just growing for you?

[kiwirach]

not quite sure what to title the thread?!

how many of us are just growing for our own needs vs those of a spouse and family?.

how do you manage your plantings? do you plant to eat when its ready as well as for storing?

i'm curious how others manage their plots when its just them they are growing for.

this is my first full yr on my allotment and i'm still trying to figure out how best to work it from the point of view that i want some stuff ready to eat, and some for storing.

thanks in advance for any replies

[SarzWix]

I'm growing for 5, so I don't really qualify!
But, I would say it depends on how you want to store things? If you're planning to freeze runner beans for instance, then you can either plant them all at once and prep and freeze the inevitable glut, eating fresh ones for a short time. Or, you could sow them successionally, sow one lot April, one in May, and one in June. Then you'd be eating them fresh til the frosts, and you could just freeze whatever you can't eat daily which would add up to quite a lot in total.

[janeyo]

Even if you are only planning on feeding yourself it will be a good idea to have spares in case of birds / slugs / pests etc and also because all your friends and family will become your New Best Friend once you start harvesting things!
I am much more popular that I was a year ago.....

[Victoria26]

Most of the things I plant are for myself. My hubby doesnt like a lot of veg.
I plant my fruit for him and the veg for me.
As for storing things. Freezing, pickling, drying are all standard practises. I enjoy learning new ways to cook with the things i have. For instance taking rosemary and thyme cuttings and putting them on your bbq coal to smoke the flavour through your food.
Nothing ever goes to waste and of course my neighbours and family always benefit from a bumper crop!

You'll always find someone to take any excess.

[jackie j]

Last year I didnt grow enough,( apart from courgettes ) There are three of us but I like to give to family as well, this year I am sowing loads of seeds of various veg and flowers, I will use what I want then give some plants to family only a couple of them grow thigs, the rest I intend to try and sell at a car boot as plants always go well.

[Eyren]

I grow for my spouse and myself - or perhaps I should say we grow for ourselves, since he helps me on the lottie. I think we have enough space to be self-sufficent in most veg apart from maincrop potatoes and (unless/until we get a proper greenhouse or a polytunnel) tomatoes and similar - it's mostly practice and hard work we need!

I plan my planting with the intention of having some fresh crops available all year round, though of course you have to rely on stored produce a lot more in winter. The trick is to keep sowing all year round, using appropriate plants for each season and where possible having one crop growing in modules ready to go in the ground when the previous one is finished, so that your beds are out of production as little as possible.

A very rough seasonal guide to sowing and eating:

Spring (Feb/Mar - May)

* Sowing - fruiting crops: peas, beans, sweetcorn, tomatoes, cucumber, courgettes; other summer/autumn crops: calabrese, cauli, carrots, potatoes; slow autumn/winter crops: leeks, parsnips; fast-growing leaves such as spinach
* Eating - leeks, kale, sprouting broccoli, spring cabbage, spring onions, spinach, cut-and-come-again salad leaves; stored onions; frozen vegetables e.g. green beans

Summer - early autumn (June - Aug)

* Sowing - leafy winter vegetables: kale, spring cabbage, sprouting broccoli, chard, over-wintering spinach; oriental salad leaves, rocket
* Eating - peas, broad beans, new potatoes, calabrese, lettuce, young carrots, courgettes, tomatoes, green garlic
* Storing - gluts of peas and beans can be frozen

Autumn - early winter (Sept - Dec)

* Sowing: broad beans, garlic, overwintering spring onions; final sowing of salad leaves
* Eating fresh - sweetcorn, oriental salad leaves, cauliflower
* Eating/storing - onions, carrots, celeriac; squash, tomatoes, beans

Late winter (Jan/Feb)

* Sowing: onions, spring onions, garlic, broad beans; slow autumn/winter crops: leeks, parsnips, celeriac; cut-and-come-again leaves
* Eating: kale, leeks, winter cabbage; stored veg: maincrop carrots and onions; frozen veg such as green beans

That's the ideal anyway - the day I can get it all to hang together, I'll be a very happy bunny indeed!

[lynda66]

i'm growing mostly for me as son is away at uni,so enjoying his junk food now he can get it though this year hopefully will have excess for him to use too (he's only in manchester) basically i have loads and loads of seed potatoes, onions carrots parsnips and other stuff that will store well, am also having a go at pickling beetroots onions gherkins etc and am succesional sowing peas beans etc, and will either dry or freeze the excess ........ also lots of tomatoes, to make into sauces, soups etc for freezing, and hopefully loads of fruit that can freeze or be made into jams, chutneys, pies etc

then theres a few things like caulies and romanesco, that i will start using as baby veg and freeze if i get a glut.

later in summer i will plant swedes and turnips and stuff for winter

think mostly it's planning for the times theres not much growing and planting what you will eat, and can store ..... plus a few bits and bobs just cos you want to try them

[gojiberry]

There is only the two of us which isn't a lot different to growing for yourself. I always used to freeze a lot of veg but am getting out of the habit now as self frozen is nowhere near as good as fresh. So I always try to grow to have at least three veg available all year round. Usually it is more. The only way I store now is in jams and chutneys, pickling and ready made meals like soup and a cooked veg base of courgettes, tomatoes, onions and anything else that is ready at the time. At present I have carrots, parsnips, sprouts, cabbage, leeks and potatoes and onions in store. I usually have marrows and squashes in store but it was a poor year for them last year.

Ian

[zazen999]

Hi

I'd grow the same if it was just me...we put into our lottie the staples - potatoes/onions/carrots/peas/beans/brassicas/winter squash.

The more tender stuff goes in our garden, toms/corn/courgettes etc.

If I ever sort out having a greenhouse, it will be full to the brim of toms and peppers and a couple of cukes.

We eat as we harvest and freeze any extras...including making loads of sun/oven dried toms/passata etc.

I think you have to be optimistic when starting out - as until you've done a year or two, you don't really know how much you need and how long it will last.

My lottie neighbour told me today that we had gone 'onion mad' at the lottie - and that's with just the overwinter stuff...I've already put another 175 ish sets in which he doesn't know about [as they are under bubblewrap], and had another 100 odd autumn sown seedlngs that went in today, and will probably put another 200 odd in before the spring is through....we like onions!!! He thinks we're mental for having so many. So - it really is down to personal taste in the end.

[Growem]

Another thing you can consider is growing perhaps some more experimental or exotic crops. You don't need to devote the same amount of space as a family of five for potatoes (for example), so you can use that extra space to do try out different varieties of new things. What those new things are really depends on what you like.

[kiwirach]

thanks everyone, and Eyren...wow!, great post...i'll study it better when i'm not so tired.

[Claire72]

I'm sowing for a family of four, but am still an amateur, so lots fail. More motivated than ever this year as son has been diagnosed with adhd, so want to grow as much as possible and feed him organically, can't afford to buy organic in the shops.
freeze the glut though, and make jam. still plenty of fruit in the freezer from last year, but didn't manage to save much veg

[SlugLobber]

I grow just for myself, but I plant many, many extras and give the excess away when I know I have more than enough for me and the pests! Currently I have 20 tomato seedlings, so will possibly give one or five away... It's true, you become MUCH more popular!

[FROSTYFRECKLE]

Grow for hubby and I. Do not grow enough potatoes, so this year will try and up the volume. Grow masses of carrots and seed save from my favourite carrot. Grow lots of onions but do not store (no facilities), use Japanese Bunching Onions for over winter. Always have lots of tomatoes. This year trying chillies for the first time (properly). Have upped the volume of fruit I am growing this year thanks to the cheap fruit bushes from Aldi/Lidl - may not get much of a crop this year but that's okay. Grow tonnes of rhubarb - love the stuff. Any excess of fruit/veg is frozen or given away fresh (usually salad stuff)

[snakeshack]

I'm growing for 6 and hoping to cut the huge veg bill , I also keep herbivorous lizards which go through 10 quid's woth of supermarket salad a week & 50-60 locusts which I breed myself.these eat anything green .This is my first year with the allotment so I am mostly trying hardy and ground breaking crops as the ground has been uncultivated for 20 years.