My late grandad always grew his veg. Ever the opportunist, when he ate amazing tomatoes for lunch on a Spanish holiday he kept the seeds in a napkin and planted them at home. For maybe the next 30 or 40 years he grew tomatoes from the seeds of each years crop.
He grew them outside too! Being Southampton they got loads of sun and he watered twice a day religiously. The outside toms and the inside ones at times had simply the thickest and toughest skins imaginable because of the UK climate. You'd run out of tomato flavour long before you chewed the tomato skins down enough to swallow!
I respected my grandad a lot for his skills. He knew so much and got such a good result out of his efforts. Very much old school growing. I think the older generations in the family has plantsmen history, and one great granddad I heard had a business growing plants to supply many different gardens and other nurseries probably around the 1900s or earlier.
The best thing was in WWII he was rail worker so had to stay driving goods trains into London. Had to keep London stocked with Guinness stout! To pad out the rations he bartered, possibly illegal but everyone did it if they could. That extended his whole life. I remember as a late teenager staying with him and helping him carry a decent crop of spare veg to a little outside market in a suburb two buses along. He had a butcher who took whatever he had because it was really good veg. He did well for meat and never bought bacon. He had a full English every day of his life as an adult and most of it was with free bacon.
You can do it, anyone can do it, but it takes effort and knowledge. Knowledge you can develop, even the hard way but you can. Effort is something different. Not everyone can put that in for various reasons from lazy to too busy with family or other life things. Time and effort gets you your homegrown veg of you have them.
Mind you on a shady, steep hill with very little soil above the bedrock just below the soil level in places we do have some issues. Rhubarb is doing well in the borders created by the retaining walls of our patio. Planted last year or year before. It disappeared completely autumn last year and we thought it was gone. Then last month something appeared out of the soil, like a root mass. Then the shoots and leaves. We'll be cropping next month at the latest I think.
In a clearance following the felling of a huge leylandii tree we planted a plum tree two years ago. A December birthday pressie that got delivered in the new year ready for planting. Two years it looked dead. This year there's a lot of green starting to open up. Typical small tree, takes some time to develop the root system. I often think bare whips are better than 1m plus trees garden centres sell. A whip often grows on quicker than such older trees because of the need for roots to grow. Still I'm thinking 5 years plus before anything comes out.
We're hoping our next house will have a smaller garden and a flat one we can grow stuff in better. A steep, rocky, limestone slope isn't great for growing.
Btw it's good to tap into your knowledge and experience through your vids British red, and Fiona's too
. I cook a LOT of Chinese meals so garlic, ginger, shallots & spring onions I go through a lot.
