My love of growing your own started from seeing Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s early River Cottage programmes, when he filmed from the original gamekeepers cottage in Dorset (above, being pilgrimaged/stalked by me).
I was transfixed by the resourcefulness of smallholder mentality and his cheery way of life. Soon I was signing up for an allotment and spending evenings decamped by our local estuary trying to catch fish for dinner.
River Cottage has of course grown from charming television entertainment for us dreamers, to highly influential food and animal welfare campaigner.
The latest campaign is Hugh’s Fish Fight, arguably the most important yet. Click here to show your support.
In 2007, I took on a redundant allotment plot with my gardening-mad mum Jan. As all good mums do, she went along with it, but I don’t think she held out much hope.
During 2011, I kept a diary of how much money I save from growing my own fruit and vegetables.
After totalling all my outgoings, I saved approximately £500 over the year.
I made a spreadsheet to calculate these savings - it’s nothing too complicated, as I’m no Excel guru, but hopefully someone else will find it as useful (and strangely fun) as me.
For more info,