How a lot meals are you able to develop in a concrete yard?

To indicate that it is potential to develop numerous meals – even when you do not have a backyard – I have been measuring the burden and worth of the meals grown in containers in our small concrete again yard in Newcastle, UK, from 1 Might to 31 October this 12 months. This continues the experiments I did on my London balcony – in barely extra space however in a cooler local weather and a rented house.

So, how a lot are you able to develop in pots in six months? Quick drum roll…..

53.6 kg (118 lbs) with an approximate store worth of £548 ($879).

The harvest included over 50 completely different crops together with (in grocery store equivalents):

• 110 luggage of salad
• 82 punnets tomatoes
• 70 packs of herbs
• 36 luggage of recent beans and peas
• 32 punnets of fruit

You possibly can see a extra detailed abstract of the harvest beneath – and a daily breakdown of every harvest right here.

Greater than cash

After all it is about way more than the burden or worth of produce. The worth to us as a household is much larger.

Store purchased veg style skinny and watery compared to the singing flavours of our homegrown.

It is good for our well being, too. Very recent meals is larger in precious vitamins – and with salad rising fairly actually on our doorstep, we eat it inside minutes of choosing. You possibly can’t get more energizing than that!

We additionally get the satisfaction of massively lowering our meals waste. That is notably comforting in mild of current information reported by the BBC that an unbelievable 68% salad leaves are wasted in UK supermarkets. We solely choose the salad leaves we eat.

And all our different waste meals – espresso grounds, banana skins and many others – is recycled in a wormery (good for small areas) to make a wealthy compost and nice fertiliser for the crops.

However, above all, as a household we get a lot pleasure and satisfaction from rising the meals, watching the vegetation develop, and harvesting it for our meals.

We even have the bonus of having fun with all of the birds, bees and butterflies that now go to our beforehand lifeless concrete house.

 

Left: the lifeless concrete yard firstly of the 12 months is reworked into an area filled with vegetation and buzzing with life in the summertime!

Might you develop much more than this?

The reply is a particular sure!

This was the primary 12 months I might grown right here. It takes a number of seasons (not less than) to discover ways to develop most productively in a brand new house. Sadly I will not have the chance to discover what is feasible right here as we transfer once more within the New 12 months.

How was the worth calculated?

To calculate the worth of the meals, I used the web costs for the UK grocery store, Waitrose. I selected Waitrose, a top quality grocery store, to replicate the standard of house grown meals. Though you should buy recent greens at decrease value, pricing our harvests on the most cost-effective grocery store costs would undervalue them, I really feel. Certainly, most of what we develop is more energizing, higher high quality and tastier than you should buy in any store!

Additionally, as a result of there’s much less waste (no wilting luggage of salad at the back of the fridge!), the true worth of the harvest is doubtlessly larger than the sum calculated (if that is smart?).

How a lot meals was grown in containers – and the the grocery store equal