HELP please

[Bromd123]

Hi guys

I was looking for some advice, I want to start growing my own everything lol but with the situation I need some advice

I have been out of work for the last 12 months and have just moved house due to the other one being repossessed which sounds bad but it was a blessing inside the new house is rented and is costing a fraction of the mortgage with LOADS of outside space.

With money being so tight (partners income only at the moment) i wanted to try and cut down the cost of the weekly shop by growing/foraging as much as possible.

What i want to know is can you give me an idea of 3 or 4 crops i can put in now that won't cost the earth to buy and prepare an area for. And any ideas for information on foraging books sources of info would be greatly appreciated

Thanks Dave

[JillStephens7]

Hello

I'm a big fan of salad leaves. Lots of our no-money-left teas are salad leaves and baked potato with something and mostly salad leaf sandwiches with a smidge of cheese go a long way to avoiding spending any more at the shops.

Perpetual spinach is great as it keeps going over winter with a bit of shelter and just comes back up year after year needing very little maintenance. I also love chard and both of these can be used as a green leaf in stirfries, pasta etc too.

I also grow a variety of different loose leaf type lettuces and have a nice 'mesclun salad' mix on the go at the moment. I like sorrel, lambs lettuce and rocket too.

Oh and herbs are top of my list too as they make boring things like jacket potato (again!) seem like something special.

I've plenty of salad leaf seeds if you'd like some, just let me know and I can pop some in the post or a cheap seed supplier I found through this site is called I think Alan Roman in Fife. THey have plain seed packets and maybe fewer seeds than some of the other companies and so are cheaper and everything I've had from them has been great

Good wishes, Jill

[Carltonian Man]

Don't know which part of the world you're in Dave but here in UK Ljdl seeds start at 29p per pack. If you're near a store it might be worth having a browse to see what takes your fancy.
Quick growing is radish and you can also eat the leaves (raw or cooked but better cooked). Also but a bit slower growing is beetroot, again the leaves are tasty when young and the globes take next to no cooking in a microwave.
On a foraging note there's plenty out there at the moment, nettle tops are still good and most people can identify them; cook as for spinach (I prefer topping it with a grating of nutmeg and raw garlic), I'm sure Googling spinach recipes will throw up some interesting ideas.
Some stuff on here may also be of interest to you http://www.eatweeds.co.uk/

[Carltonian Man]

Apolgies, just read your say hello thing "Hi from rainy Manchester" and you've already picked nettles.

I've just bottled 20 gallons of nettle beer. We add 2kg of demerara plus 1kg of white sugar per 5 gallons for a 6.4% brew but we don't stopper the bottles until it's almost finished fermenting. Makes a lovely refreshing summer drink. Top tip, can be bottled into Te$co sparkling water bottles (10p each and reusable). Leave the lids loose to let the gas escape and instead of the bottle top fit a party balloon to one bottle. It inflates and when it deflates it's time to screw the lids down, thus avoiding the vesuveus effect and minimising the danger of exploding bottles. Keep us posted how it goes

CM

[theabsinthefairy]

I don't think you can go wrong with pumpkins - either from shop bought seeds or from shop bought pumpkins themselves. They grow really fast, you can harvest when they are quite small and continue harvesting through till autumn when they are much bigger, you can make soups, cakes, and roast veggies with them, also chutneys and jams, and they will keep well over winter and be feeding you into spring.

[fran]

Keep your eye out on Freecycle, people often get rid of surplus plants such as tomatoes etc. You could even put a wanted post on Freecycle for any spare seeds that people may have. If you go on to BBC Dig It website they are giving away free seeds.

[citizentwiglet]

Yes, definitely look on Freecycle - I've just picked up a load of seeds that someone was giving away, and she tried to give me a load of raspberry canes as well but I didn't have the room for them.

When I'm thinking of what to grow, I tend to look at how much I'll get in my space. In my back garden, I barely have any room and can only grow in containers, so things like onions - though we buy lots of them - would be a waste of space, so I grow shallots and spring onions instead. We eat a lot of carrots, but wouldn't grow them at home usually (I'm experimenting this year, though) because, again, a waste of space for something that is relatively cheap to buy. Salad leaves, on the other hand, are EXTORTIONATE in the shops - gram for gram they must be more expensive than platinum, so they are well worth growing. Tomatoes, similarly, are expensive (particularly the cherry ones) and, from the supermarket, pretty damned tasteless, but you'll probably need a decent summer to grow them without the help of a greenhouse (we had one good year in Scotland - since then it has just been too cold and wet to grow them outside).

French beans (climbing or dwarf) are very easy to grow, and I reckon that even if you planted some seeds in toilet roll inners now you'd have time to get them into pots and get a really good crop - because of the horrid winter, most areas are a good few weeks 'behind' where they should be.

You're lucky if you have the room to grow because space won't be an issue, but don't forget that you need to spend a while preparing your ground, so this first year you might want to just get started in planters (again, ask on Freecycle) whilst you prepare your soil, so you need to think smaller.

We have a raised bed in a community garden (when it eventually opens - it was supposed to be this Sunday, but has been delayed a week) which is about 24ft long and 4ft wide; with some clever catch-cropping and such like we SHOULD be able to cut our vegetable buying considerably. But you also have to consider the 'fail-factor' - your crops might get clubroot, or get demolished by nasties, or flattened by a hailstorm; so we need a back-up plan - and that might mean nipping to the supermarket!

What I'm trying to say is don't AIM for complete reliance on your garden just yet - just start small and grow a few things.

Things like salad leaves and herbs are so expensive in the shops that even just growing those to start with will make a difference, then, as you grow in confidence and have some time to experiment with different growing methods, timescales and just ENJOY growing food for the sheer thrill of it, you'll just find that you start replacing your bought veg with grown veg naturally. Nobody becomes a farmer overnight - growing food takes time, and patience (lots of patience), tenacity and the ability to not get depressed when things don't work. And aiming too high, too soon, and relying on home-grown food too heavily CAN lead to you getting angry with yourself and despondent if things don't go to plan.

As for foraging - wild garlic (ramsons).........yum yum yum. I think it's actually nicer than 'proper' garlic. Just don't pick Lily of the Valley instead!

I have the 'Edible Wild Plants and Herbs' by Pamela Michael, which is excellent but rather large to be lugging around the countryside with me. I get most of my tips from this website, then Google Images search for a few pictures to help me identify things better, printing them out alongside pictures of their more harmful lookalikes; cutting the pics out and sticking them in a small notebook for reference. (Although a friend is sending me her Collins pocket guide, which should cut down the amount of work on my part considerably, LOL!).

[red]

courgettes

a packet of seeds are not much, and you can use them over a number of years. sow 3 seeds, in pots on the windowsill now. dig a 2 ft wide patch to plant them in when frost has passed. if you have any compost ready, stick that in, but if not, they'll prolly do ok anyhow.