Supermarket prices on staples creeping up

[shiney]

Thanks Stoney.

I am feeling a lot better about making the effort. I am sure my family will benefit nutricianally too. (it's the cheese that my son gets through that is the biggest worry, he eats tonnes of it! It's like having a giant mouse in the house ~ teenagers eh?!)

[2steps]

on the bogof thing - so if I buy a heniz tin of beans on bogof that costs heniz not the shop I bought from?

Bogofs on fresh produce (eg apples) are usually at the cost of the producer, those on ready meals and the like may also hit the producer, especially where the supermarket controls the firm that produces the meals.

Other bogofs are to reduce overstock (so the retailer usually bears the cost), to encourage people to buy more (may be the retailer, may be the middlemen, may be the processor or a combination of all three). But all try to pass it back to the producer.

Basically, those with the power pass cost on down the chain to those with the least power, but the worst ones are bogofs on fresh British-grown produce.

Our shopping is a juggling act between philosophy and pragmatism. We try to buy fairly cheap but draw the line at the items from certain companies (Nestle, Chiquita, etc), bogofs on fresh produce, and, as much as we can, items that have travelled from outside Europe (Fairtrade bananas, coffee and tea are our main exceptions).

We only use our own meat or buy from the local butcher, and where we can afford to, buy from the local shop. However, when washing soda costs 59p from a major supermarket or 79p from the local shop for instance, we can't always go down the small shop route (although we did so again today as we had just enough money for milk and washing soda).

When we both earned more, we could buy items much more in tune with our philosophy but less money means more compromise. Still, there are lines we won't cross.

thank you.

I agree to it's great to make something go a long way and also make something from nothing, if you see what I mean. I bought a piece of pork on friday -at just over £3 it was quite a lot on one item but it should do 3 meals so is worth it. I would like to be able to produce more of our own food, particually meat. poultry are the only option we have but we aren't allowed a cock but now all the bird flu stuff seems to have blown over and the markets are back I'm hoping to get some chicks or hatching eggs from a market fairly close by and raise some meat birds next year and wonderiing how long it'd take the neighbours to complain about any crowing or if there's anyway to keep him quiet in the morning

[Stonehead]

I would like to be able to produce more of our own food, particually meat. poultry are the only option we have but we aren't allowed a cock but now all the bird flu stuff seems to have blown over and the markets are back I'm hoping to get some chicks or hatching eggs from a market fairly close by and raise some meat birds next year and wonderiing how long it'd take the neighbours to complain about any crowing or if there's anyway to keep him quiet in the morning

Are there any smallholders or small farms near you? It may be worth having a chat to see if they can keep a pig or sheep for you. You pay for the animal, its feed and upkeep, through some combination of work, cash or barter.

You then either take the animal to the abbatoir and the butcher yourself, or pay them do it.

I get sheep, for example, in exchange for work, hay, grazing, etc. The farmer keeps them so all I have to do is turn up with my trailer on the appointed day, load my sheep, collect the paperwork and take them to slaughter. I then take the carcases to the butcher, pay him and collect the meat. (If I use the right abbatoir, the meat is even delivered to the butcher as part of his regular delivery.)

Another alternative is to keep rabbits as well as poultry. Quite a few years back, I used to rent a flat under a house in suburbia. The owners were Italian and their entire garden was down to vegetables plus a chicken house, rabbit hutch and pigeon house. They also had grape vines on every wall.

The family ate chicken, rabbit and pigeon as their main meats and swapped home-made wine for the occasional lamb or half pig.

[2steps]

thats a great idea but I don't know if there is anywhere near me. I don't drive so travelling can be a problem too. I have thought about keeping rabbits but the few time we ate it we weren't very keen but I've since been told roasting it isn't the best way to cook rabbit. we have had rabbits as pets so their care etc wouldn't be a problem. Pigeon is an idea but I know nothing about them and would like to try the meat first (am trying to find a shoot near me so I can maybe buy a few) Are all male birds noisy or just cockerals? I am looking for ducks as my daughter loves them, so that's another possibility. I live in a normal council terrace house, garden's about 55ft x 23ft but my children use it to play in as well as it having areas for veg and animals. We need more space but moving isn't an opition at the moment I have been trying to think of ways to use the front garden productivly (currently just grass) but the local chav popular are bound to steal or damage things and we aren't allowed to have a shed or simular out there. I was thinking potatoes as not many people would reconise the plant and so hopefully leave them alone

[Stonehead]

I live in a normal council terrace house, garden's about 55ft x 23ft but my children use it to play in as well as it having areas for veg and animals. We need more space but moving isn't an opition at the moment I have been trying to think of ways to use the front garden productivly (currently just grass)

I'll have to be quick for now, but we used to get quite a lot of food out of a 100ft by 18ft garden behind a terraced house in London. Obviously, your garden is smaller but with a bit of thought you should be able to do reasonably well.

I don't know the alignment of your house and garden (especially where the sun falls from dawn to dusk), nor the type of fencing, but here's a few ideas.

1. Don't worry about staple vegetables. You don't have enough space to make it worthwhile to grow your own. Instead, focus on things that you like and are expensive/hard to find where you live. You might like baby squash, salad potatoes, baby new potatoes, strawberries, raspberries, artichokes, mange tout, etc.

2. Leave a clear space for the children and entertaining, but leave paths/ spaces, hideaways that are part of your veg patch but still fun for kids. A shady, hidden space under a dwarf apple tree with screening from other plants can become all sorts of things to a child's imagination.

3. Don't go for more than four hens, get a dual purpose breed but keep them mainly for eggs. Replace them with new POL pullets every year, then kill and eat the old birds. Ideally, you'd get two in spring, two in autumn - giving you two birds to eat for special occasions early in the year and two late in the year plus good overlap for eggs. They won't be good roasters, but will be good casseroled, in soups, etc. Either put a shallow house run the full width of the garden at the end or a deeper but shorter run along one of the sides of the garden.

4. I think you have too little space for rabbits unless you're going to keep them quite intensively, which I don't think is a good idea. Another 20ft of length on the garden, and it might be a different story.

5. Think vertical with your veg gardening. So, you might allow 20ft by 20ft for the play/entertainment area, giving you two 18in strips on either side. Growing climbing or trainable veg/fruit in these strips - espaliered fruit, tomatoes, peas and beans are among the more obvious; cucumbers and smaller squash among the less obvious. Use all the fence area, the sides/back of the chicken run, the back wall of the house and, if you have a composter, put a trellis close around it and use those too. Grow pumpkins or squash in the top of the composter.

6. Potatoes in clean, steel drums might be an idea for the front garden. The chavs will probably break plastic bins, earthenware pots etc but steel drums with drainage holes would be more robust. Perhaps 44-gallon drums cut in half? They'd also be hard to shift or knock over.

7. And if you have a flat-roofed extension, then you're really in luck although you have to be careful about weight. At its simplest, a veg roof garden can be built by putting six-by-two timbers from one wall to the other, topping with pallets and planting in pots. You'll need a watering system or a method of getting water cans on to the roof, but it can be done. Before I lived in the terraced house in London, I lived in a top-floor flat in a Georgian house with a flat roof and a small access hatch. The roof timbers weren't particularly strong, but they were strong enough to take halved pallets on which stood pots containing things like tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, cucumbers, baby squash, herbs, etc. I used to haul buckets of water up through the hatch with a piece of rope. (I even had barbecues up there under makeshift awnings with the guests lounging on cushions and blankets like Romans!)

I hope this helps.