Eating From the Tin Bath - A Confession

What am I confessing?

Well I could have done so much more with this, so much more!!

I planted out the tin bath back in May and posted about it HERE.  The top picture shows the bath just planted, this picture shows it one month later, with the pea plants just showing through and the radishes doing well.

This is at the beginning of July, we had eaten the first flush of radishes, the lettuces had been eaten by slugs and we were chomping through a handful of pea shoots in most of our salads.

By the end of the month we had eaten  lots of pea shoots but then decided to let the rest grow big and strong and there were lots of pods forming.  There were a constant stream of radishes to go in all our salads.



August saw us eating lots of peas, some cooked and in meals but lots pulled off and nibbled on while we were out and about doing various jobs around the place, after all who can resist homegrown peas straight from the pod as a delightful snack, they are so moreish!!  We also ate some of the spring onions and the final flourish of  radishes.



At the start of this week the tin bath looked like this, I pulled up the last of the spring onions and harvested the pea pods that we had purposefully left to dry out on the plants. 

These were such good peas we wanted to keep at least a good handful of our own seeds for next year.



At the start of yesterday the tin bath looked like this, now it is empty and all the compost has been used to fill in holes in the paddocks where the chickens had been making many dust baths, grass seed has been sprinkled on and watered in and hopefully the paddock when we move out will look as lush and fresh as when we moved in.

So even the compost from the tin bath was put to good use.

As you can see from the information on the sidebar -

Cost to Plant up Tin Bath - £1.30 +12p

11 x Radishes - half bunch @ 35p

6 x Pea Shoots - 1/4 bag @ 25p

6 x bowls of podded peas @ 1.25

2 bunches of spring onions @ 70p

Value of Veggies Eaten from the Bath = £14.25

- we did quite well out of the small planting space, but I could have done so much better.

I could have filled in gaps as soon as they appeared, I could have squeezed more into the space, so much more, and if this was all the space I had to grow edible foods I would have done.  It has shown me that no matter how much space you have available to grow you can grow your own.  If you have outdoor space use whatever receptacles you can think of ...

... don't just think outside of the box plant in it !!

If you have no space outdoors at the very least have three or four of your favourite herbs growing on your windowsill and a tub of mustard and cress available for use at all times, something that children love to grow.

Sue xx

Simple September - Top Tip #4

Grow your own, in any way you can. 

Grow something and the growing bug will get you, you will taste the freshest of fresh food and want to try the next thing.  Herbs, radishes, spring onions, choose the smallest of veggies to start with and as you gain in confidence move on to the foods you love to eat.  If you don't have much room don't grow things like Onions or Asparagus which need lots of space, onions can be cheaper than cheap in the shops at the height of the season so take advantage of that and instead grow something that you would pay a lot more for.  Asparagus has a pretty short season of availability so make good use of it while it is available but leave space in your veggie plot for plants that don't mind being crowded together while they grow.  (I'll show you a brilliant example of this in another post.)

If you have a flower garden pick some edibles to grow that have lovely little flowers, a row of Strawberry plants at the front of the flower bed take up little room and look wonderful at the start of the season when they are in full flower, glorious when in full fruit and equally pretty with their delicate little shaped leaves when they are not in flower or fruiting.

Make space to grow something that you eat, you really will feel the benefit for it both in your purse and in your tummy.