COUNTING THE COST

As well as growing vegetables and, I hope, fruit, on the allotment without the use of pesticides, I have also decided to spend as little money as possible.

To that end we have been fortunate to be given many items. And we have been wily enough to salvage other unwanted items from the dumping ground at the allotment site.

To date, these items are:

Gardening books (particularly related to growing veg, fruit and herbs), gardening tools, a watering can, a large bottle with spraying attachment.  All from a friend whose father had died and whose house needed to be cleared.

A large 'box' which was previously an outside dog kennel, that our neighbours had put on their front lawn labelled 'free to collector' and which we adapted to use as a tool shed.

Various pots; both plastic and terracotta that were being offered on of the most brilliant and useful sites that I know of: Freecycle - http://www.freecycle.org/.

And finally, various bits of wood, fencing and discarded items which we 'found' in the dumping ground at the entrance to the allotment site.  These include the raised bed border that we have planted the carrots in.

A small plastic greenhouse, like this one, that we keep at home for growing on seedlings until they're ready to go in the allotment - given to us by husband's work colleague:

This means that the costs we have incurred to date are:
Rent of plot for one year:  £27.50
Soil Sieve: £4.99
Bean poles: £5
Seeds: App £15
Tomato and pepper plants: £4
1 x small plastic greenhouse used at home: £8
1 x medium plastic greenhouse for toms and peppers: £8
Seeding compost: £10
Organic slug stuff: £4
Seed trays: £5
Total Cost to date: £64.50.

And this is as much as I intend to spend this year.  I'm going to see how little we can spend.  Otherwise it defeats part of the object of growing your own if you end up spending more on producing the stuff than you would on buying it from supermarkets, or farmer's markets and shops.

I eat a veggie diet, and my husband and eldest son also eat a lot of veg and fruit (the youngest son ain't so keen, and our daughter no longer lives at home) so I spend quite a lot of our weekly food bill on veg and fruit, probably somewhere in the region of £30 to £40 (between £1820 and £2080 a year!).  I'm not going to be able to grow all that we'll eat, but I'm hoping to get somewhere in the region of at least half by the time the growing season gets underway; since I won't be able to grow things like bananas and apples, these will still need to be bought.  There are also some items that I use a lot, such as peppers, which I may not be able to grow to keep up with the demand.

So, it will be interesting to see how little we can spend and what kind of impact it has on our weekly and yearly food expenditure.

Of course, the point is not to just reduce costs, but to also produce fresh, organic, nutrient-rich food.

It's also a challenge to see if we can do it and to see what obstacles occur and how we can overcome them and become seasoned allotment growers.

Heeeeere goes!