Which fruit, vegetables and herbs are best value to grow?

[cloudy23]

Hi all,
I'm thinking about starting a little vegetable garden next year, mainly to save a bit of money on the food shop, but I'm not sure if it's actually worth it.
For those of you who grow your own, what has been the best value? Are there any vegetables, fruit or herbs that save you a noticeable amount, or do the costs of compost, pots, seeds and watering end up cancelling out the savings?
I'd love to hear what you've found worthwhile (and what you'd avoid), especially if you're gardening on a budget.
Thanks!

I have a million blackberries in my garden, but I didn't plant them.
My cherry tomatoes taste great but realistically I probably just about broke even money wise.

My parents have two large blueberry bushes that have been going strong for years. There's plenty of blackberries to eat and DM also make jars of jam with the extras.

I would always encourage anyone to start growing herbs and veg, but being realistic as a beginner you are not going to drastically reduce your food bill by growing your own.

Now is a good time to sow coriander, parsley and dill, so that would be a good place to start.

For next year a couple of tomato varieties and cucumbers are easy to grow, and some beans.

I’d go for the expensive to buy, soft fruit and unusual veg, if I was you. Things like carrots, pea and potatoes are cheap to buy in the supermarket, so not worth it in my opinion. You may break even on tomatoes, but the taste will be so much better, if you grow them.

I grow figs, cherries, apples and grapes. Once they are established, you don’t have to spend any money on them, just prune them. I do have two lemon trees, but they are a bit hit or miss because I leave them outside over winter. My mum keeps hers in a cold conservatory overwinter and had dozens of lemons this year.
I’ve just bought a blueberry plant and will buy some bare root raspberries plants over the winter.
Too late now, but next year, I will grow my own salad leaves, spring onions and garlic. Quite fancy growing ginger, pomegranates and ornamental pumpkins too.

When I move and have room, I shall grow asparagus, new potatoes, raspberries and cherries. Possibly gooseberries too.

It depends what you actually eat. If you eat berries (especially raspberries, get autumn fruiting ones) they are a good shout, also herbs.

Salad is excellent. You could sow some autumn salad now I think?

Oh and rhubarb - but you have to wait a couple of years to take a crop. It just looks after itself.

I grow everything in pots as I only have a courtyard but I wouldn't say it saves me any money, I just enjoy it. I tend to grow the very easy stuff..... potatoes, cherry tomatoes, dwarf french beans, radishes, spring onions, lettuce and herbs. I grow chillis in one of those plastic greenhouses I bought from Aldi for about £20 over five years ago. I also have a dwarf apple tree in a big pot. In terms of money saving you'd probably be best focusing on things that are expensive to buy like berries.

It didn't cost me loads in outlay though. All my pots are plastic ones from B&M and I bought compost the first year but then I now mostly make my own. I have a compost bin behind my shed and fill it up with fruit and veg peelings, toilet roll tubes, leaves and any other waste from the garden. I will do that all year, leave it over winter to break down and will have lovely compost to use in my pots the next spring and can start filling the bin back up to start all over again. It's magic really that garden and kitchen waste turns into lovely compost! I top up home-made stuff with a small amount of shop bought if I need to and feed everything with blood, fish and bone powder as it's cheap and a good multi-purpose fertiliser.

As I said, I don't think it saves money but I'm not spraying pesticides in my garden so if comparing it to organic fruit and veg, as local and fresh as it's possible to get then I think it's worth it. It also brings me a huge amount of pleasure.

Courgettes! I must have picked at least 15 so far from one plant, with still a month or so to go. It produces a courgette every 3 days.

They take up a lot of room though, so need a huge pot / raised bed and quite a lot of rich compost (not the peat free woody shite in the shops, I'm talking manure and homemade compost etc.)

From what I can see, tomatoes. They are really easy to grow but expensive in the shops.

You can also grow some veg ( salad stuff) from scraps. Have a google.
I also buy lidl’s cheap potted herbs and then divide them up. Replant them in new compost ( the stuff Lidl uses is rubbish) and grow them on a windowsill. They will keep growing for months. Water them from the bottom though. For some reason, they grow better that way.

Every fruit or vegetable I have grown has cost more than buying the product in the shops.

Our garden was tiny and I had limited time - I used to grow the vegetables I needed to make Christmas lunch, just for the pleasure of it. For the rest of the year, herbs and some raspberries (and a blackcurrant bush that arrived of its own volition!)

Chives - one off purchase of seeds, last for years.

Mint - it will root from a small cutting, but plant it in pots, once it goes into the ground it will spread all over. Our garden smells lovely when we mow the lawn.

Rosemary - buy small plant, put in sunny well-drained spot in flower bed and it looks after itself. Mine has designs on world domination.

Courgettes - you think nothing's happening, then all of a sudden you get so many you have no idea what to do with them.

Cherry tomatoes - do need daily watering, but you get heaps, and they taste so much better than shop bought ones.

Runner beans - take up a lot of room and you only need to buy the seeds once as you can let a couple of seed pods on the current year's plants ripen and store the seeds from them for next year. My dad always did this.

Herbs - mint, chives, sage, rosemary go on forever if looked after (I've had the same pot of chives for 25 years). I grow basil from seed every year, but more or less given upon coriander as it bolts so quickly. I do re-pot supermarket coriander and get longer out of it though.

Soft fruit - strawberries, can get plants cheap in places like Lidl or Aldi, or if you know someone that has them ask for runners to pot on. Take a couple of years to establish and fruit well though.

Salad leaves - I grow these in a window box trough.

Yes there is some outlay for pots, compost etc, but those are more or less one off purchases.

Courgette, salad leaf, mange tout, sugar snap peas, cucumber. Salad leaf is much more delicate than the supermarket and so easy to grow then you would save money.

other easy veg is beetroot, spring onion and overwinter garlic and shallots. My kale was destroyed by slugs.

Swiss chard is good value; you cut the leaves as you need and it grows new ones for months. If you plant some now it will give you fresh leaves all winter. You just stem them a bit like spinach or wilt them at the end of a stir fry.
Like others have said, grow the expensive stuff: berries and greens.

My stepdad has an allotment and even then the most he grows is tomatoes, lettuce, courgettes and cucumbers. You won’t get your food bill down. As a child my mum had an apple tree and she conserved apples in Kilner jars but that’s puddings.

DB and SIL are trying to grow things like herbs, tomatoes and so on but as it’s their first year in a house with a garden they’re trying things out.

I used to grow a lot of veg in pots. The most successful were things that were lovely freshly picked. Peas, runner beans, salad leaves, tomatoes (in a greenhouse - no success outside as in North west), and herbs. Herbs are expensive to buy and I found I used more if I could just go outside and pick them - parsely, basil, coriander, oregano and mint.

I managed to grow purple sprouting brocolli in a huge pot - but it wasn't really worth it - and also new potatoes - they taste fab just out of the pot.

herbs and salad - that does pay for itself - a small packet of seed lasts all spring through to autumn if you sow a small pinch every 3 weeks or so.

Everything else - you can probably buy it cheaper in the shops ...

Chives, if you buy them dried they cost more than silver gram for gram

Easy to grow even with neglect: potatoes (i dont buy seeds, i halve and plant the ones that have started to germ in my pantry).
tomatoes and berries: need regular watering
pear: i boight a “patio” variety but it never fruited while in a pot. I planted in soil and three years later i had 14 pears! The squirrels mafia took their protection money and left one single pear….

I agree Swiss chard is good, it self seeds year after year if you are lucky.

I have two small apple trees that put out loads of apples each year. We have to freeze the excess as they don't keep. I give lots away as well. My pear tree is variable from year to year, but it's taken a few years to get going. The cherry tree doesn't put out many cherries.

I find the apple trees like lots of water, fresh dirt and fertiliser each year, especially in the early years and I spray early spring and early winter for fungus and overwintering pests. The pear tree is more susceptible to those though. The only thing the apples really get are aphids, which can eat the blossoms and prevent fruit forming. They're pretty hardy trees though.

Grape vines are easy to grow and ours put out loads of grapes. They do seem to have pips in. They need a fair amount of water otherwise the grapes don't plump up. They like a very sunny position. They don't seem to get any diseases or pests.

Peas and green beans are good, I've always got enough to freeze and could eat them every day. Courgettes will absolutely wallop you given the chance. You'll be praying for them to stop. Lettuces, again I'll have enough to eat them every day.

Grow what you eat! We've grown loads of potatoes, carrots (the taste difference between shop bought and homegrown is unreal), green beans, corn, courgette, cucumbers, squashes, strawberries, lettuces, radishes, kale, leeks and parsnips. Plus loads of tomatoes and peppers in the greenhouse. It's been lovely not buying any salad bits, spuds or veg this summer and I'm now getting ready for autumn sowing and growing

Spring onions and leeks will keep growing if you cut to just above the root. Tomatoes, especially cherry ones are the best thing we’ve ever grown. Baby cucumbers too, loads from one £3 plant.