Topic: will growing in 2013 be worth it

[elvis2003]

Even if crops are rubbish this year, I am optimistic that we will enjoy spending time with our lottie community,enjoy spending creative time out doors with my beloved husband and generally love it...as long as we get a few peas and some rocket we will be happy,but Im sure we will get more,as others have said...better protection this year maybe and a bit more thought, hope everyone enjoys this growing season! 

[pumkinlover]

Sat in the cabin yesterday five of us trying to keep warm and looking out over the North Sea, just looking at it reduced the temperature. Some one said "wonder when the house martins will arrive this year" "couple of month after the Penguins" was the reply.

 

(how long before someone reminds me we are in the wrong hemisphere!)

[Pescador]

Well, the "value" of my harvest in 2012 was £688 and I'm determined to get over £1000 this year, so I hope it warms up soon!!

[Dandytown]

d**n the weather!

30 minutes ago when I sat down with a cup of tea at my computer it was a little drizzly outside.

I made some plans of what to plant where and decided I would go to the plot in a while and layout some of my beds etc and leaving soil work to a drier day.

Finnished my tea and there was about an inch of snow on everything.

Made another cuppa and now the snow has gone.

 

[small]

Pescador, how do you work out your value? What you would pay to buy the equivalent, or do you count profit from selling surplus? I'm just interested, because I always think, well my asparagus alone saves me a huge amount, but if I didn't grow it then I wouldn't buy it, I'd buy dried herbs not fresh, and so on...but to answer the original poster, of course it will be worth it, anything is better than nothing when it comes to home grown food, never mind the bonus of connecting with the process and getting close to nature..

[lottie lou]

How do you put a price on the company at the lottie - plants, produce and advice given etc.  Haven't been down for over a week and I am suffering withdrawal symptoms something terrible.

[Plot69]

How do you put a price on waiting 35 years to get a garden big enough for a poly tunnel then having to wait 4 months for it to stop snowing and raining before you can built the bloody thing...

And it was still snowing this morning.

[galina]

Manics,

super pictures.  Do you like these big cloches?  How are they working out?  Have always shied away because they are so pricey.  Love the fishbox starter garden - all looks so good.

Green Lily,

Rhubarb?  Wow, you must live in the warmer parts.  There is nothing yet on mine apart from pink buds that are at soil level.

I like the not buying anything in Lent.  Must admit at the moment we are buying peppers and carrots and the odd cabbage.  Brassica are looking very poorly and probably dead, because we were flooded for most of winter - still very squelchy now.  Don't know how I am going to dig to get peas and early potatoes in.  Still got fruit in the freezer and in kilner jars. 

Plenty of stored crops - potatoes, onion, shallot, garlic, squash and lots in the freezer, including peas and beans.  The greenhouse salading stuff has put on a tiny bit of growth and we can start harvesting,  Babington Leeks, JAs, everlasting onions etc are doing their best and seem tolerant of swamp conditions as is the chard.  The florence fennel has tiny new shoots coming too.  Still have scorzonera in the ground, if they haven't rotted.

Will 2013 be worth it?  Of course it will and is already - given the cost of supermarket salad packs.  As usual I am going to grow a lot of different things in the hope that some of them will work out.  We will eat well - just don't know what yet 

[Robert_Brenchley]

There's plenty of time. I never put peas in the open ground before April, and they can be left till May or even June if necessary. Same goes for a lot of other stuff. There's not much which needs early planting.

[green lily]

The rhubarb is 'Goliath' and should have been split this year but it never went to sleep when it was cold enough . It has had a big plastic compost bin over it for 5+ weeks but it will be manjana cos I had some apple and apricot to finish today. I can take a picture on my phone but I haven't yet mastered how to post  onto A4A. Trust me the temperature in north lincs is not warm today.....    : and the other rhubarbs aren't interested although I've partially covered another type with a clay pot. Still fruit of any sort is good. I like it cooked with dates..

[manicscousers]

Manics,

super pictures.  Do you like these big cloches?  How are they working out?  Have always shied away because they are so pricey.  Love the fishbox starter garden - all looks so good.


The small ones I've just got from Aldi, 3 for 2.99.. they work qiote well but only inside. The big glass cut off demi johns that Ray made for me, I can put outside over things like squash etc 

[Gordonmull]

Wouldn't be the first time a wet year was followed by a cold spring. Might be followed by a nice summer, we shall see. Might not. So what? My 6" peas are battling the sleet and wind. Any survivors will have seed saved from them. No loss. I also have some rocket in the ground and it's got two more leaves than before it went in.

Biggest problem is the backlog of seedlings in the greenhouse and windowsills needing planted out but I'm not panicking, spring weather can turn on a die and the forecasters can only give you an estimate, usually the one that attracts them the least flak if they are wrong.

Such is life in the Horse Latitudes and why our traditional crops are able to bear a good deal of punishment. Pretty confident of good root veg, spuds, greens and salads. Windowsill cukes should be safe too. Bring it on! (Good crop of GH toms would be nice though, weather, pretty please?)

It is frustrating holding everything back though  want to get going!!!

[galina]

There's plenty of time. I never put peas in the open ground before April, and they can be left till May or even June if necessary. Same goes for a lot of other stuff. There's not much which needs early planting.

Ah yes, but the problem with planting peas late is that they don't grow anywhere near as big and the harvest is much reduced and the later ones are (here at least) affected by pea weavils.  Any peas harvested in June are free of 'added protein', July and later they get maggotty.  And should we get something resembling a summer, then peas will generally perish late July.  At least the early planted ones will have given a lot of pods before this happens.  Perhaps I should add that most of my peas are tall growing heritage varieties, maybe there is no need to start early for shorter varieties, but the short varieties here are being decimated by mice and voles.

So come on weather - I need to prepare these beds for the peas! 

[davejg]

Small I get a monetary value for my stuff by using the pick you own site prices (they do nearly everything} or supermarket on line prices. I always keep a spreadsheet of outgoing and incomings on the plot but as lou said, you cant put a price on the other stuff like friends fresh air exercise etc.

[admjh1]

 :drunken_smilie:well I intend to try and get something of a decent crop if my favorite veg only this year before the supermarkets bump up their costs. Watched news early this morning and is also the farmers with cattle and sheep suffering so shame I cant grow legs of lamb and pork on plot x

[goodlife]

shame I cant grow legs of lamb and pork on plot

Lamb's lettuce? 

[Obelixx]

I'm planning for a good year too.  I have chillies and toms started on the window sills along with basil and summer savoury.  I have started PSB early in the hopes of an autumn crop before the plants all get frozen to a mush and I have peas sown in a window box so I get early shooots for spring salads.

I'll be hoeing and sowing things like beetroot, spinach and salads when the soil warms up and I have red onion sets waiting to go once it warms up enough for them.   Don't do spuds and can only get carrots to grow in pots for some reason.   

Still need to get out and prune back the autumn raspberries and I think I'll make a new strawberry bed this year.  Blackcurrants and blueberries are budding up and the rhubarb patch has fat shoots showing through the piles of compost mulch.

Even if it's not a bumper year we'll get something and it's better to be out there tending crops than vegetating indoors.

[Robert_Brenchley]

However dreaful it turns out to be I can at least continue to build raised beds which rise above the floods!

[strawberry1]

I am just quietly thinking about my seed forward planning now. Leek seedlings, accidentally left outside were flattened by tonnes of hail but I think at least 20 will keep going. Tomatoes and chillis are doing very well, in and out daily when possible. Lady christi quietly chitting, broad beans sitting quietly in root trainers outside. It will be all systems go soon, potatoes in as soon as weather turns better, also broad beans. In the meantime, seed sowing is on the back burner, while it is freezing cold, they always catch up quickly so best to go with the weather flow. Just basics, that can survive little ice age weather this year, old fashioned stuff that grandparents grew and stood the test of time

[lottie lou]

Do we have any choice?  At least we are lucky, we can go to supermarket.