[Growster...]

The greenhouse border usually sprouts a few seedlings from last year's tomato crop, so just to see what happens, I've transplanted 10 of these into small pots, for planting outside when it's warm and sunnier.

The reason for this is that it looks a bit dodgy on the 2011 shop-vegetable-futures-front so far, what with the lack of rain etc, and prices are bound to be higher than last year.

Just planting a few more of each veg down at the plot or at home will make some difference, even if very small, and the work to do this minimal really - I just get up earlier...

If there's just 5% more veg at home for very little toil and hardly any extra outlay, that's 5% less veg money going to Morrisburycos...

And I can buy Mrs Growster a new hat with the savings...!

[mobilekat]

Anything that saves money is good in my book.

OH does keep pointing out that he is not sure that we save much by the time he thinks of the cost of compost and time.

So I pointed out if I wasn't gardening I would want to buy a horse- he then said gardening is MUCH cheaper! and bought me some more compost!

[mumofstig]

I'm sure she would prefer shoes   
Tomato seedlings - can you remember which variety you grew there last year? I hope it wasn't an f1, anything else should be fine

Veg

prices are bound to be higher than last year.

That's just what I've been thinking about today : where I was thinking of growing a few more sweetcorn I've decided to do a teepee of french beans...more return for the space, I think, and can I cram anything else in somewhere..................anybody got a spare shoehorn 

[Growster...]

Anything that saves money is good in my book.

OH does keep pointing out that he is not sure that we save much by the time he thinks of the cost of compost and time.

So I pointed out if I wasn't gardening I would want to buy a horse- he then said gardening is MUCH cheaper! and bought me some more compost!

Ha ha ha Mobs! Like that scenario...

I've just thought a bit further about this, and chucked something in on 'Chatting' to try and explain myself a bit better...

[Growster...]

I'm sure she would prefer shoes   
Tomato seedlings - can you remember which variety you grew there last year? I hope it wasn't an f1, anything else should be fine

Veg

prices are bound to be higher than last year.

That's just what I've been thinking about today : where I was thinking of growing a few more sweetcorn I've decided to do a teepee of french beans...more return for the space, I think, and can I cram anything else in somewhere..................anybody got a spare shoehorn 

Good point Mum, and I'll hope that they're 'Shirley', which weren't F1 as far as I can recall...

If they are F1, I'll maybe have done the wrong thing, but just in case, I'm going to pop in a few Harbinger seeds to really crunch the hopefully-hot autumn we're due! They should get to a couple of trusses, and the seed was free!

If they don't work, well hey-hoe...

[fatcat1955]

Shirley are F1  arn't they?

[DD.]

Yes.

[Alastair-I]

We can almost depend on free tomato seedlings from our home compost, the heap doesn't seem to kill them.  It's a bit of potluck, but we've had everything from regular round tom's thru' cherry tom's to the baby plum tom's.  All just from potting on the seedlings that appear in the borders.

[shokkyy]

OH does keep pointing out that he is not sure that we save much by the time he thinks of the cost of compost and time.

So I pointed out if I wasn't gardening I would want to buy a horse- he then said gardening is MUCH cheaper! and bought me some more compost!

Yes, but if you had a horse just think of all the free manure you'd get

[Growster...]

Shirley are F1  arn't they?

Then I've caught a crab - thanks DD...

...unless they were something else...

Looking at last year's notes, they were a mix of 'Gartenperle', 'Harbinger', 'Tigerella' and 'Shirley'.

I really don't know what these are, so we'll wait and see, and try and get the new 'Harbinger' away for the same reason!

Must keep up the pressure...;0)

[solway cropper]

I haven't been giving any serious thought to food prices but I've unconsciously planted a lot more than last year. In addition to the veg plot I've got 124 assorted containers with stuff in and am determined to have crops in the greenhouse through the winter.

It's not just food prices but heating is likely to be considerably dearer and if we have another winter like the last two then things will get quite difficult.

Thankfully Mrs. SC doesn't wear hats or ride a horse so we can spend any money saved on a stock of candles.

[Carollan]

My weed tomato plants were binned.....I already have too many plants and am trying a russian tom this year.I feel very guilty,they were sprightly plants .Thinking about it,I should have transferred them to the asparagus beds as companion plants.

doh

[GrannieAnnie]

I grew Floridity one year, which the catalogue didn't say was an F1 variety.  Anyway I saved the seeds and 4 years on I'm still growing floridty from my saved seeds.  Sometimes they come up a bit bigger than the original and sometimes they come up a bit smaller, but they are still tomatoes!

I have also grown tomato plants from 'volunteers' its just another freeby!   

[DD.]

My weed tomato plants were binned.....I already have too many plants and am trying a russian tom this year.I feel very guilty,they were sprightly plants .Thinking about it,I should have transferred them to the asparagus beds as companion plants.

doh

Once you leave the asparagus to grow, I think you'll find they would choke out the tomatoes.

I'm growing loads this year, I've seven different heritage varieties in the greenhouse, plus a couple of hundred standard varieties. I'm growing them for a church festival. One of the neighbours has just given me over 80 more spare plants to pot up.

I can see a lot coming back and I won't have the heart to bin them & will try and squeeze them in down the plots. PLEASE no volunteer plants this year, they seem to know this is a tomato friendly family and won't be destined for the compost bin.