You won't save money growing your own potatoes, or at least not in England, according to New Scientist magazine. While the author admitted that for every kilo of seed potatoes you planted, you'd get 10 kilos back, the cost of buying seed potatoes, which will be certified virus-free, plus fertiliser, tool depreciation and varied other costs, mean you will just about break even.
My spud economics differs: as long as you buy at least 5kg of seed potatoes - the more you buy, the cheaper they are per kilo - and feed them with home-made compost, you'll come out way ahead. But there's no getting away from the need to buy seed potatoes. My first potato crop here was inedible. A former owner explained he'd grown commercial crops for years, so various areas of our farm were liable to be infested with a possibly unnamed virus he believed was carried by aphids. I can grow spuds only by never planting spuds where spuds have been in the previous five years. If I try to save seed potatoes for next year, my only return for a lot of work is rock like spuds that won't soften even with a week's boiling.
I think homegrown spuds are worth it - especially if someone else digs them up. But are they worth it if you work a 40-hour week, have a two-hour commute, need to get the kids fed, the dog out of the compost bin, work out your tax return, and spend the usual per capita time of 3.8 hours on call centres for phone, electricity, insurance and other problems, while a recorded voice gently lies to you the "your call is important to us..."?
Any company or agency that needs to say "your call is important to us" is trying hard to make you hang up, long before you speak to a human. That 3.8 hours weekly could be used to grow a lot of potatoes.
Luckily there are crops which are cheaper than spuds to grow, with less work and more savings. Lettuce, for example: they produce so much seed that you may get 2000 from one packet; the smaller ones like Buttercrunch will crop in six weeks, and as long as you plant a pinch of seed every month in summer, then more in autumn to see you through winter, you'll easily have a lettuce a day. Fill in the bare spots once you've pulled them out with another veg, like kale.
Kale possibly gives you a bigger crop for less work than any other veg, and may be the hardiest veg too. It can even be ornamental, purple or grey, or frilly. You have to hunt for recipes for kale though. I accidentally found out it makes excellent coleslaw when chopped in a food processor. Deep-fried kale is edible, but a waste of oil that could be frying chips. Stir-fried kale with much garlic and a touch of soy or oyster sauce is delicious - once a week or so.
Silverbeet is a better bet: soup, quiche, stir-fry, or a base for poached eggs. All of the above are a year-round crop. Carrots depend on the variety. Feel how many are in the packet. You may only get 20 of a rare variety, or hundreds for a common one. Both will taste fantastic.
I'm not sure basil and tomatoes are cost effective if judged per kilo, but their deliciousness will lure you back to home-cooked meals, and save you heaps. It's worth knowing that it's almost impossible to over-feed a tomato. A seedling that grew out of a pile of hen manure gave us 50kg of fat red fruit in a few weeks. After 50kg I stopped weighing, but it must have been hundreds by the end of autumn.
You need to enjoy cooking to make the most of choko (pick thumbnail sized, when they don't need peeling, and give any monsters to the chooks), beetroot, bok choi or rhubarb - one well-fed plant will give you enough for a family to add to their morning porridge or muesli, or for jam, chutney, stewed with ice-cream, rhubarb cake or slice. Three zucchini plants will give you ample as well as a desire not to eat another zuchinni till next summer.
Asparagus will save you heaps: the only green veg you'll need from autumn till Christmas, but homegrown is only a budget beater if you buy seeds, not plants, and are prepared to feed for three years till the shoots are big enough to pick.
Our grocery bills have escalated like everyone else's, but not for the fruit and veg. I can't quite bring myself to use lavatera leaves instead of loo paper, though I suspect the septic system could handle it. Or it might not, and a plumber would put a hole in our budget as well as the sewer pipe. I often substitute ground nuts for flour; use homegrown avocado instead of butter (yes, you too can grow avocados, if they're sheltered from the wind). Adding carrot, apple or a perfect pumpkin for sweetness and moisture means little or no sugar or butter is needed for cakes or fritters.
I should have added pumpkins and perennial spring onions to the list above. And a lemon tree, grown from a seed to be frugal, and two cross-pollinating apples, pears, an early and late orange tree, a mandarin, two plums, and an apricot. Again, plant seeds now if you are broke. The seedlings will make excellent gifts in a few months' time, even if their fruit isn't quite like their parents'.
But only if it's fun. That is the one unbreakable rule about budget-beating gardening. If gardening bores you, then the weeds and snail will swallow more veg than you, and any outlay will be lost. Though there's nothing like crunching a just-picked carrot or snow pea to make you change your mind.
This week I am:
- Finally getting rid of gone-to-seed celery, parsley and kale instead of picking off the seed heads to keep them giving leaves, as the new seedlings are big enough to harvest.
- Probably not planting carrots, beans, corn or tomatoes. They'd survive now, but even if I bought plants with tiny tomatoes already on them, they'd ripen the same week as seedlings planted on "tomato day" i.e. when the first of last year's tomato seedlings pops from the ground.
- Picking deep purple iris, baskets of citrus of all kinds, asparagus, avocados and listening to the songs of bees.
- Planting snow peas, and a shop-bought advanced basil plant because I want it yesterday. There'll be seedlings to come, later. I don't quite see the point of snow peas, but the kids love picking them, and they do add elegance on a plate.
- Rejoicing that the peppermint geranium - ok, pelargonium - is finally growing faster than Rosie Wallaby can eat it.
- Watching white and yellow banksia roses put out more blooms every day.
