Topic: How self-sufficient are you?

[aquilegia]

It's all in the title really!

Last summer the only things we were self-sufficient on were tomatoes (we eat them in pasta sauces virtually ever day - had the last of the toms last month), courgettes, runner beans, sweetcorn and fresh herbs. This year I'm hoping much much more of what we eat, I'll have grown.

Hubby is convinced I'm turning into Barbara off The Good Life!

[The gardener]

I generally have at least one veg to pick fresh for around ten months of the year.

I rarely if ever, buy onions/shallots/ garlic because these store well.

As I said in another thread I still have potatoes left, I have been eatimg them since last July.

Then there is what is in the freezer!

[Mrs Ava]

I hope that there will be something to pick throughout the year, whether it will be something the whole family will want to eat is another question.  I like all veggies, except Jerusalem artichoke.  I am still using the garlics that I harvested last year, I still have tom sauce in the freezer, and only just used the carrots and runners that I had in the freezer from last year.  We don't use masses of spuds, so I am hoping the spuds produced from the 96 seed spuds I have will provide us with variety through the year.   :o.  Same with toms, have 40 odd plants, lots of different varieties, so fingers crossed, and we are growing 19 different squashes and pumpkins, and they seem to keep pretty well.  So, spuds, toms and pumpkin soup it is all winter through!

[gavin]

Most years?  Only buy tomatoes, carrots, celery and peppers; and chuck out last year's harvest still in the freezer in June.

Last year?  Still haven't bought an onion (shallots and leeks have kept me going), nor a potato --- but have re-discovered just why I enjoy growing our own!

All best - Gavin

[Beer_Belly]

I'm hoping to fulfill most of our veggie needs this year - I think I'll have to invest in a larger feezer though.
-B_B-

[Fingle....]

Yes...i fear i could do with a chest freezer

[allotment_chick]

...or two, I suspect, fingle!

Must admit, EJ I am a fair weather gardener - and because I live in a small house with little storage space I grow for immediate eating and  taste rather than year round produce.  As toms freeze so well, I grow loads of them, but last year was a good years for them.  I lost virtually the whole crop to blight the year before.  

We don't eat many cabbages (and the pigeons, whitefly and cabbage whites up the lottie do their best to decimate them) so I'll buy these in the shops, as I do spuds mainly - I got some good Pink Fir Apple one year but generally the slugs get them (hence growing salad spuds at home in pots this year!) Celeriac, swede and leeks to be had at the moment if the snow hasn't seen them off!  

In the summer I get a buzz from growing things that you pay a premium for in the shops, like florenece fennel, aubergines, rocket etc.

Plans are to grow more soft fruit because of their freezability and general yumminess!
AC x

[Ceri]

Last year, as I only had a small back garden, I was really only s-s in herbs, lettuce.  Had some runner beans too, but not enough to be really self-sufficient.  This year now I have the lottie, I'm hoping to be s-s in parsnips, broad peans, peas and runners.  I'll be growing other things too, but probably not enough to stop going to the greengrocer's.  I'd need a farmer's field to be s-s in sweetcorn!

[busy_lizzie]

It was our first year last year, and we have just finished eating the last of our onions.  Bought my first lot of onions yesterday at the Supermarket and certainly didn't taste the same.  Just picked the last of my sprouts and a few leeks still left in the ground.  I have green tomato chutney, rhubarb chutney and pickled onions and beetroot in jars still plentiful and have some french beans and pureed apple, rhubarb and blackberries in the freezer.

Feel we did very well for the first year because we only cultivated half of the plot.  Everything tasted fabulous, and we gave lots of stuff away.  We are growing a bigger variety of things this year and I hope I can be better organised. My biggest challenge this year is growing carrots, which I haven't ever managed to do.  Would be great to have all homegrown vegetables for Christmas day dinner.  :) busy_lizzie