This made me angry!!

Is there a hidden link between the Mail and the Supermarkets???:skp:
This is just a trash article from a trash Daily.

 

I wonder what i am doing wrong? I grow as many of my own veg and sell the surplus at about or just above the supermarket price and have made a profit as well as getting our veg free There is also no comparison in quality. My wife revels in the fact that she can choose from 4 different types of stored potato, depending on its use. My customers can also buy varieties not in the supermarket. When i did the farmers' market last week I was the only place in town selling Jerusalem Artichokes and mine were also grown without use of chemicals.
My chickens don't pay for themselves if you count the house and netting in the budget for a year, but then i expect those things to last quite a long time. However the eggs are something else. In terms of pellets, corn and bedding they more than pay for themselves with the money they bring in and we get all the eggs we need as well.
Bees don't need a lot of time. If you spend too long inspecting the bees it disturbs the bees . I reckon on 5 minutes or less/ inspection unless something complicated needs doing. Honey extracting takes more time but then its worth a lot - £5/lb. Though selling it in smaller pots and the price goes up. i made £200+ from one hive this year and a £50 prize for showing honey. Next year I should hopefully have 5 or 6 hives in production. £400 for a hive? You can get a polystyrene hive for about £100 and once you get your colony you produce your own queens or get swarms. One of my queens produced three new queens this year. Certainly most of the bee keepers i know seem to make a bit of money. Not a lot but enough to allow them to buy nice equipment and the honey is better than the imported sugarey **** that the supermarkets sell as honey.
Breadmaking - I started making bread when I became ill with heart disease and then we got a bread maker. We do not buy bread now. It is infinitely cheaper than supermarket bread and we eat bread that we enjoy eating. Most shop bought bread has a texture of damp cardboard and does anyone enjoy eating it?
I went back to growing veg because as a gardener I missed the satisfaction of eating what i grew. But i also wanted to know what went into my food (or rather what did not go into my food) - I don't particularly want my potatoes as an example sprayed with herbicide. Now we eat better quality food. When i visit the supermarket i see veg for sale that is of quality I would throw on the compost heap or end up as chicken food. I have a choice of variety and it is not determined by what the supermarket decide I should have.
Growing my own food means our quality if life has improved. We have variety and the quality is just in a different league. In this country there is a tradition of buying food at the cheapest price possible. Personally I would prefer to pay a bit more for something nice than pay less for rubbish. We have an example on our market of a guy who makes meat pies using good quality local ingredients. What would you prefer? One of his pies or a cheaper supermarket pie that contains mechanically recovered meat (meat slurry).

 

Spoken like a true Gentleman Geoff. You've summed up the true spirit of growing your own.:thumb:

I love popping into Tescos to see how much i've saved by picking the watercress that grows next to the store.

 

Tescos is our local store. In the summer I saw their cauliflowers and, no exaggeration, i had thrown away caulis better than theirs. Mind you I had some stunners. I was going to sell them at the Country Markets stall but never got them to the gate. Some workers at the little hand cream factory saw them and made me a better offer!
I am trying to work out how to get more veg next year. i mainly sell plants but the veg has proved to be a nice little earner. Certainly there seems to be a lot of people who, unlike the excuse for a journalist, would prefer to buy veg, eggs and honey with a known provenance.
I wish i had room and the right soil for a couple of pigs ....and sheep.

 

I think what annoyed me most was that to me, the article was slating thoseof us that choose to grow our own fruit, veg and flowers.

I have only recently become a serious gardener. Instead of being sat in front of the TV or something equally less rewarding, I now spend free time reading about how to grow plants of all kinds from seed.

I know that I am very fortunate that I have the money to spend on my garden to get things how I want them. However, I set a budget and decided that although it would be nice to buy all brand new materials and equipment, I had access to some perfectly good reclaimed materials.

I have four chickens and thier total cost to set up was around £150, including a brand new house and the wire for thier enclosure. They have repaid that money ten times over simply in the quality of the eggs they produce.

How can anybody put a financial value on learning new skills, making friends, reducing stress and anger levels? Not to mention things like protecting natural resources without adding chemicals. I use more than enough chemicals and man made materials in building and riding custom bikes. To put things into perspective. My Ultima El Bruto chop has a 10 inch wide rear tyre. These are only available from a few manufacturers. Becuase of the huge power from the engine, the bike needs to be fitted with the most sticky tyre available, otherwise the bike will crab under acceleration. These tyres cost me £270 EACH! To me it is worth the cost as I just love the bike and riding it. I get about 1500 miles per tyre.

My complete polytunnel including all the extras cost me £1550. Guaranteed quality and use for five years. I have no idea just how many plants I can grow in the tunnel in that time. Nor how many I will be able to sell. Nor how many will produce edible fruit and veg for my home.

Ziggy and I spent about an hour sat in my tunnel with a cuppa and a slice of cake, putting the world to rights and getting to know each other. I learned from Ziggy some very useful tips. HOW MUCH WAS THAT WORTH?

For me, the gardening has become a whole new life experience. Bonus for the general public is that I cannot be angry when I am out in the garden. Everybody wins.

Chopper.

 

It was blooming good cake too.

I've just sat the kids & I down to a roast sunday lunch of my own spuds & parsnips followed by stewed apple topped with rose hip syrup.

Priceless.