What are the best value crops to grow on the plot?

[rinabean]

Definitely herbs! Like salad leaves, they are overpriced and bland in the shops, but herbs are more expensive gram for gram than salad, and just as easy to grow. And they normally take up less room for a "portion", which is important for many growers.

It's hard to say with the rest. I'm sure I'm saving money on greens, but everything else I would never buy in the quantities I'm growing, I just couldn't afford it. I think I'm still saving money when I compare the cost of supplies with the amount I would have bought if I had to pay the going price, which is great! But it's not fair to compare to what the price would be for everything you grow if you're neither selling it or actually making a saving, is it? It can make for cheering figures, though

[gardenpassion]

Broccoli, (purple sprouting and calabrese) we eat loads of it and its expensive. A bonus is that it keeps the guinea pigs in greens all through the spring/summer and winter too thus saving a fortune.

[Ananke]

I found this really difficult, it's so hard to choose just one. I settled for herbs but could easily have gone for tomatoes, salad leaves, spring onion........... and the list goes on. Soft fruit is so expensive so I would just go without if I didn't grow it.

[frogga]

Mine has to be Runner Beans and French Beans, the plants provide so many we have enough for the whole year!

[bramble]

Tomatoes without a doubt. We eat as many fresh tomatoes as we can throughout the summer and make salsa, sause, passata and soup and freeze these for the winter months.

[shona_b]

definitely squash - sooo expensive to buy and one plant will provide half a dozen fruits that store well too. If I could get sweet potatoes to produce anything like the supermarket ones that would be up there too!

[Marge]

Very tricky to choose but I have to say strawberries. It is so much nicer to pick your own strawberries straight from the garden rather than buy some watery/over large ones from the supermarket.

[topnorm]

Purple sprouting broccoli, without doubt, it was £5 for a fistful my greengrocers, I was eating about £20 worth a day for 3 months, and gave away even more than I ate.

[Paulottie]

Undoubtedly asparagus has been my best value crop. It is available to use in the hungry gap; It is expensive in the shops; It tastes better fresh and my children love it. My first fifty crowns cost £40 ten years ago. If on average a crown gives you 25 spears a year, then during eight years of harvesting...that's 2.5 pence each spear...bargain! Plus, I now have another bed all raised from saved seed. Invest you GYOers ...won't regret it. You might even contact me at The Grapevine seed swap board and for an sae I could send you free seeds!!!

[leonmc0708]

In terms of best vvalue its without doubt the Strawberries if you look into it.

The plants are often free, either from runners that you get to root or some crowns from another GYO'er.

A Punnet now in Tescos is £4 - and thats roughly one plants worth. I have twenty odd which I got free - so the savings 100%.

Force some early and protect some later in the season and potentially (assuming 2 punnets a week) you can save hundreds.

[snake the squadie]

it is hard to say when you are looking at just the price. i think you have to take three things into consideration. price, taste and amount of work you have to put into growing the veg/fruit. if you are looking at just price i think blackberris win hands down as they probably cost you nothing in the first place and are very expensive to buy. with taste spuds win for me as the supermarket ones are beond belief bland. and for ease of growing it would probably be ruhbarb or blackberris again

[Speed Gardener]

Runner beans and courgettes, picked small and tender. Once you've eaten your own, it's very hard to go for the giant, leathery examples found in the shops, not to mention that you only get one sort usually. I grow about 15 different sorts of courgettes, in the shops you only get those dark green ones, and if they got that big on the plot, they'd be on the compost heap!
Fruit wise, it's got to be currants, red, white, black and this year, pink. I can't get enough of them, I reckon I put £500 worth in the freezer last year, given that they charge £3.99 for two spoonfuls in the supermarkets!

[anny]

Rhubarb ! I cant beleive how expensive it is in the shops. I have 2 plants and am sick of it now ! so its going in the freezer for the winter.
I think everything I grow is worth it-as it is so satisfying

[poppysocks]

I think this year the answer has to be anything that will grow in this awful weather! On a sensible note, I would say rhubarb, it is really expensive in the shops and really easy to grow despite the weather,even for a novice like me.

[Marcher]

It has to be potatoes based alone on just sheer quantity. I had a summer job sorting through them at a farm one year as a teenager and the farmer used to get at least 28 tonnes of them per acre. It was just a shame about the rejected ones - the ones that had gone green (poisonous), gone to mush (not many though) or the ones that would be rejected by the buyer (misshapen, scabby but perfectly edible).