Everything's costing more these days! The price
rises are relentless but gardening can come to the rescue if you know what to grow for the best
returns! Hi I'm Ben and today I'm going to share my pick of the crop to combat inflation. These
are all high value crops that will trim the most from your grocery bill, saving you money! What are
they? Well let's count them down! Salad leaves of all types should comprise a regular feature
of any diet and they're incredibly easy to grow! Those pre-bagged salads you get in the
grocery store aren't very good value for money and it's because the atmosphere inside the
packaging is often treated to extend the shelf life. Of course as a gardener none of that
matters! Grow your own salad bar and you can pop out to cut your own leaves as and when they're
needed. This is my salad bed here. It's early in the season so things are still quite early on but
you can see the lettuces I planted a few weeks ago are coming along okay. And if you look over there
I've got some delicious pea shoots coming through. Can't wait to tuck into those! Look, I know
I've got a habit of banging on about chard so I will keep this brief- but
please don't forget to include one or two rows of beautiful leafy chard for
many many months of fresh spinach-like greens. OK so berries aren't strictly speaking one
crop, but the concept holds across all of them. They're really abundant, they cost
an absolute fortune in the grocery store and once you've planted them they will keep
on cropping for years to come. The cheapest way to buy them is bare root when the plants
are dormant in winter. It's a bit late in the season to find them bare rooted now but you can
buy them as ready-to-plant potted plants too. These raspberries went in last month and I'm
looking forward to good things! And this blueberry has burst into leaf with gusto. It's been in this
pot for about a year and a half now so I reckon it's time to pot it on into a slightly larger pot,
so let's do that now. I'm just going to use a pot that's a little bit wider and deeper than the
one it's been in. And I'm using an ericaceous potting mix which is just a potting mix that's
acidic, which is what blueberries need to grow. Most berries will grow best in full sunshine,
though some like my raspberries and indeed gooseberries here will grow quite well in dappled
shade. The trick though is to keep on picking them to keep those delicious berries coming! You can
freeze berries; it's so easy to do. Just spread them out individually onto parchment lined trays,
pop them in the freezer till they're frozen solid, bring them out, then decant them into bags or
containers to then pop back into the freezer. Who doesn't love sweetcorn?! Pick them fresh,
smother them in butter and pepper and then crunch down onto them. Just delicious! But for this list
I'd like to propose a different type of corn for drying and grinding up into cornmeal. If you've
got plenty of space this is a great way to boost the pantry. And you can make your own tortillas,
corn dogs or cornbread. Some varieties of corn can be eaten fresh as sweet corn and then left to dry
for grinding, but what we're really looking for, for grinding, the best ones are dent type
of corns. If you're unsure just check the packet description to make sure it is suitable
for this purpose. It's warmed up lately so I reckon it's time to sow my corn for this year.
I'm just going to sow them into modules as usual, just one seed per plug and that way there's
no need to sort of remove any excess seedlings because most of these should germinate I reckon.
They'll be grown on in the warmth indoors at around room temperature and then hardened off
later on to plant outside. Now when it comes to planting the corn I'll be planting it in a block
formation and that's to aid wind pollination, so that each cob is full of kernels. With the corn
for grinding I'm going to leave the cobs on the plant to dry out to a crisp there and then bring
them indoors to continue drying. They'll then get shucked and the kernels stored in airtight jars
until it's time to grind them up into cornmeal. Next up on our list might be a bit of a surprise;
it's mushrooms! Really? Well yes! And especially oyster mushrooms, which are really expensive in
the shops but pretty easy to grow. The easiest way to grow mushrooms is just to use a kit like this.
Now this one I've just harvested and I'll spray it repeatedly to get it nice and wet again and I
should get another flush or even two! Now this is the very simplest kit to use, but if you want to
save even more money use a kit that employs straw pellets to which you add your spores (that's just
the seeds that start the mushroom off). I've done a video on both these types of kits and there's a
link to them in the video description down below. The cost of herbs is insane! Why, when you can
grow them so easily?! Now this is my compact herb bed. You've already met the elephant garlic
here but there's also a lot more going on here and it's all been propagated from cuttings
or split up plants. We've got thyme here, mint and rosemary, all taken from cuttings
last summer. Then we've got parsley grown from a grocery store bought pot that was then just
split apart to grow on and then oregano or oregano from a plant in the garden that was also split
up. And joining it will be some basil shortly. And here's some parsley that I split
up a couple of weeks ago from a grocery store bought pot and you can see they're coming
along really well. A few leaves have died back; I've clipped those off but we've now
got really healthy strong green growth in the middle of the plants. These will
go out once they've filled up the pots in about two weeks time. If you'd like to
see a video on this 'split up, repot and grow on' method of growing herbs then I'll pop
a link to that in the video description below. What I love about growing herbs is how easy they
are to grow and the fact they give such a boost to mealtimes! They're also terribly good for you
too of course. Then there's the fact that they can be stored for use later on, whether freezing in
ice cubes or drying to flake into airtight jars or using to create infused vinegars and oils. Grow
a range of herbs and save more than just pennies! So I mentioned that garlic makes an excellent
companion to potatoes and that's because their pungent pong helps to dissuade aphids, so it's
a great companion. And as it just so happens potatoes are next on our list! Now I read an
article recently that said that famous British staple of fish and chips is going to rocket
in price because everything that goes into it is also skyrocketing and that includes
the humble potato. Who'd have thought it?! It seems that potatoes are no longer as cheap
as chips! Well these are my potatoes and they've all been sprouted or chitted already. You can
see that they've got slightly small shoots, but shoots nonetheless. The soil is nice and warm now,
it's not cold to the touch, so it's time to get on and plant them. I'm going to plant them about 18
inches (or 45 centimetres) apart and they're going in about 15 centimeters (or six inches) deep and
30 centimeters (or a foot) distant within the row, and these garlic will help defend them from those
aphids. When you're planting of course do make sure that you get the shoots, the little green
shoots pointing upwards and then once they sprout I'll be hilling them or earthing them up. And that
simply means banking up the soil around the shoots so that they're covered. And what that does is it
gives more volume if you like, for the tubers to grow into, so you don't get those unsightly green
potatoes. Go go garlic! This breath-bashing bulb makes it into about 90% of the recipes I cook!
Too much? Whatever! I love it! Now this garlic is going to be grown alongside my potatoes because it
makes a great companion plant. It gets very wet in my garden so I started these off in the greenhouse
in pots. They didn't need to be in a greenhouse but just to keep them protected from the pigeons
and deer and so on. And these guys here are my elephant garlic. They produce absolute whoppers
of a bulb! Can't wait to tuck into those! With all of my garlic I like to enjoy some fresh and then
cure and store some to enjoy later on in the year. But another plan for any excess garlic I've got is
to turn it into garlic granules or garlic powder. To make a garlic powder, just peel the individual
cloves then cut them up into thin slices. Spread them out on a tray and dehydrate at 150 fahrenheit
or 65 celsius. Once dry, whisk them up in a spice grinder or food processor then store in airtight
jars where they should keep for at least a year. In my local grocery store, zucchini or courgettes
come in packs of three and they cost quite a bit even during the growing season. This is a
famously prolific fruit so I'm not sure why they cost so much. I grow them and they keep on
cropping, coming again and again and again and I just can't get rid of them! I'm pretty sure
I annoy my neighbours by trying to thrust them onto them! Never mind! I'm going to do the same
this year because look what I've got! I've got two varieties: a beautiful ribbed courgette or
zucchini and a lovely yellow fruited type. I can't wait! They're going to be so pretty. I'm
going to plant them out into ground that's been really enriched with loads of organic matter and
then it's the usual trick; keep them well watered, help maybe with a spot of hand pollination
early on in the summer and then pick and pick, pick, oh and pick again! We can't not have
tomatoes on our list! But decent-tasting, vine ripened tomatoes cost a premium in the shops,
probably because they have to be grown for a bit longer and transported with extra care. But the
gardener doesn't need to worry about all of that! This year I'm growing three types of
tomato: a paste type for making sauces, a delicious little red cherry type for snacking
and for salads and a big, bold beef steak tomato called 'burlesque'. Let's pot them on because
they're ready to transplant into their own pots. These are the burlesque here. And with tomatoes
the old trick (you probably know this already) is to set them right up to their lowest leaves
because they will produce extra roots along their stem and it means that if you do get a slightly
longer seedling it gives that extra support, so you'll get stockier plants as a end result of
it. Once the tomatoes have grown on and there's no danger of frost, most will be going outside. I'm
not too worried about tomato blight; my plants got whacked with blight last year but the harvested
fruits that we managed to save were turned into chutneys and fried green tomatoes and many of them
did actually ripen. The rest will be grown inside the greenhouse here in the straw bales, which will
be having their second year. And I'll be popping basil plants in there to help with companion
planting. Tomatoes can be a bit slow to start in my cool climate so I will be doing everything
possible to help them, to speed things along, including artificially pollinating the flowers
with an electric toothbrush! But once they get going, they crop and crop and crop so it's a
real winner! I'll be sure to keep on picking them and then any excess will be turned into all
manner of beautiful tomato sauces and pasatas. Beans of all types are remarkably prolific, but
for me it's climbing beans that take home the trophy! And I love two particular types: runner
beans and beautiful French or fine beans. I've got to sow some right now actually, it's the time
of year and I'm going to sow some borlotti beans. These are fantastic beans because they
can be picked fresh to enjoy as delicious green beans and then left to mature all the way
till the pods dry out to harvest dry like these to store for winter. These are really beautiful
speckled seeds, they're so pretty. I'm going to sow two per plug tray about an inch to two inches
(that's say three to four five centimeters) deep and I'm going to sow two per plug and then
I can thin to leave the strongest in there. There they all are. Don't they look pretty?! And
then just cover them over. I'm going to germinate them in the warmth, probably indoors actually on
a windowsill and then once they're up they'll come out here to grow on. I'm going to plant most
of my beans against these beautiful arches but I also love traditional bean supports
too, so let's make one of those right now! I'm just finishing off my bean frame here with
two parallel rows of string. And what that does is it just helps the beans sort of latch
on and find their way up. Now why do beans why do climbing beans make it into our
top ten? Well I think it's fairly obvious; they're very prolific. The more you pick the more
they come! And over the course of the summer they will give you handfuls and handfuls of delicious
beans. And then what about all the excess? Well it's easy! They're so easy to freeze: just simply
cook them for one to two minutes in boiling water, plunge them into cold water to stop them cooking
and then freeze them and they'll last throughout the winter months. Furthermore (and this is
something I really recommend) is dilly beans; that's beans canned in a sort of pickling
solution with dill, garlic and chilies. It gives a really quite sensational feast let me
tell you! So by growing these delicious climbing beans I'll have fresh beans to pick as and when
needed, beans for freezing to enjoy throughout the winter months and delicious dilly beans to
enjoy throughout the year! I've done a video on canning with that recipe for dilly beans and
I'll pop it in the video description below. Have I mentioned everything you
thought I'd mention or is there an inflation-busting crop you'd highly
recommend? Well if there is, please do share what it is in the comments below! It's been
a real pleasure having you in the garden today and sharing all these little ideas with you. If you've
enjoyed it all I ask in return is you drop this video a thumbs up and subscribe if you haven't
already of course! I'll catch you next time.
