberry plants were getting a bit old so I spent some time pulling them all up out of a raised bed. Does anyone have recommendations? I'm going to grow some more from seed, looking for a large and sweet variety. I'm not too keen on sharp strawberries. Does anyone have any recommendations on a seed variety?

I take and replant runners every year so I have a three year cycle - 1st year starters (some fruit - not masses) 2nd year best crop, 3rd year OK but they then get dug up and are replaced with runners and so the cycle goes on. I occasionally introduce new varieties but I don't record what they are !!

 

[Antipodes]

My strawberry plants were getting a bit old so I spent some time pulling them all up out of a raised bed. Does anyone have recommendations? I'm going to grow some more from seed, looking for a large and sweet variety. I'm not too keen on sharp strawberries. Does anyone have any recommendations on a seed variety?

This is the best I've grown here, but not sure how to grow it from seed .

https://www.diggers.com.au/products/strawberry-cambridge-rival

 

[JamezF]

I propagated alpine strawberries from seed last Autumn by allowing the fruit to dry on a plate and then pushing them into pots of compost, giving them a water and putting them in the greenhouse. I assume the same would work for "normal" strawberries though I've never seen seed for sale. Last time I checked my new alpine strawberries were looking healthy so I'm hoping it's all worked ok.

James