Growing to give away, it`s nice.

[Flummery]

I heard yesterday that my daughter and son-in-law (and 3 year old GD) are going to share an allotment in their village - a couple of miles from here. So instead of the fresh produce I shared last year, they and son will get home raised toms, peppers and other surplus seedlings to grow on for themselves. I also like to give jams and chutneys - like PW I find they are very gratefully received when visiting, as are small bottles of sloe gin, damson vodka and wild plum brandy. As several people have said, it makes you feel good.

[Flummery]

Took a savoy, some PSB and some shimonitas round to a friends yesterday, yep it's a great feeling!
I'm saving my biggested and bestest savoy for my grandad coz he's always been a mega brilliant gardener and he thinks my methods are debatable! Just want him to be proud!

How can he NOT be Lainey?

[kethry]

I grow veg in the garden, and where we live.. well.. lets just say a lot of the people locally probably wouldn't recognise a tomato plant, spud plant, beans or cucumber plants (etc) if it walked up and bit them on the leg.. a lot of the local children (4-10 years or so) have been fascinated with what i've been growing, asking what the various plants are, quite politely, just hanging over the garden fence (which is quite low), and trying various samples that i've passed to them. Their moms have benefited from a few tomatoes grown by me. Its been great cos i feel good that i've educated them, its given them a chance to get to know us (we're very different to a lot of the people who live round here and i think they think of us as being a bit wierd, but that's okay..as long as its nice wierd!), and hopefully, when they get into their teens and join the grunting-destruction-on-legs-football-sex-obsessed group, they'll remember what i taught them and leave my garden alone!

[says a lot about the locals that the first bed i dug, 3 meters long by 1 meter wide, they all reckoned was a grave. In fact, one lad went back to his dad, saying it was a grave and his dad went "don't be so daft, i know XXX (my OH), if he'd killed someone he wouldn't be so stupid as to bury them in the garden!". I'm not saying another word.... (other than that my OH wouldn't kill anyone!)]

but yes, it is a nice feeling, giving back to the community with fresh fruit and veg, i've even baked cupcakes for community events before now too. it all helps

keth
xx

[Paul Wagland]

Yes please Paul, bring them over and I will do you a good lunch and you can take some plants home for your lottie.

Cor, yer on! Haven't got much space left for plants though - Jeannine keeps planting flowers in me beds, if you can imagine such a thing.

Loved your post Kethry - it reminded me of my last garden. The neighbours were a horrible bunch, the worst kind of ignorant scum, but you could see that all the kids wanted was a bit of affection and attention and they'd turn out well. They were really interested in my veg plot and the oldest lad even planted his own broad bean (just one!) in their front garden. I'd have loved to have taken him and his sister with me when I moved, but what hope have they got?

[SueA]

I think it's a shame too when kids don't have parents who can show them how to grow things but luckily a lot of schools are getting into scemes where they can teach the children where their food comes from & they have little veg.patches in the school grounds, unfortunately one or two near me have been vandalised by older children who couldn't care less who they upset but it seems to be getting better as more schools join in.
I only grow fruit & veg. in my garden but luckily have had the odd glut which I've been able to share. I've given courgettes & tomatoes to my mum-in-law which I love to do as it was her late husband who was one of the people who got me interested in growing by giving me homegrown tomatoes & tiny plants to grow on.

[Paulottie]

When I first started I found we would give all the good stuff away and end up cutting the edible bits out of the rubbish for ourselves!! Fortunately I grow on a larger scale now and am, dare I say, a bit better at warding of the pests and harvesting when it is at its best rather than admiring the crop till it goes over!

Of course it is a joy to give your produce to friends, family and few of the elderly in the village. I think recently with rising food prices and people being so much more tuned into what they eat having been produced without loads of chemicals they really appreciate it. Often I find the favour returned in some other way. makes the world go round eh.

I am sure our shortcomings are more overlooked when I arrive with a fresh cut bunch of asparagus to say thank you for letting the kids come to play for the afternoon or something.:

[bluemoon]

I love giving stuff away, I even grow special requests for people who like things which we don't. Kethry, I've lived in a place like that, we moved there because it was cheap and I wanted to return to uni, I was weird because I grew my own and travelled further than the local chippy to buy the ingredients for family meals, my kids were weird because they went to school everyday. Most of the local kids were nice, bright (well they had to be to come up with some of the schemes they came up with - ever had carol singers in July?) young people who just hadn't been given the attention they deserved and thought that their only hope was to become a footballer if they were male and pregnant if they were female. It's a stereotype I know, but no less true for that.

[veg4681]

Runner beans are the number one easiest veg to give away, they grow like weeds !

[kethry]

The neighbours were a horrible bunch, the worst kind of ignorant scum, but you could see that all the kids wanted was a bit of affection and attention and they'd turn out well.

absolutely.. i feel very torn sometimes between thinking.. well.. put the effort in, maybe it'll make a difference and looking at the older ones (who we get a lot of grief off) and thinking.. why bother? its difficult, it really is.

I think it's a shame too when kids don't have parents who can show them how to grow things but luckily a lot of schools are getting into scemes where they can teach the children where their food comes from & they have little veg.patches in the school grounds, unfortunately one or two near me have been vandalised by older children who couldn't care less who they upset but it seems to be getting better as more schools join in.

Sue - absolutely, i agree with you. I've made contact with a teacher in a localish school who is doing something similar, helping out with some seeds and advice and stuff. its rewarding, i hope it'll help the kids out a bit.

Kethry, I've lived in a place like that, we moved there because it was cheap and I wanted to return to uni, I was weird because I grew my own and travelled further than the local chippy to buy the ingredients for family meals, my kids were weird because they went to school everyday. Most of the local kids were nice, bright (well they had to be to come up with some of the schemes they came up with - ever had carol singers in July?) young people who just hadn't been given the attention they deserved and thought that their only hope was to become a footballer if they were male and pregnant if they were female. It's a stereotype I know, but no less true for that.

absolutely. you've pretty much described where i live, which is quite sad really. ah well. all i can really do is try to be an example, i guess.

keth
xx

[Sue]

Last summer my two sisters and I all managed to get a day off together and meet up on my allotment bringing my aged p with them. She'd never seen my allotment and well used to my various enthusiasms over the years must have thought that the allotment was another one, I hope I convinced her that this one was here to stay.
It was a beautiful day, I prepared lunch and we sat under the trees at the bottom of the patch and I was able to load them up with eggs, beans, sweet peas, cucumbers, potatoes and as many strawberries as they could eat.
Felt very proud and we had a lovely day!

Hope she'll be back this year to see the improvements but I doubt if we'll all manage to coordinate a day off and have such fine weather again.

I was given a lot of stuff when I first started and its great to be able to "pay back" some of it's a form of bartering. My allotment neighbour cuts my grass paths for me so fruit and veg in return. Others swop stuff for eggs and other stuff they're not growing.

As I have to take the bus to the allotment I get to know some of the bus drivers very well and a few of them sweetly stop the bus outside the allotment gate for me to save a walk. They're well rewarded and love strawberries!
Sue

[smallblueplanet]

...
As I have to take the bus to the allotment I get to know some of the bus drivers very well and a few of them sweetly stop the bus outside the allotment gate for me to save a walk. They're well rewarded and love strawberries!
Sue

Lol! your own taxi, smart move!

[roitelet]

Really nice to have a surplus to give away and it seems to be appreciated more if it is GYO.

I have even managed to convert some of the natives to eating parsnips!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Sue]

SBP
Yes, and it's a hulking great doubledecker too. They can tell from the state of me where I'm going as I get on dressed up in my gardening gear, loaded down with plants, straw for the chickens, compost bags, seedlings etc.... It's a hard life without a car!
Sue

[kentvegplot]

My lovely neighbours look after the cats if I'm away, and they don't grow vegs any more, so I'm able to say thank you with fresh produce. They have a lovely bramley apple so we can 'swop' some things too.

Any visitor in the summer is likely to go away with something from the plot. remember visiting my grandparents when we were young, and we always seemed to come away with produce, I like to keep that tradition going.

I even sent away a non-gardening friend with a taste for hot food with a large chilli plant. He reported the fruits were wonderfully hot!