Quote ="Musky"Has anybody ever tried growing their own? We have a reasonable size garden and are thinking of putting a few fruit bushes and basic veg such as lettuce, beetroot, spuds etc. have registered on the growfruitandveg.co.uk forum for help on planning my plot buth thought i would ask here too.'" I'd suggest that unless you are planting heritage spuds to stick to growing the more expensive stuff and leaving the spuds to the supermarket, unless your reasonable size is something like a football pitch. Beans and peas of all varieties go well, carrots, parsnips, swedes, turnips and beets can last a while in the ground making the season last quite well and can be frozen too. Salads like lettuce and cucumber will save you money as will stuff like cabbages and cauliflower. Another site you'll need is www.allotment-garden.org/recipe/ for all the glut of veg you'll have.

Quote ="Musky"Has anybody ever tried growing their own? We have a reasonable size garden and are thinking of putting a few fruit bushes and basic veg such as lettuce, beetroot, spuds etc. have registered on the growfruitandveg.co.uk forum for help on planning my plot buth thought i would ask here too.'" I'd suggest that unless you are planting heritage spuds to stick to growing the more expensive stuff and leaving the spuds to the supermarket, unless your reasonable size is something like a football pitch. Beans and peas of all varieties go well, carrots, parsnips, swedes, turnips and beets can last a while in the ground making the season last quite well and can be frozen too. Salads like lettuce and cucumber will save you money as will stuff like cabbages and cauliflower. Another site you'll need is www.allotment-garden.org/recipe/ for all the glut of veg you'll have.

Quite so and it is as well to mention that salad leaves and radishes etc can very easily be grown in-and-among the existing plants in your garden as quick-growing catch-crops, i.e. they germinate, grow, leaf-up and are harvested and eaten long before any other plant needs the space where you sowed them.
Plus beetroot, beans, peas, carrots etc don't always have to be planted in regimented monocultured rows and do look very decorative in the gaps amongst flowers, especially in a cottage-garden style setting but also in more formal borders.

I wish radishes were easy. In two years, with countless sowings, I've yet to harvest a single one.

Good for you !
It is amazing to be walking past a town-centre flower bed and suddenly notice trusses of lovely-looking tomatoes at the back of the bed ... and then start to notice everything else that is in there.

Traffic islands, for example, must amount to thousands of acres costing goodness-knows how much to maintain that, if handed-over, would be maintained for free by keen and hungry veggie growers.

Thank you, El B.

Would the gardeners have to wear high viz vests?

Last year ours didn't flesh-out but were just spindly seedlings that refused to mature but, this year, we are now on our second crop.
La Senora, who was a total novice, simply sowed them in compost in a trough and watered them diligently (with a rose-spouted can, so as not to wash the seeds around) and they took a mere few weeks.

Have another go.

I have heard of councils who cite elf'n safety to prevent people from "guerilla gardening" but there is a kind of person who sees that as a challenge.
And good for them, say I.

Some of the finest tomato plants I've ever seen were growing wild on Albert & Alexendra docks in Hull. They were obviously from the faeces of dockers who were too idle or taken too short to make their way to the toilet blocks. Bloody tasty they were too.

About 10 years ago I was helping a friend source beers and ciders for his annual beer festival. We were out and about visiting micro breweries in Norfolk & Suffolk and I came across an enourmous pile of horse dung that was covered in the green, red and gold of marigold leaves & flowers. I filled two carrier bags with them and munched my way through them over the next couple of days

I used to see tomatoes growing on the fringes of an actual sewage works.
I never tasted them as they were out of reach on t'other side of the fence but local lore was that they were self-sown from the obvious source (alimentary my dear Watson) and were splendid.

I do hope you washed these bounteous gifts of Mother Nature?

Yep.
We did some maintenance work at a sewerage plant in Wakey.
Thousands of tommies.
A jungle of them.

Don't be soft, I'm a Yorkshireman

good lad...
I was in the catering industry for a long while & to a fairly high level. Was a H&S trainer/assessor, risk assessment auditor amonst many other things. Washing stuff when I was a chef used to get on my goat & more so when watching staff as a manager wasting time washing fruit, toms, mushrooms, even cucumbers ffs!
Sure for a sandy or aphid ridden lettuce & other greens with soil in them but most stuff just isn't worth bothering with as it's totally ineffective at removing any surface pesticide residue

As it's Monday, it's Whinge Time !!

My pathetic whinge today is about food names, or, more specifically, mispronunciations of foods on food programmes etc.

Rösti is correctly pronounced Röschti (Rurr-shti), not Ross-ti.
Chorizo is Chor-ee-tho, not Chor-its-o.
Jalapeño is Hal-a-pen-yo, not Jalla-peeno.
Croissant is pronounced C[size=150R[/sizeoissant, not Kwa-sont.
Döner is Durner, not Donner.

Any more to add?
Let's get 'em out in the open.

Corn beef ash, is correctly pronounced Corned beef- hash.

Jeez, you are pernickety.

I recently picked up 3.75 kilos of thin-skinned baby limes for £5, so I've set about making another batch of lime pickle, only this time with a couple of differences. I've used Pakistani black salt to start the fermenting process off, the stuff isn't black, it's a pinkish brown colour and absolutely stinks of sulphur. I've so far managed to fill four large kilner jars and they'll sit in the sun for a few days before I add the remaining ingredients that will this time include asafoetida. Other ingredients include: fennel seeds, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, fenugreek seeds (all ground), nigella seeds, turmeric powder, chilli powder, grated ginger, whole garlic cloves, whole chillies and mustard oil. The four jars will probably make two jars, once the limes have collapsed.

I've never bought a jar of lime pickle for years now and rarely eat the stuff they serve in Indian restaurants. I'm just about to decant 1 1/2 jars that I started a couple of months ago and have been merrily baking on my patio in this glorious sunshine.

Another thing that you tea drinkers may wish to try is Sun Tea. Just put a couple of spoonsfull of green tea into a large glass jug, quarter a couple of lemons, top up with cold water, cover with a clean tea-towel and let it brew in the sun for a few hours. Stuff it in the fridge and serve chilled

Asafoetida is a truly wonderful spice.

Bought a very small olive tree last year for ornamental purposes. It weathered the winter fine, though – and is now actually fruiting.

I may actually have home-grown olives!

Went fishing yesterday, not too productive on the fish front but came home with half-a-dozen mackerel (including one well over 1lb), two black bream and one plaice. I then went to see my mate Bob the Crab and swapped a £20 note for two medium and one large cock crabs plus two 5-700 gramme lobsters.

Not too shabby a return on the day

You'd find a similar going rate in some of the estates round Leigh, only without the lobsters.

Had mackerel this morning for brekkie with some bread and Lurpak spreadable.
Was feeling a bit ropey after yesterdays celebrations but I got it down.
I

That ends a bit abruptly, "I.....urrrrgh"

Are you alright ?

Fish bones?

I think so.
Tell you when I have an alcohol free body.

#donotdrinkalitrebottleofsmirnoffonatwohourcoachjourneythengoonthep!ssforfourhoursbeforeagame