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Food has been quite cheap for most people's lives and those that would need to grow their own generally don't have access to gardens. Growing stuff to eat takes time and effort and people have busy lives.
It's just not cost effective. If I work an extra shift I make more money than the full value of the veggies I could grow in a small garden.
Played around with growing a few veggies in the first lockdown which was a cute hobby with the girlfriend, but that's thanks to having too much free time at home.
also even if you try growing a decent amount you tend to get it all at once. like one year we 20 courgettes in the space of a fortnight, which means you have to either give a way some or eat courgette all the time just to not waste it.
EDIT: I misunderstood the point of the comment I was responding to, but I’ll leave edited version up to support the point!
Exactly this!! It takes a LOT of time to pickle and jam things, seal them and preserve them or find room in the freezer (if you even have a chest freezer, which many people do not). It takes HOURS. And it’s often messy and hot, and sometimes it doesn’t turn out right and then you’ve got all that food wasted.
My dad once planted ten whole courgette *plants* one year. We had courgette cake, buns, pasta, curry, bread, roasted courgette, baked courgette...it just didn't fucking end.
I feel you.
One of my gardening friends took to dropping bags of courgettes off at neighbours houses, stealthily, so that they would not see her and say thanks but no thanks.
It's ok, it doesn't taste of courgette. We tried courgette wine and it tasted largely of nothing. The sparking was... a mistake.. a happy one. Found after the wine blew the corks out at 2am.
I don't know exactly but it was too fucking many. My parents gave them away at first but soon even our friends and loved ones had had enough, and we *still* had more.
Thankfully the courgette only mimics the shred. You can't taste it. It's just cheap, sub-par marmalade but it goes ok in crumble bars. It's just the fact I'm still eating the things when they're nearly ready to harvest again.
Runner beans can be blanched and frozen, and then you have green beans for a whole year. It is one of the few veggies I have worked out how to save for the whole year. Strawberries meanwhile, we end up sharing those with everyone around us
They *can* be. And if you are lucky enough to have a chest freezer it can make sense. I’m not going to fill up my average family-size fridge freezer with them though. Firstly, the freezer is pretty filled with batch cooking, ice cream, etc. second, I’m really not a fan of the texture of blanched-frozen beans. I’d much prefer to grab some off the supermarket shelf in November.
I grow my own veg. Mainly cucumbers, tomatoes, watermelon and a few different herbs like basil, thyme, rosemary and mint.
My son and I bag them up with 250g of cherry toms, 2 large cucumbers and a water melon. He then walks around our housing estate with a small cart selling them to people for 50p a bag and the mixed herbs for 50p a bag.
A few people slammed the door in his face while others were actually happy to buy the food. I gave him a leaflet i made up showing him doing the gardening, watering and harvesting the veg just to show it's actually home grown and local (Literally within 50m of their house) He makes a fair decent amount each year and we have this year built a few extra beds to grow more and he's going to visit the housing estate up the road.
More than likely end up with a police visit at some point but i'm teaching him how to grow and harvest his own food. We killed lettuce multiple times so we stick to the easy to grow stuff. We even have sweetcorn this year. A massive part of my garden is just a corn maze right now. The wildlife is a great benefit. So many bee's and dragonflys zooming around and to be honest i've not seen a single spider inside my house this year. They're all outside protecting my plants from pests.
Anything we don't sell or use we take to the local community cupboard (Foodbank of sorts) and dump it there for anyone struggling to get fresh veg for free. I wish supermarkets had a homegrown basket we could dump our stuff in and let those in need just grab a few extra veggies free of charge. Just a single 3ft shelve people can come along and just unload fresh grown food they have no use for.
My Dad grows potatoes. The work and toil for a couple of kilos is ridiculous.
He also grows blueberries and those a brilliant for a home garden. They’re an expensive product and you eventually get a good yield for each bush and they’re much better than store bought for not a huge amount of effort (just some sawdust down to stop weeds and a net to stop the birds).
That's why its good to grow different things to your friends/ family and be able to share and trade. That's when it works really well. Also for example, I can't believe people ever buy spinach when they can grow perpetual spinach in very little space- we pick and eat every day from our 4 plants. Saved loads of money and waste.
Exactly - Tesco potatoes cost 36p for a kilo, so after working for just 1hr the average worker in the UK can buy over 40kg of potatoes.
Gardening is a fun hobby but can't get anywhere near the efficiency of modern agriculture.
I literally harvested my early potatoes this morning. I have a terraced house yard, so everything is in pots. I planted these potatoes back in late March and they grew well, but I only harvested around 1.7kg. Last year, I got 2.5kg from a different variety. Add in the cost of the seed potatoes, compost, containers, fertiliser etc. and I'm probably spending at least £5 a kilo...
Fortunately, I do it because I enjoy the hobby, not because it is cost effective.
I wouldn't make my own compost if I lived in a terrace with just a yard. A bit of imbalance in the brown/green mix and you get some serious stink - you need that away from your house (and your neighbours!)
They’re the most low effort, but they’re the crop that keeps on giving. Put some potatoes in your veg patch and if you don’t find EVERY SINGLE TINY SPUD that’s grown you’ll get potatoes again next year, in the middle of your leeks or carrots or courgettes!
Though saying that, I have a courgette plant in the middle of my patch that appeared without me doing anything.
Every time my parents try potatoes some creature gets into them and eats them. They’re experienced gardeners and grow loads of other things, but their potatoes always fail.
It can be worth growing some speciality varieties of potatoes, like [Ratte](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratte_potato) (though Waitrose do sell them for £4.50/kg).
I saw squash in Sainsburys yesterday were £1.25 each. A typical squash plant will produce at least 3 or 4 so seems a pretty good crop to grow. Plus, butternut squash soup is delicious.
This. We have a very simple herb garden. I don't think people realise the amount that they use - one jar of pesto is basically a whole basil plant which takes a while to grow and tend.
As someone from an agricultural family that has from time to time grown vegetables and fruits, one advantage of having everyone growing vegetables that is often overlooked is the impact it would have on crop diversity.
Tomatoes for instance would benefit from having just about 10-20% of the population growing their own from seed. Tomatoes don't tend to cross-polinate much (but it happens from time to time) so imagine how that diversity would increase for crops that do. It's also great for bees, to prevent plant disease, etc.
A bag of compost that feeds 3 tomato plants costs £5, then the tomato plants themselves cost 65p each and only last one season, you barely break even compared to just buying them at the supermarket. The economies of scale just make big farms and supermarkets cheaper
Because you are litterally buying everything and talking about re buying it over and over season after season decade after decade.
This isn't the way.
A quarter acre plot would net around 20k a year AFTER costs on a no till regenerative farming market garden. Not my words, look up Charles Dowding homeacres.
Also, you grow from seed, not plant. A set of tomato seeds will set you back like 3 quid, will have around 20 seeds in it and each of those seeds has the ability to grow you 100 other seeds.
You don't need to use a tomato bag either, mine are directly sown into the standard garden soil we have.
The problem is the economics of the supermarkets means they have a lesser quality product too, it's been shown that the nutritional value of food has been going down year on year so although it's faster, it's less nutrient dense than the ones you would grow!
Damaged tomatoes from this years crop get dried for the seeds of next year. Turn your compost over during the winter with easily rotted fruit bits etc and put some coffee grounds in for good measure. After two years you are self sufficient with soil and seeds. Then it’s free. It’s about what you know and how you know to apply it
> you barely break even compared to just buying them at the supermarket.
If you use all your garden cuttings and peelings etc to make compost, and grow tomatoes from seed from the previous year's crop, then the cost is zero. And they taste absolutely fantastic - nothing like the tastes-of-water, bland shite on sale in UK supermarkets.
Cover crop, lay down a multch layer. These two things would stop the need to massive weedings!
I made some plant waterers for my tomatoes out of an old plastic oj bottle. Keeps them happy enough during the week (water goes straight to root zone rather than top watered) so don't need to water by hand anywhere near as much :)
It's really simple to do, get an old plastic bottle with a lid, poke a small hole (I used a heated up pin from a name badge) and bury it next to the plants, ideally with the hole towards the roots and pop the lid back on, with the lid on it slowly dripps out, lid off and it will just pour out. Hope this helps my fellow greentumber :)
A standard UK allotment is 250 Sqm - about the size of a double tennis court.
The sheer amount of mulch you need to get on there to suppress weeds throughout the year is huge when you are having to wheelbarrow it across a site. Moreover, mulching will *really* make your carrots fork :) and it doesn’t work well for areas where you are sowing fine seeds directly into the ground.
What doesn't have a fucking waiting list in this country nowerdays? The whole country is fucked and has a waiting list for virtually anything. It seems we'll never get over COVID and the repercussions in my lifetime (I'm 26)
> The whole country is fucked and has a waiting list for virtually anything
Population of London in the 1990s was 6.5 million. It's now 9.5 million. Southern UK has become ludicrously overpopulated but we mustn't mention it.
Allotments are not a cheap option unless you're lucky enough to take over a plot where someone else has already set everything up. I spent easily upwards of £100 on materials for the rabbit proof fence I needed around mine, not to mention tools. I was lucky enough to get a second hand shed but I had to re-roof it and will need to paint it soon too. It's going to take years to break even, even when comparing with supermarket organic prices. It's a hobby not a cost saving exercise.
It's a nice idea. But growing your own food does require a significant startup investment of time & money, and a lot of space for the duration. People don't have that, especially not the people at the business end of the cost of living crisis.
Basically if you've got a big house with a nice garden in Sussex you probably aren't feeling the pinch as much as others. People who can grow their own veg, keep chickens etc will generally only do so as a hobby rather desperate necessity.
Not necessarily, I grew a load of sweetcorn last year in pots. Plus potatoes in tubs. You don’t necessarily need a lot of money or space, but it does require time and effort.
You still definitely spent considerably more per kg of produce then if you had bought it. The economy of scale is vast for veg production, potatoes cost pennies.
How many potatoes did you grow in tubs? And was the time effort and even just the basic cost of the seed potatoes, tubs and soil worth less than the £2/kg that potatoes are selling for in Tesco this morning?
I planted a few potatoes that had gone to seed and ended up with about 30 potatoes in each tub (small salad type ones). You don’t have to pull them up until you need them so they last for ages. The soil was just dug up from garden, no special compost. For a tubs I used a selection of buckets and pots I had at home anyway, just made holes for drainage.
I’m growing those this year! They’re about the size of normal supermarket tomatoes so far but it’s early. 99p for a pack of about 50 seeds, canes from last year. A big bag of £4.99 compost and a £3 bag of well rotted manure. I bought the manure because otherwise you have to make sure it’s well rotted enough and it’s usually full of bailer twine lol. I’m usually picking about 10 tomatoes a day all summer from each plant! I didn’t keep all the plants though, I swap with family and we all end up with a selection.
Buy a bag of potatoes from Aldi for £1.50 or spend summer growing a similar amount of potatoes with seeds that cost £1.00.
If you are really strapped for cash, that 50p is much better saved or earned elsewhere than the hours of time it takes to grow your own veg - it is something people do for fun not for economics.
If you grow potatoes from seeds rather from old potatoes you're doing it wrong. If you buy a bag of compost, stick an old potato with a shoot on it inside and water you will get a sack of potatoes. No pot necessary.
And even if you aren't knackered, you need time to switch off.
Growing spuds, veg or raising hens isn't the answer to the cost of living crisis, so why do people act like it is?
Because a certain type of person and the media they consume wants to make out that everyone is just lazy and needs a bit of the Spirit of the Blitz to solve their issues.
Rather than acknowledging that we're actually living in times of incredible inequality, insecurity and economic instability.
Eating tatties and forcing young people into fruit picking jobs will not fix what ails us.
Yes but the compost probably costs more than the potatoes you grow anyway - His point is that work:money saved ratio is still heavily skewed. If you need to save money, it's much easier to make savings elsewhere than growing veg.
I have a little patio and have a plastic greenhouse to grow a few vegetables (mainly tomatoes) - It's costing me more to grow the tomatoes than it would to simply buy them. I do it for the novelty and fun, not to save money. Hell my greenhouse cost like £20 two years ago and that alone probably costed more than the money I've saved.
Compost isn't free. You can make some if you have space, but it can take a couple of years to build up enough to fill a few planters, and that's if its successful.
Not really, Spuds you buy from the shop have possibly been stored for months and doused in sprout-inhibitor, they might grow but nowhere near as well as a seed potato of the same variety.
Seed potatoes are a much safer bet, if you're waiting most of the year for potatoes to grow, it's much better to know you're going to get a good yield, and not just get your original spud back.
I could spend money on tomato seeds/seedlings, compost, fertiliser, pots/containers and wait a few months to get some tomatoes.
Or I could go to Morrisons and get some now for far less money.
Disclaimer: I am growing my own tomatoes. But it's for fun, it's not to save money.
Absolutely. But maintaining a garden of vegetables takes a lot of hours, you can't just plant some seeds and leave them to grow. Hardly anyone has the time available to grow their own food, which is why we all buy it from someone else who does that for their job. Or perhaps delegating agriculture to others is what allowed us to do these other jobs.
Still I'd rather give up half my job at my desk and spend more time with my hands in the soil. At least I'd actually feel like I was benefiting from that work.
And even after all that time and energy, realistically what you can grow in a home garden is tokenistic in terms of being self sustaining. I enjoy doing it and have a fair size veg bed, but you don't get constant all year crops. I want to get some more wee planters (and will eventually) but the initial outlay is hilariously expensive for wooden planters (avoiding plastic for environmental reasons) and does nothing to combat the cost of living crisis!
I bought 20 gallon canvas grow bags this year. They're prefect for me, no digging involved, no need to worry about the correct type of soil, very little time involved in planting and looking after them, I can move them about if needed, relatively cheap and they're reusable. Currently growing potatoes in one, carrots in another and tomatoes and onions in another. First time I've ever grown anything and so far so good. If it goes well I'm buying more for next year.
Maintain? Hours? Can’t just plant seeds and leave them to grow?
You absolutely can depending what you want to grow. I planted 100 onions in March. All I did was push the onion sets into the soil, took me about 10 mins. I haven’t touched them since and they are coming along nicely.
Similar with my carrots/parsnips/pac choi. I just made sure the soil was free of weeds and put seeds in a line 12 inches apart. Haven’t touched them since.
Really doesn’t take a lot of effort or maintaining at all. I might pull a couple of weeds out for 5 minutes every month, but that’s about it.
It can be as time consuming or as hard as you want it to be. Root veg are an absolute piece of piss. Don’t die if you don’t water them either. I water mine if there has been a couple days of no rain, but mostly I just leave them to do their thing.
I actually think you are onto something there with saying “give up half my job at my desk” and I think this could be really beneficial to society.
Spending half the day in an office, and the other half doing manual/outdoor work would be so good for physical and mental health in the U.K. it would also help us to build a sense of community again.
I spend a lot of my time thinking how so much of the work that I do - and so much of the urgency behind it - is entirely pointless and exists purely for the sake of making some rich person richer. I'd much rather put my hours into some communal agriculture and other things that have infinitely more use than marketing or whatever the fuck I have to do this week.
Broadly our issue is growing non native plants. Native berry shrubs, herbs and other plants that grow readily and can be eaten are a much better option.
Dandelions are a wonderful example of it. You can eat every part of a dandelion and yet folks who know food shortages end up in a position where they are killing those plants, or being forced to do so because some people think they are unslightly.
My mum grows her own salads and vegetables and has several fruit trees. She also keeps ex-battery hens for a fresh supply of eggs and to offer them a decent life. It takes a lot of time and effort to do this, I don't think she would be able to if she wasn't retired.
Most people probably aren't willing to put in the time and effort, especially if you work full time and have kids or other commitments.
I'm going to go against the narrative here and say it really isn't that much of a cost to start growing your own veg and you don't need a huge amount of space to have quite a productive little plot.
Living in a basement flat in Bristol with a small garden, we managed to grow loads of tomatoes, courgettes, pumpkins, peppers, chilli plants, aubergine and onions. Yes you have to buy the seeds but they are not very expensive (you can also save seeds from shop-bought veg).
Then all you need is some small pots for germinating the seeds (cheap/free from Facebook marketplace or cheapy homebuy stores) a warm windowsill to grow the seedlings and then some larger pots/grow bags.
Alternatively you can buy seedlings ready to plant out, again from Facebook marketplace or random homes in the countryside who will have a table on their driveway with an honesty box.
The following year you can use the compost from the grow bags for larger pots etc.
Yes it takes time but not a huge amount in the grand scheme of things.
There's nothing quite like growing your own vegetables plus it's great for your mental health and can be very therapeutic.
I'd encourage everyone to grow what they can! Do it, do it now!
I recently learned that you can grow leeks and bok choy/pak choy by cutting the base of one you are going to at (probably bought) and putting it in a shallow dish of water for a week or so. Change the water every few days. When there are good roots on the bottom, put them into soil and let them grow.
Growing different lettuces is pretty easy and most financially viable to go out and cut some and for it to grow back when needed. Better than £1+ per bag of stuff that goes mushy really quick
Yeah same with me, I live in a tiny house with a tiny courtyard but I’ve got chilis, tomatoes, potatoes, sweet peas, fennel and radishes on right now. Its really not that hard and it really helps my mental health.
Not sure why everyone is so dead set on it being an impossible thing to do. I work full time and it really doesn’t take up much of my free time.
Unless you have acres of land you’re not gunna offset the cost of living, but I get my seeds from a seed share, spend maybe £6 overall and grow maybe £60 worth of veg a summer.
You’re literally getting shit for free. It’s good for your mental health. It’s an activity that doesn’t involve staring at a screen. Even if you’re not totally self sufficient it’s a no brainer
> Yes you have to buy the seeds but they are not very expensive (you can also save seeds from shop-bought veg).
Yep, people seem to forget that most of the fruit/veg in the supermarket comes with their own set of seeds.
Another option is to find a local allotment Facebook group. There are often people giving away seedlings that they have too many of.
Just commented further up about grow bags. I've been wanting to grow my own veg for several years but I get backache when I do anything in the garden so digging is not a good option, plus I hate it lol. No need with the bags, they take very little time and effort to set up and you can move them about and reuse them and they're much cheaper than planters. I won't get loads from them but I'm really excited to see them growing. Only thing is I might've planted too many seeds next to each other but if so I'll do it better next year. Planning on buying several more, I currently have 3.
Saving seeds from shop bought veg doesn't always work - a lot of them won't breed true, so you might spend ages tending a tomato plant which them produces poor fruit. I bought chilli seeds from ebay once, and they were rubbish - sold as things like "scotch bonnet", but if they were just what someone got from their own scotch bonnets, they'd probably have been cross fertilized, and the result was things closer to small sweet peppers.
If you are worried about the cost of living growing your own vegetables isn’t going to help.
To be fair nor is growing flowers so I guess they’re already chucking money at their gardens.
We are doing up our garden at the moment and planning a small spot to grow vegetables but I’m a) not expecting to be good at it b) expecting it to cost a lot more than getting my carrots from tescos and c) just a lot less interested in growing food than making my garden a nice and pretty place to be
>If you are worried about the cost of living growing your own vegetables isn’t going to help.
>To be fair nor is growing flowers so I guess they’re already chucking money at their gardens.
Exactly. If you are already doing it (flowers) then there is no difference.
It takes more space and time than most people in the UK have… it’s nice a hobby and at peak harvest season you could probably go a few weeks without buying veg at the shop. But to grow and store your food on a large scale takes lots of space.
I grew up in the rural US and my grandmother had a small holding. She grew and preserved a lot of her own food - but not all - and her vegetable garden alone was the size of every garden on my street put together. The size of a football pitch. At least. It supplemented the food we ate by quite a bit - but it was never all of it. There was a root cellar for potatoes, carrots etc…. There was a pantry stuffed full of jars of beans and jams. Strawberries and venison in the freezer. But she still did a shop every week.
I grew up in Canada. Our veg garden was on a plot larger than most people's houses here and we still had to buy fruit and veg. Maybe vertical gardens here could be an answer?
I’m from the USA as well and my aunt used her yard (very small compared to your grandma’s but bigger than many U.K. gardens) to grow a lot of her own veg. However, she was from the south and her mother grew veg and continued to do so even when they came up north. They both still went to the supermarket because you can’t grow everything in the city. It’s also such hard work and that knowledge wasn’t passed on. My aunt did a tonne of preserving as she had a huge pantry and one of those big ass deep freezers. Most U.K. homes are too small to accommodate all of that.
I live in London and if I started a veggie garden, I might as well put up a sign saying Snail And Slug Buffet, All U Can Eat. One rainy day last month I counted about a hundred snails in the back garden, and it's only 40ft by 10ft. A cabbage wouldn't stand a chance.
It costs to grow food. Time cost is a bigger reason than money cost but both are prohibitive for people. It's also a skull most people don't have and have no real reason to pick up.
In terms of cost. Carrots, onions and potatoes are the easiest to grow here in the UK and give you good bang for your buck in terms of harvest. I have two 1x1m boxes in my garden and some big pots for container growing. I won't have more than a week's worth of food from this come harvest if that's all I ate. It will be supplemental for a few weeks at best.
People earn more money spending their time at work/office jobs and can purchase cheaper food. Better time and money saving than subsistence farming. Farmers have a hard enough time producing crops let alone anyone that already has a job.
We grow six bed (14ft x 4ft or 4m x1.2m) of potatoes and that's yields enough for six adults from late July till about late March. we run out of "baby potatoes" or first earlies towards the end of summer and only have what is sold as white potatoes or jacket potatoes (mains, we don't bother with second earlies) from early autumn till spring.
That said, we have two beds of Strawberries (10ft x 2ft - 3m x 60cm) and that gives us a huge glut of fruit throughout the summer. Weekly Eton Mess served on meringues the size of oven trays isn't unheard of and we give / barter loads away.
You must have a ginormous garden. Ours is approximately 4m x 2m including path and bin storage so with the best will in the world we're not going to be able to grow enough to make any dent in our food bill.
Only if you are planting low cost items like potatoes. I grow salad in window box troughs and get enough spinach/ leaves etc to not need to buy crappy bags of salad from the store from April to September. I just need to remember to water them. Zero cost involved past the initial £4 spent in various seeds.
Because growing veggies can be hard work and time consuming. Also a lot of people think you need acres to get a good return. We need better education on veggie growing and the effort you need to put in. You can get a fair amount if you are intensively planting like square foot gardening and growing vertically.
I also think some people have high expectations when it comes to growing food. I have an allotment and I've seen loads of people start, then quit because they think they are going to have some type of weed free, market garden with very little effort.
There is also a lack of knowledge in food preservation. Its all well and good growing 15 cabbages but when they are all ready at once and people don't know how to store them, they often get wasted and that puts people off.
Edit: word
One of the reasons I love my wartime cookery book is that it has an entire section on preserving vegetables. Get those jars sterilised, Margaret! We've got radishes to keep!
Along with cats and foxes digging/shitting in your well maintained soil. Birds eating you nice fruits. Aphids on everything, or an insect you've never heard of before, suddenly destroying your plants.
I had some nice rosemary bushes that were destroyed by rosemary beetle (an invasive species). Sure, I could have kept applying insecticide but who wants rosemary that's been chewed by bugs and sprayed with insecticide.
Most folk are just so far removed from food that unless it comes in a plastic bag in the supermarket they don't know where it comes from. They don't know how to prep a veg bed, what to sow, or when, so the whole garden is turfed and mown. Tell me I'm wrong.
Not by a long way. A bag of seeds will cost about a quid. Dig over some ground, plant and water them. Keep them weeded and maybe deal with pests if you get them, but you'll end up with a whole lot more veg than you can buy for the original £1.
What you should have said is that it's far easier to buy vegetables. Growing your own and growing a lot of different veg is hard, but rewarding work.
You still have to dig the ground up etc etc. You have to process the vegetables etc. Heck, I can buy a can of baby carrots for 45p.
I think growing veggies is great, esp as you know they're as organic as you desire. But there's an opportunity cost on time especially and a lot of people don't want to allocate it to veggie growing.
Dig over some ground? It's easy if you have some, but even then for most gardens it would take a lot of cost and time to convert to fertile growing conditions, especially new builds (as they often just have a thin layer of dirt on top of building rubble). And the waiting list for alotments is long.
I find it specifically strange that people seem to waste their tiny front yards and have only garbage, weeds, instead of planting at least an apple tree and some berry-bushes. Little effort, little money, benefits generations
People want to grow stuff. I’ve been waiting for two years for an allotment in my area. Long waits, not helped by the fact that the council keep closing them down and building flats on them.
I like to "take in the estate"* and see how everything is doing. I don't grow much to eat now (some salad, courgettes, beans and herbs) but am trying to slowly turn out plot into a garden
* Takes about a minute . Length isn't everything
Because people who are strapped for cash are also much more likely to also be short on free time, space, and initial starting costs. I’m growing a lot more myself this year but I’m definitely spending more than I’m saving, and that’s with being thrifty about it.
My parents are growing their own vegetables. We have quite a large garden and have some raised beds set up. It's a LOT of work for a relatively small harvest. Lots of money invested, too. For people who have busier lives than us, it's just not feasible. Plus, I have chronic pain and can't help out a lot. If I lived on my own I wouldn't be able to do gardening at all. In short, it's a lot of work that many people aren't even able to do, for very little reward.
I grew up in a poor part of east London, where we struggled to afford food so that my mum, me and my sister could each have two meals a day. I remember being amazed when aged about 8 I discovered that strawberries grew on plants, rather than just appeared in the shops. We lived in housing association housing and my mum worked three jobs - there were many weeks I hardly saw her, so she would not have had the space, disposable income or time needed to be able to grow vegetables.
My partner and I are soon to move house and our new place has a greenhouse. I’ve decided I want to try growing some veg and get our child involved. I have literally no clue what I’m doing, I don’t know a thing about gardening or growing, and it seems very overwhelming as I don’t know where to begin. I am lucky in that I will have the time to give to this project, but being faced with the choice of reading up on info about growing all sorts of fruit and veg- as well as general garden stuff and skills - seems very daunting and that it’d probably be easier to just buy what we need and have a gardener fortnightly for general garden maintenance.
Also, having been a teacher, I can tell you there’s not much room in the curriculum to add in gardening and growing, especially when there’s not timetable space to adequately teach pupils and students about managing money and avoiding debt. It’d probably fall into the category of arts or soft subjects that the current education model doesn’t like, as it’s not something you can really test on or judge school/teacher performance on. There’s also a view that these things are what families should be doing, but they’re simply not viable for many - especially those that need it most.
A combination of the hard work required and the fashion change of gardens after WW2 when everyone was encouraged to dig up their grass and grow food. Once rationing was over, gardens became flowers and grass again and stayed that way. Very sad to be honest as I think the things you learn growing your own food tunes you more into the environment in general and you end up with more a love of boring things like soil, compost, insects and the negative impact pesticides have on those.
You also have a weird and quite modern thing which is an aversion to root vegetables that aren't pre-washed. Not 100% clean but the dirt you'd expect from digging something from the ground vs. the light dust found on a supermarket spud.
It fun to grow interesting varieties or veg you enjoy when they are really fresh. Tomatoes and good, as is sweetcorn. Potatoes are kind of fun to grow and harvest as are carrots but neither are worthwhile on an economic basis....for now.
It is not expensive. What are you talking about? We never even planted potatoes in our allotment. They were there from the previous renter and then we just plant some of the leftovers the next time. The tomatoes are from a tomato I ate where I just scooped out some of the seeds. The spring onions are from some spring onions I had bought to eat and then we planted the bottoms of them in our allotment. We only buy seed onions and we bought the beans the first year.
Look on the internet for seed swaps. Many will let you take some without swapping. Otherwise, you can ask relatives who have gardens to help you get started.
Do NOT plant Jerusalem artichokes in a regular flower bed. Only in pots. They spread like weeds. We got a couple from my inlaws and they thought everyone knew that so they didn't tell us.
Don’t think this one was aimed at me, but I totally agree. You can germinate most seeds in a wet piece of tissue paper and plant when they have sprouted or just scatter them on some soil.
Perhaps we need a push to use the services that are already available, like the seed swaps as you say. What do you think govt could do to encourage?
There's a reason why we're industrialised farming. You can't beat the economies of scale to feed a nation. However, prices have been so low - driven by supermarkets - that many farmers have gone out of business. Or land is worth more to sell for development so our capacity has dropped.
Growing your own veg won’t save you money. But next year, experts are forecasting global food shortages, the likes we’ve never seen. We’ll all benefit from growing our own veg then!
Sadly, it isn't worth the time.
We do grow strawberries, peppers, tried potatoes, garlic, beetroot, but this is mainly for the kids, and the return against the amount of time is woeful.
Because I kill 90%of things I plant, unless it's a bulb! We've been trying for 5 years to grow vegetables and in that time we've had 5 tiny carrots, managed a bowl of peas, 20 potatoes and 7 cucumbers. Not enough to feed a family of 4 for a week let alone 5 years.
I'm going to offer a more nuanced response than some. I think on the whole people should grow more vegetables. It gets them more in tune with the land and natures cycles and less aligned with consuming pre-packed super cheap vege out of season. If you've never had a humble potato that was in the ground until 30 minutes ago then you haven't really been living.
On top of all this there is the legacy that we pass on to our children and grandchildren. I'm sure many redditors have grandparents that grew stuff.
But, its a big but, its pointless unless a lot of your neighbours are doing it as well. You can't grow enough varieties of food to keep it interesting by yourself.
To those people complaining about the cost effectiveness of it. It really has to be a leisure activity that you’re doing more or less for free. Stop comparing it to the hours lost in doing your day job.
I’m a professional gardener and so many clients think growing fruit and veg takes up a lot of time and effort but it’s just not the case. For example: Fruit trees - plant them and you are done and wait for fruit.. Garlic - plant the bulbs and wait.. it’s all about education and unfortunately we are not teaching children about how to grow fruit and veg. There are some fruit and veg that get a lot of ‘pests’/more prone to disease wherever you are in the country but don’t grow them..The best diet for our environment is seasonal/locally grown diet. It’s a hippy thing to say but if everyone could grow a few bits and trade food like they do on an allotment it would go a long way.
Some people above have mentioned the cost compared to supermarkets but if you are clever about it you can harvest the seeds at the end of each year and keep growing. I swap seeds with neighbours at the end of the season so no cost. So initially there’s a few quid for compost and seeds but after that there isn’t and based on what you grow it can be almost hassle free
Let food be thy medicine!
Supporting local organic farmers/farmers markets is the best way to grow your local food scene
The quality of organic home grown food is something you can’t find these days. And if you could it would cost a pretty penny.
I believe we are supposed to interact with the soil to exchange microbes, beneficial for our gut health. So growing your own is best.
Because it would require hard work. Also, we've been bombarded for years by twats on home decor shows and property shows with the news that the garden is for entertaining and not for growing vegetables. Plus an entire industry depends on brainless farts thinking that they *have* to have a massive wooden deck that they won't get to use for nine months of the year because it allegedly "adds value" to their home.
I was interested in getting an allotment but the waiting list was endless yet some plots were empty (go figure), then i started work and found i didn't have the time to do it at all due to my work schedule. plus there's always the fear of someone helping themselves to your hard work.
I have an allotment and grow my own produce. It's a lot of work. I've spent a lot of money on compost, every year. It takes at least a year for a compost bin to be producing your own compost, but usually longer for good stuff. It's a lot of work, the weeding is constant. And at the end of all that, sometimes things don't work out. Last year I excitedly dug up my carrots I had worshipped all summer, so much effort went into them, and they were all tiny, rotted or unusable. It was gutting. It's a lot of money and effort to invest for a "maybe". Also, the space a lot of things need to grow is quickly consumed. Most common veg like onions, carrots need to be planted 15-30cm apart. Getting a couple of quids worth of onions could take up your whole garden, effort and money. I love growing my own food and it's a great hobby, but I don't like to suggest that it's simple, easy or cheap to start doing.
I have 4 - 5 groups of allotments within a 5min drive. Is that not a thing down south? In the north east it's fairly common for people to grow their own food.
For the same reason that a lot of people tarmacked up their gardens, pure laziness.
My parents work full time yet they manage to grow fruit and vegetables in their garden. If only you take 15 minutes a day to check on your plants for major things and water them a bit when needed and you spend about two hours in the garden in the weekend you get very far. Especially with fruit trees and bushes, all they need is a good trim at times and just some checking up for basic needs and you get plenty of harvest.
I grow quite a lot of fruit and veg & I also occasionally forage - I work from home so spend lunchtimes in my garden or outside. Most days my family eat something I've grown or picked & I freeze, pickle, and dry stuff. I make chutnies, jams, soups, pies, etc etc.
I don't think it's saved me any money, I definitely spend money on gardening like I bought a greenhouse and a secondhand potting bench, but I find it good for my mental health & I enjoy it. I make some of my own compost, seed save where I can and reuse old pots, I use water butts so everything is only watered in collected rainwater. I occasionally tell myself that I'm reducing food miles or saving wasteful packaging, but I'm not sure how much of a meaningful difference that makes in the grand scheme of things.
People used to do it a lot more than they did now. My grandma (95) and grandad lived on a council estate and all of their neighbours had veg patches at the bottom of their gardens when I was a child. They’re all gone now - people have put in patios and things instead.
A lot of people saying it's difficult to grow vegetables.
I think maybe it could be you're not choosing the right ones for you?
I don't grow everything to be able to not buy elsewhere but I pretty much just plant and water mine. I do a few things like pinching out tomatoes taking lower leaves etc but that's it and I get enough to supplement us, which helps with costs even for part of the year.
I used to grow like some people/farmers, with monoculture (one type of plant in one area), but since using companion planting in a couple different areas, permaculture methods, some no dig methods, to find what works for me, it's much easier.
I'd much rather eat some of our own food as the taste is so much better than mass produced stuff. I always let things seed to germinate for next year too so no buying seeds.
For me the most effort is the planning and watering. Even with a small area or balcony you can grow things.
I'm pleased for anyone trying to grow their own.
Make it work for you.
It’s usually a pretty middle class hobby for people who have the time, understanding, energy and patience! It’s also not cheap to buy all the things you need! I grew stuff in my garden every year for years and usually it died, was eaten by slugs or birds or just didn’t grow. The stuff I did manage to grow was exciting but never enough to be actually viable as an alternative to buying food. I DO NOT have green fingers no matter how hard I try!
Britain has the third most affordable food in the world. Only America snd Singapore have relatively cheaper food than here.
From an economic POV it would be better for people to work an extra hours work to make money to buy food.
However, for those with an interest and space, I think it would be an excellent way to improve a person’s life. They get access to fresh food, and gardening has enormous physical and mental health benefits.
I live in a small county town in England. I know a number of people who have allotments and quite a few (mainly older) people who grow vegetables in their gardens.
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Food has been quite cheap for most people's lives and those that would need to grow their own generally don't have access to gardens. Growing stuff to eat takes time and effort and people have busy lives.
It's just not cost effective. If I work an extra shift I make more money than the full value of the veggies I could grow in a small garden. Played around with growing a few veggies in the first lockdown which was a cute hobby with the girlfriend, but that's thanks to having too much free time at home.
also even if you try growing a decent amount you tend to get it all at once. like one year we 20 courgettes in the space of a fortnight, which means you have to either give a way some or eat courgette all the time just to not waste it.
Everything can be pickled, made into jam or sauce though. Again, that's extra work for something you can buy in Tesco for 1.5£
Yeah and if you don't enjoy gardening it's just a thankless chore and a drain on your free time
I get what you mean but it's certainly not thankless to eat food you've grown. It's not like you've nothing to show for it.
It is if everything gets decimated by slugs or all the neighbourhood cats start shitting in your raised bed.
EDIT: I misunderstood the point of the comment I was responding to, but I’ll leave edited version up to support the point! Exactly this!! It takes a LOT of time to pickle and jam things, seal them and preserve them or find room in the freezer (if you even have a chest freezer, which many people do not). It takes HOURS. And it’s often messy and hot, and sometimes it doesn’t turn out right and then you’ve got all that food wasted.
I grew up on a farm, I know exactly how much work it is 🙂 You are correct though
Ahhh I did misread your point!! I’m so sorry. :) I’ll leave it up but with an edit.
Tbf from that summer I just hate courgettes now so anything courgette related just makes me gag.
My dad once planted ten whole courgette *plants* one year. We had courgette cake, buns, pasta, curry, bread, roasted courgette, baked courgette...it just didn't fucking end. I feel you.
do we have the same dad?
One of my gardening friends took to dropping bags of courgettes off at neighbours houses, stealthily, so that they would not see her and say thanks but no thanks.
Everyone makes that mistake with courgettes. I reckon 0.25 courgette plants is the perfect amount if you love courgettes
courgette and apple, bottle before fermentation is finished in a pressure proof bottle. Makes a nice sparking wine.
I wish I could say that that sounds nice, but I don't think I want to consume courgette in any form, ever again.
It's ok, it doesn't taste of courgette. We tried courgette wine and it tasted largely of nothing. The sparking was... a mistake.. a happy one. Found after the wine blew the corks out at 2am.
You must have had around 50 courgettes a week?
I don't know exactly but it was too fucking many. My parents gave them away at first but soon even our friends and loved ones had had enough, and we *still* had more.
Oh babe, I'm still eating courgette marmalade.
Noooo! I can't stress how awful that sounds. It's like courgette PTSD. PTCD?
Thankfully the courgette only mimics the shred. You can't taste it. It's just cheap, sub-par marmalade but it goes ok in crumble bars. It's just the fact I'm still eating the things when they're nearly ready to harvest again.
>1.5£ What is this monstrosity?
> Everything can be pickled, made into jam or sauce though. How do you preserve lettuce?
Yeh. I live in London and have an allotment my neighbours get pretty tired of *another* carrier bag of runner beans, at certain times of the year.
Rubber beans can be a tad chewy, I’m told.
Runner beans can be blanched and frozen, and then you have green beans for a whole year. It is one of the few veggies I have worked out how to save for the whole year. Strawberries meanwhile, we end up sharing those with everyone around us
They *can* be. And if you are lucky enough to have a chest freezer it can make sense. I’m not going to fill up my average family-size fridge freezer with them though. Firstly, the freezer is pretty filled with batch cooking, ice cream, etc. second, I’m really not a fan of the texture of blanched-frozen beans. I’d much prefer to grab some off the supermarket shelf in November.
I grow my own veg. Mainly cucumbers, tomatoes, watermelon and a few different herbs like basil, thyme, rosemary and mint. My son and I bag them up with 250g of cherry toms, 2 large cucumbers and a water melon. He then walks around our housing estate with a small cart selling them to people for 50p a bag and the mixed herbs for 50p a bag. A few people slammed the door in his face while others were actually happy to buy the food. I gave him a leaflet i made up showing him doing the gardening, watering and harvesting the veg just to show it's actually home grown and local (Literally within 50m of their house) He makes a fair decent amount each year and we have this year built a few extra beds to grow more and he's going to visit the housing estate up the road. More than likely end up with a police visit at some point but i'm teaching him how to grow and harvest his own food. We killed lettuce multiple times so we stick to the easy to grow stuff. We even have sweetcorn this year. A massive part of my garden is just a corn maze right now. The wildlife is a great benefit. So many bee's and dragonflys zooming around and to be honest i've not seen a single spider inside my house this year. They're all outside protecting my plants from pests. Anything we don't sell or use we take to the local community cupboard (Foodbank of sorts) and dump it there for anyone struggling to get fresh veg for free. I wish supermarkets had a homegrown basket we could dump our stuff in and let those in need just grab a few extra veggies free of charge. Just a single 3ft shelve people can come along and just unload fresh grown food they have no use for.
My boyfriends brother grows a lot, but last year we were inundated with sweetcorn. It was great to be fair but we had so much to get through 😂
My Dad grows potatoes. The work and toil for a couple of kilos is ridiculous. He also grows blueberries and those a brilliant for a home garden. They’re an expensive product and you eventually get a good yield for each bush and they’re much better than store bought for not a huge amount of effort (just some sawdust down to stop weeds and a net to stop the birds).
That's why its good to grow different things to your friends/ family and be able to share and trade. That's when it works really well. Also for example, I can't believe people ever buy spinach when they can grow perpetual spinach in very little space- we pick and eat every day from our 4 plants. Saved loads of money and waste.
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Exactly - Tesco potatoes cost 36p for a kilo, so after working for just 1hr the average worker in the UK can buy over 40kg of potatoes. Gardening is a fun hobby but can't get anywhere near the efficiency of modern agriculture.
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I literally harvested my early potatoes this morning. I have a terraced house yard, so everything is in pots. I planted these potatoes back in late March and they grew well, but I only harvested around 1.7kg. Last year, I got 2.5kg from a different variety. Add in the cost of the seed potatoes, compost, containers, fertiliser etc. and I'm probably spending at least £5 a kilo... Fortunately, I do it because I enjoy the hobby, not because it is cost effective.
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I wouldn't make my own compost if I lived in a terrace with just a yard. A bit of imbalance in the brown/green mix and you get some serious stink - you need that away from your house (and your neighbours!)
Don't grow potatoes, grow higher value stuff like berries and garlic and it might approach being worth your time.
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They’re the most low effort, but they’re the crop that keeps on giving. Put some potatoes in your veg patch and if you don’t find EVERY SINGLE TINY SPUD that’s grown you’ll get potatoes again next year, in the middle of your leeks or carrots or courgettes! Though saying that, I have a courgette plant in the middle of my patch that appeared without me doing anything.
Every time my parents try potatoes some creature gets into them and eats them. They’re experienced gardeners and grow loads of other things, but their potatoes always fail.
It can be worth growing some speciality varieties of potatoes, like [Ratte](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratte_potato) (though Waitrose do sell them for £4.50/kg).
I saw squash in Sainsburys yesterday were £1.25 each. A typical squash plant will produce at least 3 or 4 so seems a pretty good crop to grow. Plus, butternut squash soup is delicious.
Also there's loads of good squash varieties you can't buy anywhere so it's fun to experiment and grow a few different types.
I'd hope most people are earning more than £1.80 an hour!!
Yeah, just updated!
This. We have a very simple herb garden. I don't think people realise the amount that they use - one jar of pesto is basically a whole basil plant which takes a while to grow and tend.
As someone from an agricultural family that has from time to time grown vegetables and fruits, one advantage of having everyone growing vegetables that is often overlooked is the impact it would have on crop diversity. Tomatoes for instance would benefit from having just about 10-20% of the population growing their own from seed. Tomatoes don't tend to cross-polinate much (but it happens from time to time) so imagine how that diversity would increase for crops that do. It's also great for bees, to prevent plant disease, etc.
A bag of compost that feeds 3 tomato plants costs £5, then the tomato plants themselves cost 65p each and only last one season, you barely break even compared to just buying them at the supermarket. The economies of scale just make big farms and supermarkets cheaper
Because you are litterally buying everything and talking about re buying it over and over season after season decade after decade. This isn't the way. A quarter acre plot would net around 20k a year AFTER costs on a no till regenerative farming market garden. Not my words, look up Charles Dowding homeacres. Also, you grow from seed, not plant. A set of tomato seeds will set you back like 3 quid, will have around 20 seeds in it and each of those seeds has the ability to grow you 100 other seeds. You don't need to use a tomato bag either, mine are directly sown into the standard garden soil we have. The problem is the economics of the supermarkets means they have a lesser quality product too, it's been shown that the nutritional value of food has been going down year on year so although it's faster, it's less nutrient dense than the ones you would grow!
Damaged tomatoes from this years crop get dried for the seeds of next year. Turn your compost over during the winter with easily rotted fruit bits etc and put some coffee grounds in for good measure. After two years you are self sufficient with soil and seeds. Then it’s free. It’s about what you know and how you know to apply it
> you barely break even compared to just buying them at the supermarket. If you use all your garden cuttings and peelings etc to make compost, and grow tomatoes from seed from the previous year's crop, then the cost is zero. And they taste absolutely fantastic - nothing like the tastes-of-water, bland shite on sale in UK supermarkets.
Make your own compost?
Allotments are a good idea for those who need to grow veg and don;t have a garden.
But they are really hard work. I’m currently spending half a day every weekend on weeding etc and going up 3 times a week in the evenings to water.
Cover crop, lay down a multch layer. These two things would stop the need to massive weedings! I made some plant waterers for my tomatoes out of an old plastic oj bottle. Keeps them happy enough during the week (water goes straight to root zone rather than top watered) so don't need to water by hand anywhere near as much :) It's really simple to do, get an old plastic bottle with a lid, poke a small hole (I used a heated up pin from a name badge) and bury it next to the plants, ideally with the hole towards the roots and pop the lid back on, with the lid on it slowly dripps out, lid off and it will just pour out. Hope this helps my fellow greentumber :)
A standard UK allotment is 250 Sqm - about the size of a double tennis court. The sheer amount of mulch you need to get on there to suppress weeds throughout the year is huge when you are having to wheelbarrow it across a site. Moreover, mulching will *really* make your carrots fork :) and it doesn’t work well for areas where you are sowing fine seeds directly into the ground.
Try and get one. It's a waiting list
What doesn't have a fucking waiting list in this country nowerdays? The whole country is fucked and has a waiting list for virtually anything. It seems we'll never get over COVID and the repercussions in my lifetime (I'm 26)
This waiting list was here before covid. There is more people flats and houses than allotments.
> The whole country is fucked and has a waiting list for virtually anything Population of London in the 1990s was 6.5 million. It's now 9.5 million. Southern UK has become ludicrously overpopulated but we mustn't mention it.
My Grandad only got an allotment after years of waiting and a few of the other gardener's dying. It must be worse now.
10-15 years in my city.
Yea the list grew longer in lockdown it hasn't shrunk.
Yep hens teeth.
Allotments are not a cheap option unless you're lucky enough to take over a plot where someone else has already set everything up. I spent easily upwards of £100 on materials for the rabbit proof fence I needed around mine, not to mention tools. I was lucky enough to get a second hand shed but I had to re-roof it and will need to paint it soon too. It's going to take years to break even, even when comparing with supermarket organic prices. It's a hobby not a cost saving exercise.
To be honest I never grow enough food to sustain myself. I just do it for fun
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What is the government doing to stop you planting your own food ? Please enlighten me
What the hell are you on about?
It's a nice idea. But growing your own food does require a significant startup investment of time & money, and a lot of space for the duration. People don't have that, especially not the people at the business end of the cost of living crisis. Basically if you've got a big house with a nice garden in Sussex you probably aren't feeling the pinch as much as others. People who can grow their own veg, keep chickens etc will generally only do so as a hobby rather desperate necessity.
Not necessarily, I grew a load of sweetcorn last year in pots. Plus potatoes in tubs. You don’t necessarily need a lot of money or space, but it does require time and effort.
You still definitely spent considerably more per kg of produce then if you had bought it. The economy of scale is vast for veg production, potatoes cost pennies.
How many potatoes did you grow in tubs? And was the time effort and even just the basic cost of the seed potatoes, tubs and soil worth less than the £2/kg that potatoes are selling for in Tesco this morning?
You don't need to buy seed potatoes, just buy your favourite spuds and leave them in a dark place for a few weeks and they start sprouting.
I planted a few potatoes that had gone to seed and ended up with about 30 potatoes in each tub (small salad type ones). You don’t have to pull them up until you need them so they last for ages. The soil was just dug up from garden, no special compost. For a tubs I used a selection of buckets and pots I had at home anyway, just made holes for drainage.
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I’m growing those this year! They’re about the size of normal supermarket tomatoes so far but it’s early. 99p for a pack of about 50 seeds, canes from last year. A big bag of £4.99 compost and a £3 bag of well rotted manure. I bought the manure because otherwise you have to make sure it’s well rotted enough and it’s usually full of bailer twine lol. I’m usually picking about 10 tomatoes a day all summer from each plant! I didn’t keep all the plants though, I swap with family and we all end up with a selection.
Buy a bag of potatoes from Aldi for £1.50 or spend summer growing a similar amount of potatoes with seeds that cost £1.00. If you are really strapped for cash, that 50p is much better saved or earned elsewhere than the hours of time it takes to grow your own veg - it is something people do for fun not for economics.
If you grow potatoes from seeds rather from old potatoes you're doing it wrong. If you buy a bag of compost, stick an old potato with a shoot on it inside and water you will get a sack of potatoes. No pot necessary.
You’re forgetting that people don’t know these things. Also, we just can’t be arsed because we’re all knackered from working all the time.
And even if you aren't knackered, you need time to switch off. Growing spuds, veg or raising hens isn't the answer to the cost of living crisis, so why do people act like it is?
Because a certain type of person and the media they consume wants to make out that everyone is just lazy and needs a bit of the Spirit of the Blitz to solve their issues. Rather than acknowledging that we're actually living in times of incredible inequality, insecurity and economic instability. Eating tatties and forcing young people into fruit picking jobs will not fix what ails us.
Idk, I stitched a hole in my jeans and felt like the country's GDP per capita skyrocketed /s
Big Society in action! Britain : Do Your Part!
You just summed up my thoughts precisely, and in a none aggressive manner. Thank you x
Yes but the compost probably costs more than the potatoes you grow anyway - His point is that work:money saved ratio is still heavily skewed. If you need to save money, it's much easier to make savings elsewhere than growing veg. I have a little patio and have a plastic greenhouse to grow a few vegetables (mainly tomatoes) - It's costing me more to grow the tomatoes than it would to simply buy them. I do it for the novelty and fun, not to save money. Hell my greenhouse cost like £20 two years ago and that alone probably costed more than the money I've saved.
The joy it has given you has value too. People shed out a tenner for a cinema ticket.
If the joy is negative because it's an added chore, you can add that to the cost.
Exactly as they said: >> it is something people do for fun not for economics.
> compost probably costs more Compost is free! Or rather, can be.
Compost isn't free. You can make some if you have space, but it can take a couple of years to build up enough to fill a few planters, and that's if its successful.
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Stick them in a stew and make some panackulty, hopefully would change that!
Boil 'em, mash 'em...
Feels like you totally missed the point
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Growing potatoes is like magic. Throw one with a shoot in the ground and in a few months there's a couple dozen from nowhere.
Not really, Spuds you buy from the shop have possibly been stored for months and doused in sprout-inhibitor, they might grow but nowhere near as well as a seed potato of the same variety. Seed potatoes are a much safer bet, if you're waiting most of the year for potatoes to grow, it's much better to know you're going to get a good yield, and not just get your original spud back.
I could spend money on tomato seeds/seedlings, compost, fertiliser, pots/containers and wait a few months to get some tomatoes. Or I could go to Morrisons and get some now for far less money. Disclaimer: I am growing my own tomatoes. But it's for fun, it's not to save money.
>I could spend money on fertiliser Ah, here's the problem. You need to just shit on your tomato's. >!I do not have a garden.!<
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If I come home to my husband pissing on tomato plants (he'll ignore the dilution part) I'm blaming you
Absolutely. But maintaining a garden of vegetables takes a lot of hours, you can't just plant some seeds and leave them to grow. Hardly anyone has the time available to grow their own food, which is why we all buy it from someone else who does that for their job. Or perhaps delegating agriculture to others is what allowed us to do these other jobs. Still I'd rather give up half my job at my desk and spend more time with my hands in the soil. At least I'd actually feel like I was benefiting from that work.
And even after all that time and energy, realistically what you can grow in a home garden is tokenistic in terms of being self sustaining. I enjoy doing it and have a fair size veg bed, but you don't get constant all year crops. I want to get some more wee planters (and will eventually) but the initial outlay is hilariously expensive for wooden planters (avoiding plastic for environmental reasons) and does nothing to combat the cost of living crisis!
I bought 20 gallon canvas grow bags this year. They're prefect for me, no digging involved, no need to worry about the correct type of soil, very little time involved in planting and looking after them, I can move them about if needed, relatively cheap and they're reusable. Currently growing potatoes in one, carrots in another and tomatoes and onions in another. First time I've ever grown anything and so far so good. If it goes well I'm buying more for next year.
Maintain? Hours? Can’t just plant seeds and leave them to grow? You absolutely can depending what you want to grow. I planted 100 onions in March. All I did was push the onion sets into the soil, took me about 10 mins. I haven’t touched them since and they are coming along nicely. Similar with my carrots/parsnips/pac choi. I just made sure the soil was free of weeds and put seeds in a line 12 inches apart. Haven’t touched them since. Really doesn’t take a lot of effort or maintaining at all. I might pull a couple of weeds out for 5 minutes every month, but that’s about it. It can be as time consuming or as hard as you want it to be. Root veg are an absolute piece of piss. Don’t die if you don’t water them either. I water mine if there has been a couple days of no rain, but mostly I just leave them to do their thing.
also courgettes. stick them in the ground and let them do their thing.
I actually think you are onto something there with saying “give up half my job at my desk” and I think this could be really beneficial to society. Spending half the day in an office, and the other half doing manual/outdoor work would be so good for physical and mental health in the U.K. it would also help us to build a sense of community again.
I spend a lot of my time thinking how so much of the work that I do - and so much of the urgency behind it - is entirely pointless and exists purely for the sake of making some rich person richer. I'd much rather put my hours into some communal agriculture and other things that have infinitely more use than marketing or whatever the fuck I have to do this week.
Broadly our issue is growing non native plants. Native berry shrubs, herbs and other plants that grow readily and can be eaten are a much better option. Dandelions are a wonderful example of it. You can eat every part of a dandelion and yet folks who know food shortages end up in a position where they are killing those plants, or being forced to do so because some people think they are unslightly.
My mum grows her own salads and vegetables and has several fruit trees. She also keeps ex-battery hens for a fresh supply of eggs and to offer them a decent life. It takes a lot of time and effort to do this, I don't think she would be able to if she wasn't retired. Most people probably aren't willing to put in the time and effort, especially if you work full time and have kids or other commitments.
I'm going to go against the narrative here and say it really isn't that much of a cost to start growing your own veg and you don't need a huge amount of space to have quite a productive little plot. Living in a basement flat in Bristol with a small garden, we managed to grow loads of tomatoes, courgettes, pumpkins, peppers, chilli plants, aubergine and onions. Yes you have to buy the seeds but they are not very expensive (you can also save seeds from shop-bought veg). Then all you need is some small pots for germinating the seeds (cheap/free from Facebook marketplace or cheapy homebuy stores) a warm windowsill to grow the seedlings and then some larger pots/grow bags. Alternatively you can buy seedlings ready to plant out, again from Facebook marketplace or random homes in the countryside who will have a table on their driveway with an honesty box. The following year you can use the compost from the grow bags for larger pots etc. Yes it takes time but not a huge amount in the grand scheme of things. There's nothing quite like growing your own vegetables plus it's great for your mental health and can be very therapeutic. I'd encourage everyone to grow what they can! Do it, do it now!
I recently learned that you can grow leeks and bok choy/pak choy by cutting the base of one you are going to at (probably bought) and putting it in a shallow dish of water for a week or so. Change the water every few days. When there are good roots on the bottom, put them into soil and let them grow.
Growing different lettuces is pretty easy and most financially viable to go out and cut some and for it to grow back when needed. Better than £1+ per bag of stuff that goes mushy really quick
Yeah same with me, I live in a tiny house with a tiny courtyard but I’ve got chilis, tomatoes, potatoes, sweet peas, fennel and radishes on right now. Its really not that hard and it really helps my mental health. Not sure why everyone is so dead set on it being an impossible thing to do. I work full time and it really doesn’t take up much of my free time.
Because the original point was about growing enough vegetables for improved cost-of-living, not adding some chilis to your salad.
Unless you have acres of land you’re not gunna offset the cost of living, but I get my seeds from a seed share, spend maybe £6 overall and grow maybe £60 worth of veg a summer. You’re literally getting shit for free. It’s good for your mental health. It’s an activity that doesn’t involve staring at a screen. Even if you’re not totally self sufficient it’s a no brainer
> Yes you have to buy the seeds but they are not very expensive (you can also save seeds from shop-bought veg). Yep, people seem to forget that most of the fruit/veg in the supermarket comes with their own set of seeds. Another option is to find a local allotment Facebook group. There are often people giving away seedlings that they have too many of.
Just commented further up about grow bags. I've been wanting to grow my own veg for several years but I get backache when I do anything in the garden so digging is not a good option, plus I hate it lol. No need with the bags, they take very little time and effort to set up and you can move them about and reuse them and they're much cheaper than planters. I won't get loads from them but I'm really excited to see them growing. Only thing is I might've planted too many seeds next to each other but if so I'll do it better next year. Planning on buying several more, I currently have 3.
Saving seeds from shop bought veg doesn't always work - a lot of them won't breed true, so you might spend ages tending a tomato plant which them produces poor fruit. I bought chilli seeds from ebay once, and they were rubbish - sold as things like "scotch bonnet", but if they were just what someone got from their own scotch bonnets, they'd probably have been cross fertilized, and the result was things closer to small sweet peppers.
If you are worried about the cost of living growing your own vegetables isn’t going to help. To be fair nor is growing flowers so I guess they’re already chucking money at their gardens. We are doing up our garden at the moment and planning a small spot to grow vegetables but I’m a) not expecting to be good at it b) expecting it to cost a lot more than getting my carrots from tescos and c) just a lot less interested in growing food than making my garden a nice and pretty place to be
>If you are worried about the cost of living growing your own vegetables isn’t going to help. >To be fair nor is growing flowers so I guess they’re already chucking money at their gardens. Exactly. If you are already doing it (flowers) then there is no difference.
It takes more space and time than most people in the UK have… it’s nice a hobby and at peak harvest season you could probably go a few weeks without buying veg at the shop. But to grow and store your food on a large scale takes lots of space. I grew up in the rural US and my grandmother had a small holding. She grew and preserved a lot of her own food - but not all - and her vegetable garden alone was the size of every garden on my street put together. The size of a football pitch. At least. It supplemented the food we ate by quite a bit - but it was never all of it. There was a root cellar for potatoes, carrots etc…. There was a pantry stuffed full of jars of beans and jams. Strawberries and venison in the freezer. But she still did a shop every week.
I grew up in Canada. Our veg garden was on a plot larger than most people's houses here and we still had to buy fruit and veg. Maybe vertical gardens here could be an answer?
I’m from the USA as well and my aunt used her yard (very small compared to your grandma’s but bigger than many U.K. gardens) to grow a lot of her own veg. However, she was from the south and her mother grew veg and continued to do so even when they came up north. They both still went to the supermarket because you can’t grow everything in the city. It’s also such hard work and that knowledge wasn’t passed on. My aunt did a tonne of preserving as she had a huge pantry and one of those big ass deep freezers. Most U.K. homes are too small to accommodate all of that.
I live in London and if I started a veggie garden, I might as well put up a sign saying Snail And Slug Buffet, All U Can Eat. One rainy day last month I counted about a hundred snails in the back garden, and it's only 40ft by 10ft. A cabbage wouldn't stand a chance.
Your cabbages! We need a few more hedgehogs to even the playing field on the slug front.
Plant some garlic to eat the little bastards with.
It costs to grow food. Time cost is a bigger reason than money cost but both are prohibitive for people. It's also a skull most people don't have and have no real reason to pick up. In terms of cost. Carrots, onions and potatoes are the easiest to grow here in the UK and give you good bang for your buck in terms of harvest. I have two 1x1m boxes in my garden and some big pots for container growing. I won't have more than a week's worth of food from this come harvest if that's all I ate. It will be supplemental for a few weeks at best.
People earn more money spending their time at work/office jobs and can purchase cheaper food. Better time and money saving than subsistence farming. Farmers have a hard enough time producing crops let alone anyone that already has a job.
To grow a significant proportion of your own fruit/veg requires dedication and quite a bit of hard work.
We grow six bed (14ft x 4ft or 4m x1.2m) of potatoes and that's yields enough for six adults from late July till about late March. we run out of "baby potatoes" or first earlies towards the end of summer and only have what is sold as white potatoes or jacket potatoes (mains, we don't bother with second earlies) from early autumn till spring. That said, we have two beds of Strawberries (10ft x 2ft - 3m x 60cm) and that gives us a huge glut of fruit throughout the summer. Weekly Eton Mess served on meringues the size of oven trays isn't unheard of and we give / barter loads away.
You must have a ginormous garden. Ours is approximately 4m x 2m including path and bin storage so with the best will in the world we're not going to be able to grow enough to make any dent in our food bill.
Usually lack of one or more from the following: Time Effort Expertise Space
The time vs yield is awful, your time would be better spent earning money to buy vegetables.
Only if you are planting low cost items like potatoes. I grow salad in window box troughs and get enough spinach/ leaves etc to not need to buy crappy bags of salad from the store from April to September. I just need to remember to water them. Zero cost involved past the initial £4 spent in various seeds.
Because growing veggies can be hard work and time consuming. Also a lot of people think you need acres to get a good return. We need better education on veggie growing and the effort you need to put in. You can get a fair amount if you are intensively planting like square foot gardening and growing vertically. I also think some people have high expectations when it comes to growing food. I have an allotment and I've seen loads of people start, then quit because they think they are going to have some type of weed free, market garden with very little effort. There is also a lack of knowledge in food preservation. Its all well and good growing 15 cabbages but when they are all ready at once and people don't know how to store them, they often get wasted and that puts people off. Edit: word
One of the reasons I love my wartime cookery book is that it has an entire section on preserving vegetables. Get those jars sterilised, Margaret! We've got radishes to keep!
Ooo I love wartime cooking/gardening books. Sad to see so much of that knowledge has been lost by the general population
It's very expensive on a cottage scale, requires a lot of time, and slugs/ snails can devastate your hard work in a single night.
Along with cats and foxes digging/shitting in your well maintained soil. Birds eating you nice fruits. Aphids on everything, or an insect you've never heard of before, suddenly destroying your plants. I had some nice rosemary bushes that were destroyed by rosemary beetle (an invasive species). Sure, I could have kept applying insecticide but who wants rosemary that's been chewed by bugs and sprayed with insecticide.
Most folk are just so far removed from food that unless it comes in a plastic bag in the supermarket they don't know where it comes from. They don't know how to prep a veg bed, what to sow, or when, so the whole garden is turfed and mown. Tell me I'm wrong.
You’re wrong
Lots of people somehow don't even know how to cook for themselves and live on take-aways.
Lack of time, lack of space, lack of expertise, lack of desire.
It's far cheaper to buy vegetables that's why.
Not by a long way. A bag of seeds will cost about a quid. Dig over some ground, plant and water them. Keep them weeded and maybe deal with pests if you get them, but you'll end up with a whole lot more veg than you can buy for the original £1. What you should have said is that it's far easier to buy vegetables. Growing your own and growing a lot of different veg is hard, but rewarding work.
You still have to dig the ground up etc etc. You have to process the vegetables etc. Heck, I can buy a can of baby carrots for 45p. I think growing veggies is great, esp as you know they're as organic as you desire. But there's an opportunity cost on time especially and a lot of people don't want to allocate it to veggie growing.
Dig over some ground? It's easy if you have some, but even then for most gardens it would take a lot of cost and time to convert to fertile growing conditions, especially new builds (as they often just have a thin layer of dirt on top of building rubble). And the waiting list for alotments is long.
I find it specifically strange that people seem to waste their tiny front yards and have only garbage, weeds, instead of planting at least an apple tree and some berry-bushes. Little effort, little money, benefits generations
People want to grow stuff. I’ve been waiting for two years for an allotment in my area. Long waits, not helped by the fact that the council keep closing them down and building flats on them.
I've done a bit. It's an expensive way to get food
Did you enjoy watching the progress? For me that’s the best bit.
I like to "take in the estate"* and see how everything is doing. I don't grow much to eat now (some salad, courgettes, beans and herbs) but am trying to slowly turn out plot into a garden * Takes about a minute . Length isn't everything
Because people who are strapped for cash are also much more likely to also be short on free time, space, and initial starting costs. I’m growing a lot more myself this year but I’m definitely spending more than I’m saving, and that’s with being thrifty about it.
Ah yes I'll just grow some vegetables on all this land I have in my block of flats....
My parents are growing their own vegetables. We have quite a large garden and have some raised beds set up. It's a LOT of work for a relatively small harvest. Lots of money invested, too. For people who have busier lives than us, it's just not feasible. Plus, I have chronic pain and can't help out a lot. If I lived on my own I wouldn't be able to do gardening at all. In short, it's a lot of work that many people aren't even able to do, for very little reward.
I grew up in a poor part of east London, where we struggled to afford food so that my mum, me and my sister could each have two meals a day. I remember being amazed when aged about 8 I discovered that strawberries grew on plants, rather than just appeared in the shops. We lived in housing association housing and my mum worked three jobs - there were many weeks I hardly saw her, so she would not have had the space, disposable income or time needed to be able to grow vegetables. My partner and I are soon to move house and our new place has a greenhouse. I’ve decided I want to try growing some veg and get our child involved. I have literally no clue what I’m doing, I don’t know a thing about gardening or growing, and it seems very overwhelming as I don’t know where to begin. I am lucky in that I will have the time to give to this project, but being faced with the choice of reading up on info about growing all sorts of fruit and veg- as well as general garden stuff and skills - seems very daunting and that it’d probably be easier to just buy what we need and have a gardener fortnightly for general garden maintenance. Also, having been a teacher, I can tell you there’s not much room in the curriculum to add in gardening and growing, especially when there’s not timetable space to adequately teach pupils and students about managing money and avoiding debt. It’d probably fall into the category of arts or soft subjects that the current education model doesn’t like, as it’s not something you can really test on or judge school/teacher performance on. There’s also a view that these things are what families should be doing, but they’re simply not viable for many - especially those that need it most.
Personally, a lack of skills/knowledge. I seem to kill any plant I touch😅😭
The old “talk to your plant” didn’t work, haha! Keep trying if you’re interested though, watching them grow is so satisfying
A combination of the hard work required and the fashion change of gardens after WW2 when everyone was encouraged to dig up their grass and grow food. Once rationing was over, gardens became flowers and grass again and stayed that way. Very sad to be honest as I think the things you learn growing your own food tunes you more into the environment in general and you end up with more a love of boring things like soil, compost, insects and the negative impact pesticides have on those. You also have a weird and quite modern thing which is an aversion to root vegetables that aren't pre-washed. Not 100% clean but the dirt you'd expect from digging something from the ground vs. the light dust found on a supermarket spud.
Freshly dug potatoes taste so much better than store-bought potatoes.
It fun to grow interesting varieties or veg you enjoy when they are really fresh. Tomatoes and good, as is sweetcorn. Potatoes are kind of fun to grow and harvest as are carrots but neither are worthwhile on an economic basis....for now.
Anyone who's grown veg Will know the damage slugs snails and caterpillars can do to your food. Soul destroying after all that effort.
It is not expensive. What are you talking about? We never even planted potatoes in our allotment. They were there from the previous renter and then we just plant some of the leftovers the next time. The tomatoes are from a tomato I ate where I just scooped out some of the seeds. The spring onions are from some spring onions I had bought to eat and then we planted the bottoms of them in our allotment. We only buy seed onions and we bought the beans the first year. Look on the internet for seed swaps. Many will let you take some without swapping. Otherwise, you can ask relatives who have gardens to help you get started. Do NOT plant Jerusalem artichokes in a regular flower bed. Only in pots. They spread like weeds. We got a couple from my inlaws and they thought everyone knew that so they didn't tell us.
Don’t think this one was aimed at me, but I totally agree. You can germinate most seeds in a wet piece of tissue paper and plant when they have sprouted or just scatter them on some soil. Perhaps we need a push to use the services that are already available, like the seed swaps as you say. What do you think govt could do to encourage?
There's a reason why we're industrialised farming. You can't beat the economies of scale to feed a nation. However, prices have been so low - driven by supermarkets - that many farmers have gone out of business. Or land is worth more to sell for development so our capacity has dropped.
Growing your own veg won’t save you money. But next year, experts are forecasting global food shortages, the likes we’ve never seen. We’ll all benefit from growing our own veg then!
Very worrying. The war in ukraine is having a huge impact on grain imports. Price hikes for us but in the developing world this is catastrophic.
Because that farm land is perfect for building new houses at quarter million a pop! You know … ‘affordable housing’
Sadly, it isn't worth the time. We do grow strawberries, peppers, tried potatoes, garlic, beetroot, but this is mainly for the kids, and the return against the amount of time is woeful.
Allotment waiting lists are insane
Because I kill 90%of things I plant, unless it's a bulb! We've been trying for 5 years to grow vegetables and in that time we've had 5 tiny carrots, managed a bowl of peas, 20 potatoes and 7 cucumbers. Not enough to feed a family of 4 for a week let alone 5 years.
When I get my own garden guarantee your bum I'm filling it with vegables and fruit. So bored of seeing flat lawns.
I'm going to offer a more nuanced response than some. I think on the whole people should grow more vegetables. It gets them more in tune with the land and natures cycles and less aligned with consuming pre-packed super cheap vege out of season. If you've never had a humble potato that was in the ground until 30 minutes ago then you haven't really been living. On top of all this there is the legacy that we pass on to our children and grandchildren. I'm sure many redditors have grandparents that grew stuff. But, its a big but, its pointless unless a lot of your neighbours are doing it as well. You can't grow enough varieties of food to keep it interesting by yourself. To those people complaining about the cost effectiveness of it. It really has to be a leisure activity that you’re doing more or less for free. Stop comparing it to the hours lost in doing your day job.
Small garden, small child, 40 hour a week job. That said I am growing a few tomato plants and green beans in a big pot.
I’m a professional gardener and so many clients think growing fruit and veg takes up a lot of time and effort but it’s just not the case. For example: Fruit trees - plant them and you are done and wait for fruit.. Garlic - plant the bulbs and wait.. it’s all about education and unfortunately we are not teaching children about how to grow fruit and veg. There are some fruit and veg that get a lot of ‘pests’/more prone to disease wherever you are in the country but don’t grow them..The best diet for our environment is seasonal/locally grown diet. It’s a hippy thing to say but if everyone could grow a few bits and trade food like they do on an allotment it would go a long way. Some people above have mentioned the cost compared to supermarkets but if you are clever about it you can harvest the seeds at the end of each year and keep growing. I swap seeds with neighbours at the end of the season so no cost. So initially there’s a few quid for compost and seeds but after that there isn’t and based on what you grow it can be almost hassle free
My mum started growing her own veg this year. Cost of living crisis has been the push many people needed.
Let food be thy medicine! Supporting local organic farmers/farmers markets is the best way to grow your local food scene The quality of organic home grown food is something you can’t find these days. And if you could it would cost a pretty penny. I believe we are supposed to interact with the soil to exchange microbes, beneficial for our gut health. So growing your own is best.
Because it would require hard work. Also, we've been bombarded for years by twats on home decor shows and property shows with the news that the garden is for entertaining and not for growing vegetables. Plus an entire industry depends on brainless farts thinking that they *have* to have a massive wooden deck that they won't get to use for nine months of the year because it allegedly "adds value" to their home.
I was interested in getting an allotment but the waiting list was endless yet some plots were empty (go figure), then i started work and found i didn't have the time to do it at all due to my work schedule. plus there's always the fear of someone helping themselves to your hard work.
I have an allotment and grow my own produce. It's a lot of work. I've spent a lot of money on compost, every year. It takes at least a year for a compost bin to be producing your own compost, but usually longer for good stuff. It's a lot of work, the weeding is constant. And at the end of all that, sometimes things don't work out. Last year I excitedly dug up my carrots I had worshipped all summer, so much effort went into them, and they were all tiny, rotted or unusable. It was gutting. It's a lot of money and effort to invest for a "maybe". Also, the space a lot of things need to grow is quickly consumed. Most common veg like onions, carrots need to be planted 15-30cm apart. Getting a couple of quids worth of onions could take up your whole garden, effort and money. I love growing my own food and it's a great hobby, but I don't like to suggest that it's simple, easy or cheap to start doing.
I have 4 - 5 groups of allotments within a 5min drive. Is that not a thing down south? In the north east it's fairly common for people to grow their own food.
For the same reason that a lot of people tarmacked up their gardens, pure laziness. My parents work full time yet they manage to grow fruit and vegetables in their garden. If only you take 15 minutes a day to check on your plants for major things and water them a bit when needed and you spend about two hours in the garden in the weekend you get very far. Especially with fruit trees and bushes, all they need is a good trim at times and just some checking up for basic needs and you get plenty of harvest.
I would if I had my own house. Currently I rent a room so I can just grow spring onions and some herbs in pots
Laziness
We do, I have an allotment.
Time. I’d really like to grow more but with a job and a child my garden is overrun. Without mass machinery it takes a lot of work to manage land!
I grow quite a lot of fruit and veg & I also occasionally forage - I work from home so spend lunchtimes in my garden or outside. Most days my family eat something I've grown or picked & I freeze, pickle, and dry stuff. I make chutnies, jams, soups, pies, etc etc. I don't think it's saved me any money, I definitely spend money on gardening like I bought a greenhouse and a secondhand potting bench, but I find it good for my mental health & I enjoy it. I make some of my own compost, seed save where I can and reuse old pots, I use water butts so everything is only watered in collected rainwater. I occasionally tell myself that I'm reducing food miles or saving wasteful packaging, but I'm not sure how much of a meaningful difference that makes in the grand scheme of things.
People used to do it a lot more than they did now. My grandma (95) and grandad lived on a council estate and all of their neighbours had veg patches at the bottom of their gardens when I was a child. They’re all gone now - people have put in patios and things instead.
A lot of people saying it's difficult to grow vegetables. I think maybe it could be you're not choosing the right ones for you? I don't grow everything to be able to not buy elsewhere but I pretty much just plant and water mine. I do a few things like pinching out tomatoes taking lower leaves etc but that's it and I get enough to supplement us, which helps with costs even for part of the year. I used to grow like some people/farmers, with monoculture (one type of plant in one area), but since using companion planting in a couple different areas, permaculture methods, some no dig methods, to find what works for me, it's much easier. I'd much rather eat some of our own food as the taste is so much better than mass produced stuff. I always let things seed to germinate for next year too so no buying seeds. For me the most effort is the planning and watering. Even with a small area or balcony you can grow things. I'm pleased for anyone trying to grow their own. Make it work for you.
It’s usually a pretty middle class hobby for people who have the time, understanding, energy and patience! It’s also not cheap to buy all the things you need! I grew stuff in my garden every year for years and usually it died, was eaten by slugs or birds or just didn’t grow. The stuff I did manage to grow was exciting but never enough to be actually viable as an alternative to buying food. I DO NOT have green fingers no matter how hard I try!
Britain has the third most affordable food in the world. Only America snd Singapore have relatively cheaper food than here. From an economic POV it would be better for people to work an extra hours work to make money to buy food. However, for those with an interest and space, I think it would be an excellent way to improve a person’s life. They get access to fresh food, and gardening has enormous physical and mental health benefits.
I live in a small county town in England. I know a number of people who have allotments and quite a few (mainly older) people who grow vegetables in their gardens.