Kitchen Garden Forum

I found the following information very interesting, and we plotters seem to be very keen on our beans!!
A recent Government survey shows that the proportion of home back garden or allotment grown fruit and vegetables, has almost doubled in the last four years. This is likely to be due to the rapidly rising cost of shop bought fruit and vegetables, as well as the various TV programs. The proportion of different fruit and vegetables that are now home grown, is surprisingly large. Beans 33%, Potatoes 7%, Tomatoes 4%, Apples 9%, Soft fruit 10%, giving an overall figure of 5% for fruit and vegetables that are home grown. Interestingly, about 46% of growers on allotments are women.

The vegetable figures do seem oddly uneven. I always thought that spuds were staples on the allotment!
I certainly grow quite a lot of soft fruit which is harder to get elsewhere and expensive.

I'm not suprised that about half of allotmenters are women (and presumably the other half, men). I do wonder if the traditional portrayal of men out on the plots digging were really representative.

Stephen wrote:The vegetable figures do seem oddly uneven. I always thought that spuds were staples on the allotment!

I think it's fair to suppose that the figures are representing the proportion of fruit and veg which is home-grown in proportion to what's grown commercially. For sure, lots of spuds are grown on allotments, but a helluva lot of taters are grown on farms — thousands if not millions of hectares.

I know that due to blight many allotmenteers have given up growing potatoes. As amateurs they are no longer allowed any real protection against blight and because of that they are now growing things that are more expensive on the market.
As I said the other week a bag of potatoes has gone from 25kg down to 20kg and the price gone from £7.50. to £8.99. which means a 50% increase in price and they will rise even further as the months go by.
My advice is to adopt a policy of growing Savari Trust Blight Resistant Potatoes. There are many varieties to choose from but can recommend Axona and especially Blue Danube. Both really well tasting varieties.
JB.

Possibly more women are taking allotments because they're the ones who mostly do the household shopping and are realising as a result just how much the cost of fruit & veg is increasing.
I think potatoes are probably more grown on allotments than gardens because of the space required. If you have only limited garden space (as I do) then it's more cost effective to grow beans, tomatoes, salad stuff and other crops that are expensive to buy.
One of the better decisions I made was to replace the useless shrubs in our front garden with soft fruit bushes & a strawberry bed. The space was previously wasted and now the front garden is actually a productive area.

I have traced this back as far as the Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... onomy.html but no link to the "recent Government survey" anywhere.
Until I find the official figures I am believing nothing