Growing your own to lower food costs - 2023

Gardening to 'grow your own food' from square foot to half an acre !!
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lancashire lass
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Growing your own to lower food costs - 2023

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With the rising cost of living impacting household budgets and forecast that 2023 is not likely to get any better, I thought maybe this thread might be useful for anyone considering growing their own to help reduce food costs. First, the DTL site owner Richard Cannon published several articles on downshifting and living a simple life which is a good place to start, and there is plenty of information available on the main site on several topics including frugal living, keeping chickens and some suggestions on how to make extra money. Some ideas may be a little out of date considering the current crisis but all still worth reading again.

In the Working Garden, there are articles on what to do each month, which vegetables are worth growing and some useful tips (for example, for those who have very little or no garden space so could consider growing in pots, or using companion growing techniques to either enhance yields or as natural pest repellent) Even experienced gardeners might find it worth glancing over some of the literature to remind them.

I'm hoping to be fit & well enough (after being ill during 2022) to try and grow some vegetables in 2023 but it is highly unlikely to be on the scale when I used to have the allotment plot. For one, I need to rescue some space in my neglected overgrown garden! And secondly, my health, age and time are likely to have an impact on what I hope to achieve. So for me, it'll be like starting from scratch.

I first got into growing my own back in 2005 when I was made redundant and had to take on a much lower paid job which just covered my bills and basic outgoings at the time which not only plundered my savings but put me at risk of going into debt, so I looked at what I could do (which included foraging) and growing your own fruit & vegetables seemed like a good idea. But things didn't always go as well as I liked - crops failed for one reason or other or didn't give the expected yield ... and don't get me started on battling the weeds and the pests. Sometimes the disasters outweighed the successes and it seemed so easy to want to give up - learning why things go wrong and what to do about it (if you can) is all part of the growing your own experience. However, when finances are tight, failure can be hard and difficult to recover from when things are already looking bad.

I hope this topic enhances what Richard had started and being forum based, anyone can share their experiences. I have some inexpensive ideas to add to what has already been covered and I'll post these as a series of topics within this thread (ideally like a monthly what to do but also whenever & whatever crops up)
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Re: Growing your own to lower food costs - 2023

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When you grow your own for the fun of it you can enjoy the excitement of seeing things come through and grow, and of harvesting your own produce. They taste so much better. But some years one crop might fail, pigeons pulling up the peas as soon as they shoot, or slugs or rats eating the potatoes. And it makes you aware of how precarious life was in the past. Now most can just go and buy what doesn't grow, but not so then.
As with everything else the people who can save the most money are those who don't need to (Vimes' boots). I don't grow much veg now - mainly because of the pests and at my age I can't bend and stretch for long without tiring. But the investment in my orchard and soft fruit is still paying dividends. Trees cost a bit and don't crop the first year so are hardly a solution to being broke, but I have apples from September onwards (the eaters are still good and the cookers will last till April). Then there's stewed plums, pears and soft fruit in the freezer to last the year (and more in case of late frost and crop failure).
When you grow your own you can chose varieties with best flavour, and eat them at their best freshly picked. Commercial growers need produce that will travel well and store, but some apples bruise easily and lose flavour quickly after picking. And they may want high yields, Majestic potato (sold as Whites) are completely tasteless compared to the sorts i grow.
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Re: Growing your own to lower food costs - 2023

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Mo wrote: 31 Dec 2022, 10:20 But the investment in my orchard and soft fruit is still paying dividends. Trees cost a bit and don't crop the first year so are hardly a solution to being broke
I did the same when I bought my house with a garden (a little bigger than most modern day average but it is not a field!) and planted different apple trees, conference pears (that's all that was available at the time), a Victoria plum (hmmm, and I don't even like plums ...) and (drum roll) a hazel. At the time (20 years ago), the little saplings only cost £5 each from B&Q, the hazel was a bare root from Wilkos (£2?) And in the mid 2010s, most big supermarkets would have fruit trees for sale round about late winter which cost about £10 - not sure if that still happens. Back in 2015/16, I was able to pick up about 3 different pear varieties and 4 different apple varieties for the allotment plot.

So it was (or still is) possible to purchase trees on a budget but as you say, the trees are an investment and only pay dividends years later. I remember after 4 years of seeing my 2 pear trees flower and no fruit and then one day I spied a single pear amongst the foliage. I remember staring at it in reverent wonder for ages. Thereafter the yield increased each year but then one year there'll be a late frost or heavy deluge as the blossom are out and get nothing at all.

The other thing about fruit and nut trees is to think about the space in the garden - a 3 foot sapling (looking like a thin weedy twig) will grow into 10 or much more feet depending on the root stock (even a semi dwarf root stock doesn't mean the tree is dwarf if it is not maintained and trimmed regularly) and to make sure there are pollinating partners (some apple tree varieties are very specific about pollinating partners but even one classed as self pollinating does better when there are other apple trees around)

And not only height but width (how far apart to plant the trees) and would they have a future impact on the rest of the garden (tree roots take up water and nutrients from soil but the biggest impact is the shade which affects sun loving plants) or your neighbour's garden (that can be quite an issue if it is too close to a boundary fence and roots invade the neighbour's property or gets too tall and at risk of falling over during stormy weather)?

All the trees in my garden are mature and very productive so in my opinion was well worth planting when I did - I get more than my fair share harvest, but quite a lot of fruit is wasted (I don't bother picking up windfalls) and the birds (and squirrels) enjoy raiding the garden.

So there are good and bad points to look at before planting any tree - if it is a big garden, then do your homework first to find out what varieties would do well (for example, I have a Cox's Orange Pippin but the soil type in my garden apparently isn't suitable so I don't get the yields I should expect. However, the fruit are cherished as one of the best tasting) and how & when to prepare the ground / planting hole for a good start (during the first year, newly planted trees need water to go deep into the soil so a plastic pipe is usually planted alongside so that the water goes directly below soil level) and I highly recommended staking the sapling against strong winds (one of my fruit trees leaned over after one storm and was difficult to upright as the tap root was quite deep) And some apple varieties are more susceptible to certain diseases - most are just skin blemishes which when peeled off do not affect the flesh, but these also don't store well and are the first to go rotten.
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Allotments

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First, is getting an allotment plot worth it? For one, gone are the days when an allotment plot rent was affordable (some are downright scandalously expensive), and secondly, you need to put in the time - some sites are very particular about the state of the plots to the point that regular inspections by the site management can be intimidating (even more so when a letter arrives through the post saying that you are no longer eligible to keep the plot because it has got weedy)

Even if the rent is affordable and you have the time and the energy, bear in mind that during any financial crises, the waiting list for an allotment plot will suddenly go from a few weeks to even years as loads of people have the same idea. Most councils only release plots from the 5th April (that is, the local government financial year - when the new council tax bills go out) but even then, it can still take several months after that (leaving you wondering why why why? Nothing more frustrating than seeing an abandoned plot going to seed and weeds thriving and being told there is a waiting list!)

And what do you get when you are finally told that there is a plot available? Most prime plots rarely remain abandoned for long and the ones that most people give up first are on the worst bits of the site (under shady trees with tree roots sapping up the moisture in the soil, told to maintain the thorny site boundary hedge bushes on that plot as part of the tenant agreement, no nearby water source (like a standpipe) or which readily floods in winter) And most plots that do become available have been slowly neglected over time - I'm as guilty as most who held an allotment plot for many years. After tending to and putting all your spare time, effort and money into it, you really find it difficult to recognise that you are only a tenant and when it gets too much that it is time to give up. There's always the "I'll put more effort in next year" or the usual excuses "the weather was bad this year" and so on, and all the while the state of the plot is in slow decline.

And that brings up the tenant agreement - the rules of the site (most are basic across the country) with a few extra (not all councils allow raising of animals like chickens or rabbits for eggs or meat, and the biggest issue is the noise from crowing cockerels) including the proportion of the plot that can be dedicated to growing fruit or keeping chickens, and nearly all require permission first if you want to put a shed or greenhouse on the plot, or if you are allowed to plant fruit tree (remember when you have gone, the tree might be in a nuisance location and the council will then have to pay to have it removed). However, some councils do give something in return (not all) - depending on the condition of the plot, they may waiver the first year tenants rent and/or assist by taking away unwanted rubbish (someone may have placed old car tyres around the plot to make raised beds but you don't want them, or the old shed or greenhouse has collapsed beyond repair. And if you find asbestos which used to be a common building material, then the council are obliged to safely dispose of it)

If you are still determined to get an allotment, is it worth it? Personally I found it challenging but also rewarding, and if I was younger and more able bodied with time to spare, I'd probably not hesitate in putting my name down on the waiting list if I could. The first couple of years as a novice is learning what grows well and what doesn't (for example, different soil types have an impact on some crops such as the cabbage family, and some diseases like onion white rot are soil borne which cannot be eradicated and can affect not only onions but leeks, garlic and chives with devastating results), and either being mocked by seasoned allotment neighbours or given lots of friendly advice. Then there's the battle of the weeds (and it doesn't get easier as time goes on and every spring seeing the site of a green carpet of weed seedlings sprouting can be disheartening) and finding out the hard way just how much damage pests can do. But you try to find ways of how to overcome the obstacles - sometimes you succeed and learn from it, and sometimes you just have to change tactics (if you can't grow anything in the onion family, then don't bother trying and grow something else instead!)
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Re: Growing your own to lower food costs - 2023

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lancashire lass wrote: 31 Dec 2022, 11:21 I get more than my fair share harvest, but quite a lot of fruit is wasted (I don't bother picking up windfalls) and the birds (and squirrels) enjoy raiding the garden.
We planted an orchard for a family of 5, to give a succession of fruit. Now it's just me. I still spend a large part of my 'outside jobs energy' picking fruit in autumn. To eat, to store, to sell on bring and buy, and to take to a food bank. I go round with a ladle and pick up those windfalls that are useable (they mostly go on a stall on the verge with honesty box to raise money for charity). But a lot gets left and then I decide other jobs like bramble bashing and clearing the drive of leaves need doing. So the high fruit (which often looks fine from the ground but is pecked on top) is left.
Not 'wasted' though. I've had flocks of blackbirds, fieldfares and other thrushes. Even a moorhen - didn't know they liked fruit.
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What do you need for GYO? Tools & so on.

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Gardening tools are likely to be the most expensive thing to buy. For those serious in growing your own (GYO), the basic tool kit is a gardening spade, a gardening fork, a hoe and a rake, and hand tools like a gardening trowel and fork which come in handy when planting seedlings into the garden. Now when comparing good quality (expensive) gardening tools to ones you can pick up from the supermarket when the spring gardening season opens up, the supermarket ones have been more than adequate and I still have most of them in good working order. A lot of hand tools tend to be cheap junk and readily bend so go for the more solid ones if you can. And the heavy soil on the allotment plot was very testing - usually the handle on the spades broke off rather than the spade itself.

Gardening spade - believe it or not, but there are different spades around. Before grabbing the first spade in the shop, have a think about the soil type. Heavy clay soil (whether saturated after winter rains or drying out during warmer weather) makes digging hard work - a narrow spade is more likely to penetrate the soil much better than a broad one. Narrow spades also tend to have smaller shovel capacity (a bit like comparing a teaspoon to a soup ladle) but then again, wet clay soil is heavier so requires stamina when moving heavy loads around compared to moving sandy soil. The narrow spades are referred to as a ladies spade and was my preferred spade on the allotment plot.

Gardening fork - where clay soil is compacted, using a garden fork to penetrate and turn over clods can be easier than trying to use a spade. Some gardeners find mattocks are better to use than forks when digging clay soil. If the soil is sandy, garden forks are useful for lifting up potato tubers.

A gardening hoe - actually not essential but considered useful. There are 2 types. A digging hoe bites into the soil and is dragged towards you to disturb the soil and turn it over. It helps to bring up some of the bigger clods that have ended up just under the soil surface (which I then bashed with the digging hoe into smaller clods), or useful for digging shallow trenches (for planting seeds like peas or beans, or planting onion sets) The other is called a Dutch hoe which has a slicing edge which is useful for pushing just under the soil surface and slices / disturbs new weed seedlings and prevents them from becoming established (ideally you should be hoeing the garden beds regularly in the late winter / spring months when weed seed germination is highest. Be careful not to hoe too close to growing crop seedlings)

And then there's the rake (the metal head drags along the soil surface to bring up clods into smaller ones to what is referred to as a fine tilth ready for sowing seeds which enable them to germinate more easily)

Before rushing out to buy, you might be able to get hold of some tools for free or second hand. If you have not heard of it, Freecycle might be worth a visit. There are other sites which offer similar and normally the only requirement is that you have to go and collect it / or pay to have it sent to you. Most sites usually only offer what is locally available rather than national.

Next on the list are plant pots and seed trays. Again, give Freecycle a visit. Some commercial sites like garden nurseries or maybe a local allotment site may have a help yourself pile of used pots. But if you start struggling, maybe have a rummage in (preferably your own) dustbins - plastic yogurt pots, plastic milk bottle or 2L pop bottle, even the 1L "cardboard" fruit juice or long life milk carton can be trimmed to size and a few holes pushed in for drainage. And as for seed trays, nothing wrong with giving those discarded plastic food trays (like you might see in biscuit boxes or small cakes or from the chilled foods section) are all you need. You can even make your own "paper pots" or use toilet rolls to start seeds in and then plant the whole thing into the soil - the risk is that the paper / card will quickly rot and fall apart by the time the seedling is growing and hardy enough to plant outdoors.

Propagators - these are clear plastic domes that sit over the seed tray (it helps to keep the heat in especially when the tray is left in the sun or had been placed somewhere warm like an airing cupboard, and also increases humidity which help to trigger stubborn warm loving seeds to germinate) You can get inventive in using alternatives - cut the bottom off 2 L pop bottles and sit on top of the compost or over the entire pot if small enough, or just use a clean clear plastic bag placed loosely over the top or push a stick in to prevent the bags lying on the soil surface and the collection of condensation landing directly on to emerging seedlings. Once seeds have germinated, remove the bag / propagator or risk the seedling damping off and dying)

Seeds (obviously) Yes, commercial seeds are assured and quality controlled so you should get a successful germination and eventually end up with a harvest as outlined in the sales blurb. F1 varieties are hybrids and they characteristically have good growth rate and are fairly reliable with high & uniform yields (ideal for farmers who want to ensure the field is ready for cropping in one go and all the crop is the same size, but when it comes to the kitchen garden, do you really want all your cucumbers or cabbages ready to be harvested all at the same time?) And F1 hybrids tend to be a lot more expensive than open pollinated varieties (for example, £3 for 5-10 F1 tomato seeds compared to £1 for 100 open pollinated tomato seeds)

Now you can shop around and online sites like on ebay do offer cheaper seeds but don't forget you might need to pay postage as well. Personally, I've noticed a lot of ebay seed sellers are not much cheaper than the bigger commercial sites. Seeds packed for supermarket sale are more than fine and can be cheaper. You could form a seed club with friends or neighbours and sharing the cost for the packets of seeds means you can all benefit from paying less for the seeds which will get used up whereas if you bought and stored your own, you might get a couple of years out of them (except the cabbage family that can last 5-7 years when stored properly) before throwing the rest out. The downside to sharing is deciding which variety is best for everyone (you might want to grow cherry tomatoes in hanging baskets and others want salad ones, or plum type for savoury dishes)

Then again, what about the seeds from the fruit and veg you buy from the supermarket - they would have been discarded when preparing food so can you use them? Well, yes you can. However, a lot are from crops that have been grown in warmer climates (like Spain) so don't always thrive in cooler areas unless you happen to have a greenhouse or polytunnel, but then again, some don't necessarily need subtropical conditions to grow but allow some farmers a higher turnover by growing them overseas. Tomatoes and chillies will be fine (though your crop might not be exactly the same as what you bought especially if they were grown from hybrid seed) Melons ideally need somewhere warm like a greenhouse. Winter squashes (and pumpkins and butternut) ... most commercial farmers for the supermarket trade tend to grow one variety for a particular sale, so the risk of cross pollination with other varieties is slim and the seeds should be fine. But if your mate from the allotment offers you a winter squash from his plot, the risk that pollinators like bees have visited different squash and marrow plants growing in different allotment plots is very high, so the seeds from those fruits would not be worth saving.

Finally compost. Do you really need compost after all, seeds have germinated in soil for millions of years, farmers just plough and sow a field, so what is so special about needing compost to grow plants for the garden? Good question. First, most gardeners try to get ahead of the growing season by sowing seeds early (chilli plants in particular benefit from a longer growing season so that fruits ripen before it gets too cold in the late summer months) Once germinated, the seeds need nutrients from the soil, and compost also offer a good material for roots to grow into. And don't forget the time and effort required to start seeds off early, nurture and ensure they are off to a good start is quite an investment so most people might want to improve the odds of a successful start by getting some compost in.

On the other hand, some seeds can be sown direct in the soil (some in particular NEED to be sown direct to avoid disturbing the roots - root crops, in particular carrot or parsnip, respond badly to root disturbance by twisting round or forking which makes preparation for cooking very difficult) Seed suppliers will always tell you when you can start sowing in pots indoors and when is the earliest you can sow directly into the soil outdoors (bear in mind that someone in Kent could be basking in early spring warmth in March while at the same time, someone in Scotland still has snow on the ground so obviously only applies to your local conditions) Most seeds destined for growing outdoors will germinate when the soil is at least 10oC (remember this is the soil temperature, not air temperature which in spring can be much warmer) Hardly anything will germinate below 7oC (except weeds ...)
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What you can start to grow NOW (December / January)?

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Autumn and winter is normally a time to prepare the ground (providing it is not too wet - be aware that working on wet soil can do more damage as soil readily becomes compacted which impacts root growth of seedlings, especially root vegetables like carrot or parsnip) or leave it until spring. But you can start some seeds off early so that by the time the soil has warmed up, some of the seedlings have got going and may be ready for an earlier or more successful harvest.

Shallots are the easiest to grow and give a much greater yield than onions. One shallot bulb will grow and produce several shallots which are all harvested when the top growth dies back in late summer. One onion set or seed on the other hand will produce just one bulb on harvesting. And even better still, the shallots you see in the fruit & veg section in supermarkets grow as well as any commercially sold shallot for gardens and at a fraction of the cost.

Now, nothing is going to grow in cold wet soil but you can pot a single bulb in a plant pot (select the bigger size pots as roots will grow out and down and quickly fill the pot which you want to avoid) and put them either in an unheated greenhouse, in a cloche (its like a mini polytunnel supported on hoops, or made of glass or clear / opaque white plastic sheets to form a mini greenhouse just above ground level) or on to a cool windowsill. The soil / compost should be moist but not wet. Avoid temperatures rising too much - just enough for the roots to grow rather than the whole plant growing.

After hardening them off (that is, getting the plants used to the outdoors by leaving them outside for a few short hours a day and most importantly, protected from the wind which does the most damage), they can be planted out in the vegetable plot in early spring (roughly early March to early April) preferably when temperatures outside are starting to rise. If you don't have a vegetable plot, you can grow them in large containers (something like a plastic bucket size - don't forget to put holes in the base for drainage) For optimum harvest, one shallot per container.

Remember the precaution about avoiding temperatures being too warm - when temperatures swing up (winter indoors) and down (spring outdoors), some plants go into seed production and will start to throw up flower heads. Try to nip these off as soon as they appear otherwise instead of forming bulbs for harvesting, all the growth energy will have gone into flower and seed production.

Onions have a 2 year growth cycle (referred to as biennial) The first year is all about germination from seed and growth. Then the bulb forms and the plant dies back and goes dormant in winter. In spring, the bulb bursts into growth and the goal in the second year is to produce flowers for the next generation. Onions for eating are harvested after the first year when the bulbs are formed. The bulb size depends on how much growth it had managed before the season changes - this is triggered by sunlight levels. So a late sowing means a shorter growing season and the end result are smaller bulbs. It makes sense to start sowing seeds as early as reasonably possible and starting them off indoors is a good way to do this.

They can take up to 2 weeks or more to germinate - ideally start them off in an unheated greenhouse, a cloche or in a cool but sunny room / window ledge. Like shallots, temperature swings can trigger seed and flower production later on instead of bulb formation.

You can of course buy onion sets from early January instead which are much easier to grow than from seed (ideal for first time growers) and less fiddly - onion sets are baby onions that were deliberately stopped growing during the first year from seed. When you plant them out in spring the following year, the growth is still in "year one" so you should end up with good sized bulbs though from experience you get the odd ones that don't follow the rules. Some people have planted the onion sets in pots to get them off to an early start before planting out but it is a fiddly task and not always successful.

Chillies

Chilli seeds are best sown in January / February to get them growing earlier and ensure a good harvest before it becomes too cold and fruits fail to ripen. All chilli seeds need warmth (ideally 25oC) to germinate, and once germinated need good sunlight (or artificial light) levels thereafter. Of course, the light levels from a winter sun is really poor (if not absent) and can encourage tall sappy growth which can't support their weight and flop over and die off. So the room temperature should be low (but not cold - ideally about 12-15oC) and improve light levels if at all possible. Anything from lining a cardboard box with tin foil and having the top and front section removed so the plants are in the light, to installing grow lights (low wattage LED lights are popular, inexpensive and easy to install). And to avoid plants growing towards the light and leaning forward, daily turn the pots round (sometimes those in the corners of the "grow box" might need to be moved to the centre where the light source has been set up)

First - the seeds. You can save the seeds from fruits bought in supermarkets or buy from shops and seed suppliers.

Secondly - rather than sow seeds direct into compost and letting nature takes its course which can take anything from 2 weeks to 3 months to germinate (will it grow, is it warm enough, how long does it take to germinate or will it ever germinate?), you can try a method called chitting. That way you don't waste compost when some seeds don't germinate, nor do you need to warm up lots of pots to encourage germination.

Chitting is about encouraging germination before planting in compost. The method I found very useful is using paper kitchen towel and folding it into layers (maybe 3 to 4 sheets thick) Then I use zip lock plastic bags and cut the paper to the size of the bag ensuring there is a fold where the seeds are lined up at the base of the bag. Place the seeds (ideally spaced out - when the roots grow, you want to avoid the seedling roots entangling with each other because you should avoid handling them as much as possible) and then add just enough water for the paper to be damp but not wet (tip the open bag upside down and allow as much as possible to drain out) Close the zip lock and stand the bags upright in a container.

Now you need a heat source - if you have a pc computer, the heat generated can be enough to warm up the container / seeds (works well for anyone who works on a computer all day) but you might be able to find other heat sources like an airing cupboard. Ideally get a temperature reading before cooking your seeds - about 25oC is a good temperature, 30oC is too high. Lower temperatures just mean they'll take longer to germinate. Nothing will be obvious for the first couple of days but after the 3rd or 4th day, remove the paper towel from the bag using a pair of tweezers, and carefully open the paper to see the seeds. Some chilli seed varieties (and fresh seed) germinate really quickly but don't despair if a month later you still have nothing (I once gave up and bought fresh seed only for the first batch to eventually germinate) As soon as the root becomes visible, gently pick up using tweezers on the seed casing (avoid touching the root) and plant in some damp compost (ideally at the same temperature as the sprouting seed so it doesn't check the growth) at a depth of about 1 cm, and back fill with loose compost (don't press down) When the seed leaves appear, move the sprouting seedlings into the light as soon as possible.
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What you can start to grow NOW (December / January)?

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Seed sprouts / Microgreens / Sprouting grains

Seed sprouts (bean sprouts) and sprouting grains (brown rice, quinoa, buckwheat) are more or less the same thing - breaking the dormant phase of the seed so that it will start the process of germination. Most sprouting seeds and grains are eaten or cooked soon afterwards.

You can buy seeds and grains specific for sprouting from seed suppliers or wholefood stores, but most wholegrain foods bought from the supermarket (such as brown rice, dried beans*, dried peas, lentils, sunflower seed, pumpkin seed and so on) can be used and are much cheaper. Just be sure they have not been hulled (that is, the seed coating has not been removed) so something like white rice, orange lentils and pearl barley won't sprout.

* A note about growing red kidney beans - eating raw red kidney beans can make you very ill (the beans need to be boiled to destroy the toxin) and even the sprouts contain some of the poisonous lectins. They should therefore be thoroughly cooked (boiled like the bean) before consuming.

The technique for sprouting seeds and wholegrains involves soaking for an hour or so in a jar or bowl, rinsing well and then soaking in fresh water overnight / 24 hours, draining and thoroughly rinsing before returning to the jar / bowl and leaving them to sprout. Always thoroughly rinse the sprouts before consuming.

Microgreens are the next stage of sprouting (roots) and allowing the seed leaves to grow and turn green in the light. You may already be familiar with sprouting cress and mustard seed which are ideal in salads and in sandwiches. You don't need to be limited to these as many seeds make great microgreens - alfalfa, beetroot, cabbage / red cabbage, rocket, lettuce, onion, radish, various herbs to name a few. As you might expect, wholefood retailers are likely to sell the seeds to grow your own microgreens and you can buy in bulk direct from some seed suppliers (link to Moles Seeds - the page lists all the various seeds that are sold as suitable for microgreens)

Be very careful about using seeds not listed as suitable for microgreens or organic growing as they may have been coated with chemicals (like fungicide or pesticide) but in theory, you could use the surplus seed originally purchased for growing in the garden. Even if assured they have not been coated, give the seeds a thorough rinsing before leaving them to germinate and only consume the green stem / leaves and not the outer seed shell.
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What preparations to do NOW before the big Spring sow

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Spring sowing and repotting can be quite hectic as anyone who has a sizable vegetable garden or an allotment plot will tell you. One minute you are idle and twiddling your thumbs, then a warm early spring day will be like an alarm bell and panic sets in as the list of tasks to do seems never ending.

First, make a plan of what you are going to grow, read the seed sowing instructions (will the plants need full sun or can be grown in partial sun/shade, when can you start sowing, can you start them off indoors first) and where you are going to grow them (in a dedicated vegetable plot or in pots) It helps to make a note of the sowing dates in order they are due to be done.

Next, start thinking about what else you might need (tools, compost, plant pots, seed trays, seeds, seed potatoes, onion sets and so on) and start gathering them. The compost can be stored in a shed and when ready to start sowing seeds early, bring some of the compost indoors where it will warm up and that will help with germination.

Seed trays should be cleaned - seedlings sown early are at risk of damping off (this is when the soil is cold and wet and fungus thrive which kill off the seedlings) Cleaning the trays will help to remove possible fungal spores. Pots for growing on do not necessarily need washing out but having a clean start can have a mental uplift and give you something to do while waiting for things to happen. If the previous plants in the pots on the other hand had died from a disease or pest, then you should give them a thorough cleaning (hot soapy water and soak in bleach before rinsing will kill off most pest eggs and fungal spores)

Seed labels - trust me, your memory will fail you so always label your seed trays and pots. Seed labels are usually quite cheap to buy, and some seed suppliers might include them in the purchase of seeds. You can make your own from whatever materials around (sheets of plastic cut to size, wooden ice cream sticks, ceramic tiles) and use a pencil (doesn't fade or readily wash off) or a permanent market pen to write the seed name on.

This is the time seed suppliers send out their catalogues - you can visit the seed suppliers online and place orders direct on their website, or you can request a catalogue to be sent to your home. If you do order seeds from a supplier, be aware of the p & p costs (and the current ongoing Royal Mail postal strikes which can delay delivery) - a couple of seed suppliers (such as Mr Fothergills and DT Brown Seeds) regularly have a "free p&p" weekend when it really is worth buying the seed potatoes, onion sets and other plants (such as bare rooted fruit bushes, strawberry plants, asparagus and so on) and seeds at the same time (the seeds will be sent on first and the other items will be sent later at no extra cost) These free p&p weekends roughly occur near bank holiday weekends (Easter, Spring bank holiday weekend, August bank holiday weekend, Black Friday (or also known as "Brown" Friday), Christmas/New Year with the occasional sales drive inbetween. Many offer free p&p when over a certain amount (such as £50) is spent, but doesn't cover delivery of large (non-growing) items.

If you don't want to do online shopping, there are of course garden centres and nurseries, also many diy stores (B&Q, Wilkos) and some supermarkets have seasonal sales of seed potatoes & onion sets along with seeds, tools & compost in a gardening section.
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Mo
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Re: What do you need for GYO? Tools & so on.

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lancashire lass wrote: 31 Dec 2022, 14:11 Most seeds destined for growing outdoors will germinate when the soil is at least 10oC (remember this is the soil temperature, not air temperature which in spring can be much warmer) Hardly anything will germinate below 7oC (except weeds ...)
I think someone on Gardeners' Question Time suggested that the test was, 'can you sit on it with a bare bottom'
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Sunny Clucker enjoyed Folk music and song in mid-Cheshire
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Re: What you can start to grow NOW (December / January)?

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lancashire lass wrote: 31 Dec 2022, 15:58 Autumn and winter is normally a time to prepare the ground (providing it is not too wet - be aware that working on wet soil can do more damage as soil readily becomes compacted which impacts root growth of seedlings, especially root vegetables like carrot or parsnip)
If you dig when there is frost or snow on the surface you will be burying frozen earth and the sun won't thaw it. (good excuse to stay in the warm!)

Gardening always seems full of jobs you should have done earlier, struggling to catch up.
The books often say things like "on ground which has been well cultivated the previous Autumn". Hmmmm
Dance caller. http://mo-dance-caller.blogspot.co.uk/p/what-i-do.html
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lancashire lass
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Re: What do you need for GYO? Tools & so on.

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Mo wrote: 01 Jan 2023, 11:02
lancashire lass wrote: 31 Dec 2022, 14:11 Most seeds destined for growing outdoors will germinate when the soil is at least 10oC (remember this is the soil temperature, not air temperature which in spring can be much warmer) Hardly anything will germinate below 7oC (except weeds ...)
I think someone on Gardeners' Question Time suggested that the test was, 'can you sit on it with a bare bottom'
)t' yes, I've heard that too. Not sure I'd like to carry out the test without alarming the neighbours {rofwl}
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Garlic bulbs for spring planting - available from December

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Garlic - normally seed garlic is purchased and planted in autumn and allowed to start growing (good root development and the green sprout just pushing up) before going dormant when temperatures drop in winter and then growth starts up again in spring. There are garlic bulbs for sale for actual planting in spring. You can actually plant even the autumn planting garlic in spring (especially if you bought the bulbs but ran out of time and didn't get them planted out before it got too cold) but these don't always produce ideal sized bulbs when harvested. There are some tricks however, which might help regardless of which garlic variety you are growing.

In case you aren't aware, garlic bulbs need to be broken up into individual cloves which are then planted. Each clove will grow and later develop into a bulb. Always select the largest cloves (they have more fuel stored so will grow better and produce larger bulbs) though you can of course, plant the remaining cloves and still get a harvest.

Unlike onions which do not always store well when refrigerated, garlic on the hand are fine (in fact, nothing worse than buying a bulb of garlic for culinary use and half of it has sprouted in the warm kitchen) And that is trick number one - refrigeration keeps the garlic in a dormant state. The longer it is kept refrigerated, when it is finally planted in the garden in spring, it will grow rapidly which is what you want it to do. The more leaves it grows, the greater the yield of the garlic.

You can buy garlic bulbs from online seed suppliers but they can seem eye-watering expensive for just 2 bulbs. The best part though, once you start growing your own, if you save the best bulb from your harvest (this might seem the hardest thing to do in the first year but see it as an investment for future crops), you can use those cloves to plant out and generally you are selecting out what grows best in your garden conditions and location.

Can you grow from supermarket bought garlic? Yes!

Regardless of the source of the original garlic, I always treated mine before planting to get rid of the pests (ever noticed those small brown marks on cloves ... those are tiny garlic mites that have been living between the dry papery layers of the garlic bulb and feasting on the cloves) and fungal spores (especially something like onion white rot) I make up 3 jars of solution:

1. Dilute bleach solution - kills off fungal spores
2. Ethanol solution (alcohol) - kills off pests such as garlic mites & microscopic eggs
3. Seaweed solution - a liquid fertiliser which gives seedlings and plants a boost of nutrients. Garlic cloves that had been treated with aggressive solutions will need a little TLC and the seaweed will aid recovery.

Remove the cloves from the garlic bulb and leave them soaking in the dilute bleach (minimal 1 hour up to overnight) Drain off (save the solution if you have multiple bulbs to do) then place the cloves in the ethanol/alcohol solution for a maximum of 10 seconds (alcohol can kill off the growing parts of plants) Immediately give the cloves a thorough rinsing to wash off the alcohol and any pests / eggs. Pop the cloves into the seaweed solution (up to an hour will do - keep an eye on the clove base where you might even see signs of the roots emerging as it takes up the solution) Plant the cloves into the prepared ground immediately.
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Onion sets - available from early January

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Onion sets are usually sold about the same time when seed potatoes go on sale from early January. Unlike the potatoes, you really need to keep these in a cool, dry and dark place until you are ready to plant them in early spring (unless you want to try and grow some in pots of compost indoors / in a greenhouse or under a cloche to see whether starting them off early makes any difference to the final bulb size)
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Seed Potatoes - available to purchase from early January

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Potatoes are a crop where one potato will produce many tubers that are harvested which makes them a popular home grown crop. There are different types of potato based on their culinary uses (boiling, baking, frying, roasting, salad) and their harvesting timetable.

Jersey Royals in the shops is one of the first potatoes ready for harvesting and are called "first earlies". First early potatoes are planted in early spring (March) and are ready to be lifted up from the soil about end of June / July. By the way, you can buy the same seed potato as the Jersey Royal (this is just the protected name) which is called the International Kidney potato, but I should warn you that the characteristic flavour of shop bought Jersey Royals won't necessarily happen in your home grown version. The location, soil quality and what is dug in (I believe it is seaweed?) gives it that earthy taste. I found home grown to be quite tasteless.

The other varieties come under the terms "second earlies" (the next crop of potatoes to be harvested), and these might include the "salad" (referred to as waxy flesh) varieties. They have a slightly longer growing season than the first earlies and some can be harvested from about mid-July.

Main crop potatoes are the potatoes you would normally grow to store and use up over the winter months. They are harvested from late August through to October. Late main crop potatoes are as the name applies, can be harvested later than the maincrop.

You can plant all the different varieties (first early, second early and main crop) about the same time (or space out to suit what time you have available - you should aim to get the seed potatoes in the ground before the beginning of June for any hope of a harvest), but usually the anticipation of an early harvest of first earlies tend to drive which get planted first.

Harvesting though really does depend on a number of factors - if there is a cool spring and summer, the tubers won't develop according to some timetable and you'll have to be patient. And before you start pulling up the plants, carefully move soil away from a section of roots to get an idea of the size of the tubers ... undeveloped tubers are about the size of peas. Put the soil back and leave to grow on. If the tubers are a suitable size, again there is no need to lift the plant up if you don't need many - gently remove the tubers and put the soil back so the remaining tubers on the roots will develop on for harvesting later. Another factor is water - potatoes are quite watery so obviously keeping the soil well watered (especially during hot dry weather when the tubers are developing) is essential. Water the soil rather than the foliage and try to avoid soil splashing up into the plant.

Finally - you don't have to harvest first and second earlies according to when they are expected to be ready. I have left mine until the plants have died back naturally before lifting them - not only are the potatoes much bigger, but the skin thickens which means they can also be carefully stored for late autumn / early winter usage. The potato quality might be slightly different to that expected from the seed supplier information - active growing potatoes will taste or cook much more differently to one that has gone dormant for winter storage.

Chitting Seed Potatoes - there has been a great debate in the gardening circle as to whether "chitting" is really necessary. Chitting encourages the formation of the white sprouts on the potato skin to gear them up ready for growing - these will eventually be the site where they will push the green part through the soil to the surface to start growing and roots sprout out. The idea of chitting is to encourage the potato sprouts to grow more quickly once they are planted ... the problem however, is that the tender green parts of the potato plant are at risk of severe damage from frost.

Knowing your local weather conditions is very helpful - coastal areas tend to have lower frost incidents while inland zones are likely to have more and even experience a later than normal frost (mid-late May) which can be devastating to the plants and anticipated yields later. You can help to protect the young potato plants by covering them overnight or growing them under cloches in early spring.

"Earthing up" is about shifting soil from between the rows and almost burying the plants - this helps to protect from severe frost but the main goal is to encourage tuber development and more importantly, protect the tubers from sunlight (tubers grow very close to the soil surface and often get exposed. The skin turn green (presence of chlorophyll) and the potatoes are spoiled and should be discarded as they will contain high amounts of solanine - a toxin found in the nightshade family including potatoes, Deadly nightshade & tomato - and should not be eaten)

You can put straw around the plants ... not something I would advise as that can make them ideal places for slugs and snails to hide. Slugs (particularly soil dwelling ones) can do a lot of damage to potato crops especially during a wet summer.

If you do buy your seed potatoes early, you should always take them out of their box / bag or net bag as soon as possible and spread them out on a dry tray or use old egg boxes to sit them in. If you don't, the sprouts will grow and form long thin growth (entangled in the net bags are the worst) which will not survive - you would have to nip them off and start again (although new sprouts will appear, the energy / food in the tuber will be used up and weaken the plants) Pick up the potato and look for the scar where the tuber was attached to the root - the opposite end of the potato will be where the chits / white sprouts will appear. You might even notice dimpling like freckles where the chits will be. This side of the potato should be placed so the chits are facing up and exposed to light. Avoid placing them on a south facing window - warm sunny days can cause the tubers to lose water more quickly and they will soon go too wrinkly when they are finally planted. An east or west window is best, but even a north facing window will be fine.
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