Financial Victory 2013

As you may have noticed, I didn’t post one of these for 2012. It was a shocking year for us in the UK, weather-wise, and despite repeated sewings and nurturings and plantings out, the endless rain caused everything I planted to either rot or be eaten by slugs before any fruit managed to form. We had some strawberries and some raspberries (although pretty poor showings compared with other years) and I think I may have had a tomato or two, but otherwise, nothing. Not even a single courgette to show for the 6 courgette plants we planted out at various intervals.

2013 was a different story. We had enough sunshine in between the showers to give the plants a chance to grow and although the harvest was late and not as good as 2011, it wasn’t bad at all. As with previous years, I’ve used Tesco prices as a base, using their basic range of goods for comparison and rounding down. I’ve also not included herbs.

Last note: this year I have only included ‘savings’ where we would have bought an equivalent amount. For example, we ate far more lettuce and spinach than we would ever have normally purchased, just because we were growing it, so it didn’t seem to right to call that a saving. We can never grow enough fruit though, which is where over half of the financial savings come from.