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Firstly, what do posters find worth growing money-wise, that is, worth growing because they cost so much in the shops, possibly sweetcorn, a la postie's efforts.

Secondly, worth growing because they're no trouble to grow, eg peas.

These are two important considerations, possibly before taste, nutrition or yield. I get asked the questions, usually based on cost/time.

Runner beans. Amazing how many pickings you can get from a row of plants. Also you can save your seed from year to year thus it costs nothing but a bit of time and compost (home made of course).

Runner beans too. I've just inspected mine - I shall have a fine load of dried beans this year.

Dwarf french beans, specially if you put them in just after taking your spuds out, and pick the beans when very young and slim. Any that get away can be left on the plant to dry too.

Rhubarb - no trouble, and a nice "fruit" early in the year when little else is about.

Blackberries - well, I don't actually grow these, but you know what I mean.

Strawberries, cos the taste of a warm ripe strawberry that was on the plant 2 seconds before you ate it is out of this world....

I know where you're coming from. Rhubarb...yes, why people pay for it...

I like courgettes to, which is just as well, as we always have masses for little effort.

Tomatoes, once the 'infrastructure' is in place, grow easily but of course they can be fussy, water-wise and need well feeding. But plucking a ripe tomato off the vine and popping straight in the mouth...heavenly.

Plus plums, no problem, though I was originally thinking of savoury stuff, really.

emordnilap wrote:Firstly, what do posters find worth growing money-wise, that is, worth growing because they cost so much in the shops, possibly sweetcorn, a la postie's efforts.
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I noticed in Tesco that 2 fresh sweetcorn were going for £1.99. Which is the price of a pack of sweetcorn seeds. So that's £1 per seed, presuming one cob per plant.

I've thought the same thing emilordnap, that it's not worth the time and effort ... with limited space and time .... to grow stuff that is very cheap in the shops. If I had the time and space, then I'd try and grow a lot more. Maybe as I spend less time getting things up and running I'll have more time to spend on crops that are cheap.

But saying all that there is also things like carrots. Pretty cheap in the shops most of the year. But as an early crop, little tasty finger sized young carrots ... they're very expensive to buy. So I'd put in carrots as a worthwhile crop, as long as you intend to pull them young. Saying that.. my carrots were a total disaster this year. Not a one. Basic mistake made in putting them in the green house as seeds. ( I didn't know they grew better from direct sowing... lesson learnt)

I don't know if this fits in with your question, but would storability make a difference to growing something. It'd be great to get a good value crop but if they were all ready say.. now.. and mouldy 1 week after harvesting, the crop is pretty much useless. So I'd also look for value and the ability to store easily for a long time. I'm hoping my squashes do that.. first time of growing, so it's one to come back to later. And.. can you get seeds for next year from things? Hmmm... too much to think about!

postie, have a look on realseeds.co.uk - plenty of advice on storage and seed saving there.

postie how are you only getting one cob per plant?? I'm sure I was getting like 3 last time I grew sweetcorn.. must be the variety.

I've never been that great with sweetcorn and I don't always grow it. It need to be a pretty hot late summer for Wales for it to ripen well... so maybe I'm just remembering wrong.

Still I'm thinking I need to give it a good crack next year, get them in early and hope for a good summer. It'd be a good one to try and sell.. reckon I could sell them for a quid a cob.. one 'strip' across my allotment under landscape fabric would be 300 plants. If I'm right at 3 cobs per plant that's 900 cobs.. potentially £900. Even if you sell 50p a cob its not bad money. Under fabric you can basically just leave them.

So sod it 2 strips because I've got more land now. And a bad year for sweetcorn is a good year for mushrooms - bad year for mushrooms is a good year for sweetcorn

That's hedging your bets see

Good points postie.

Our current world almost always looks for 'return' or, at the very least, 'payback', something which is narrow-minded at best.

So when people ask, 'how long does it take to get back what you spent on (say) domestic solar hot water?' you have to ask, 'how long does it take to get back what you spent on (say) the television?'

Likewise with food. Spuds are ridiculously cheap in the shops and, even more ridiculously, often come from the likes of Israel.

There's far more to assessments of value than price. Foods eaten within minutes of being picked, for instance. The vitamin value is priceless. Then food metres. No pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, suicides. And Israel...

So sweetcorn is more valuable when you grow it yourself than you immediately give it credit for.

Its good to see you say that, I'd been asking myself recently what the point is.

Especially with growing more food than I actually need but I think I'm going to strat ploughing it into the local LETS currency thingy in future.

I mean I started asking myself this after taking on more land. But it's not like any one else was doing anything with that land. Not for years.

Someone might as well grow food on it

Grow as much as you can - then give it away. Social capital is generally more important than financial capital.

Actually I realised the other day that this is what I've always done.

I've got a mate who can literally fix anything. I call him McGyver on account of the fact that he once actually said "Ask your neighnour if she's got a hairpin. I could fix this if I had a hairpin" that was it then - McGyver!

Anyway. I feed him. He's always skint and I feed him. Whenever anythings broken in my house he fixes it. He's a bit of a general handyman as well. If I need to build a new greenhouse or whatever he helps me.

I've got a mate who basically drives me everywhere. Picks stuff up for me, drops it off, whatever when I need it (He's a van driver). I feed him too.

I've never actually done this concsiously it's just that they are my mates and they help me out and I like feeding people. I think I should kind of extend it a bit though and maybe start actually dropping people off a weekly parcel you know. But that's kind of what the LETS thing is about isn't it.

I've got another mate who's a carpenter and I also used to give him and his Mrs loads of food as well. I reckon I should start getting him to give me some lessons and give them a weekly parcel.

clv101 wrote:Grow as much as you can - then give it away. Social capital is generally more important than financial capital.

Your courgette was very nice thanks. Haven't started on the marrow, squash or the jam yet .

It depends on both the prices down at the market and the wages your making working on other things. For the Misses and myself this year it is a waste of time as we are both fully employed but out of habit have about half the garden I would plant if not working out.
I like sweet corn fresh from the garden (grow it in blocks at least four rows wide for good pollination) but canned or frozen from the early varieties I need to grow is not the best and I go with supermarket frozen after the garden is done. Biggest keeper in the garden this year is again broccoli. Thirty meals frozen away already and a steady yield still coming. Tomatoes of course with a two gallon batch of sauce on the stove right now. Potatoes ,onions and carrots plus winter squash and pumpkins.
Green beans failed this year with just a few meals to eat fresh. Other years they seem to be all you get.
The chickens are getting sick of excess zucchini.

clv101 wrote:Grow as much as you can - then give it away. Social capital is generally more important than financial capital.

Give some of it away, definitely. You have to try to get something back in return over a long period and I don't just mean, say, respect or friends or even labour - different food or compostable material would be ideal.

It's not a wise idea to export nutrients on any large scale but otherwise, you're right.

I give loads of stuff anyway but don't seem to get anything back...