The good life...

by Ally Hunt on 23 June 2009  |  6 comments
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We've finally started eating some of the fruits of our veggie patch labours as the broad beans and courgettes are ready - but have we actually saved any money?

My favourite place at the moment has to be my veggie patch. My three-year-old daughter and I started it back in March and planted broad beans, carrots, celeriac, peas, rocket, courgettes, and strawberries (and as we already have apple trees we felt quite self sufficient!).

And do you know what? Everything has grown. Not just grown, flourished. We couldn't believe it! And last week saw us starting to eat the fruits of our labours as some of the broad beans, a courgette and salad leaves were ready. Yum!

It hasn't been without its problems. So far we've had black flies on the beans, the slugs keep munching the strawberries and there's apparently something called "carrot fly" to watch out for. But we're learning.

What's more it's great for my daughter as she's learning where her food comes from. However, her eagerness may be her downfall - I caught her pulling up a carrot to see if it was ready so there may not be as many as we hoped, come August.

The veggies have also proved much tastier than the ones from the supermarket, but I was interested to see if they're much cheaper, too?

How much is it worth?

I reckon so far we've harvested 500g of broad beans so I had a quick look to see how much that would cost in Tesco - a whopping £1.99. Not bad from a packet of seeds that cost me £1 - and what's more, I still have at least half the packet left, carefully stored to be planted next year.

The courgette would probably cost 25 pence in Tesco, and a 100g bag of rocket £1.40 - so far my yield is worth £3.64, and most of the produce isn't even ready yet!

And all it's really cost me is a few packets of seeds (some were even donated) some home-made compost, a small bag of Growmore and some pretty sporadic watering. Food went from patch to plate in minutes and no nasty chemicals were used. Hurrah!

Definitely a top frugal pastime.