Going cheap

[Oliver Buckle]

I quite often see people saying something is cheap somewhere, so I thought how about a thread to bring those things together and easily find them.

I'll start.
The price of compost has gone up, 2x50litre bags are £14 at my local garden centre, and not much cheaper if I drive miles to B&Q. However, in Sainsbury's the other day with the missus they had, in the foyer, 2x 40 litre bags for £8. 14.00 divided by 100 =14 per litre; 8.00 divided by 80 =10 per litre, that's a big difference. It's Levington's so should be reasonable quality.
I can drive to Bexhill retail park and get it a bit cheaper than the garden centre at B&Q or Wickes, but not that much, and Wickes' is all wood chips and wood fibre, horrid.

 

[redback]

Olive oil has rocketed up from $5 - $10 per liter to $15 - $30 per liter. A shortage of supply is blamed. I have a pantry and did have two three-liter tins of the oil stored as backup should I run out. So far, I haven't had to buy any at the high price. I recommend buying the three- or four-liter cans and decanting into 750ml. bottles (with pourer) for everyday use.
I do have two Kalamata olive trees which are producing olives and two years ago I picked and salted the olives. The farmer down the road knows where to get olives crushed into oil locally. Up until now I haven't bothered but the current prices are ludicrous.
BTW rice bran oil is cheap and a good high temperature frying oil (add butter for taste).

 

[Sean Regan]

I quite often see people saying something is cheap somewhere, so I thought how about a thread to bring those things together and easily find them.

I'll start.
The price of compost has gone up, 2x50litre bags are £14 at my local garden centre, and not much cheaper if I drive miles to B&Q. However, in Sainsbury's the other day with the missus they had, in the foyer, 2x 40 litre bags for £8. 14.00 divided by 100 =14 per litre; 8.00 divided by 80 =10 per litre, that's a big difference. It's Levington's so should be reasonable quality.
I can drive to Bexhill retail park and get it a bit cheaper than the garden centre at B&Q or Wickes, but not that much, and Wickes' is all wood chips and wood fibre, horrid.

I bought Sainsbury's compost last week, plus two bags of their topsoil.

 

[redback]

This topic could also be entitled 'avoiding shortages', since high prices are the result of supply problems. Probably we should all start looking for local small producers instead of taking the lazy way of buying from the big corporations.
If the neighbor has chooks and some surplus eggs say 'g'day' and offer to buy. If the butcher in the nearby village has a reputation that exceeds his turnover go and have a look. If the baker is making new bread each day her preservatives are at a minimum.
Meanwhile be prepared to buy a few extras when the big stores run their specials.

 

[redback]

Honey is in short supply because bees are in trouble. I'm okay because a beekeeper gifted me some. This tells a story that the big supermarkets are only buying from large - scaled producers and yet the best is available locally from small producers.
Small shops are empty everywhere because rents are up, but buyers are few. To re-establish competition in the marketplace, go to the street markets and check out the small guys.
I'm sort of on-topic because many of the bargains are outside of the supermarkets. I haven't mentioned the online shops because I never use them.

 

[Meadowlark]

Honey is in short supply because bees are in trouble. I'm okay because a beekeeper gifted me some.

The continued widespread use of pesticide sprays has really done a number on them. I'm fortunate to live in an area that beekeepers from all over bring their hives to overwinter.

Sometimes my cover crops have simply unbelievable numbers of bees on them...and you definitely can't walk barefoot through the white clover in the yard.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Honey is in short supply because bees are in trouble. I'm okay because a beekeeper gifted me some. This tells a story that the big supermarkets are only buying from large - scaled producers and yet the best is available locally from small producers.
Small shops are empty everywhere because rents are up, but buyers are few. To re-establish competition in the marketplace, go to the street markets and check out the small guys.
I'm sort of on-topic because many of the bargains are outside of the supermarkets. I haven't mentioned the online shops because I never use them.

A lot of the commercial honey comes from places that are still fairly chemical free. My brother used to go to West Africa teaching people beekeeping as a source of income after he retired.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

This topic could also be entitled 'avoiding shortages', since high prices are the result of supply problems. Probably we should all start looking for local small producers instead of taking the lazy way of buying from the big corporations.
If the neighbor has chooks and some surplus eggs say 'g'day' and offer to buy. If the butcher in the nearby village has a reputation that exceeds his turnover go and have a look. If the baker is making new bread each day her preservatives are at a minimum.
Meanwhile be prepared to buy a few extras when the big stores run their specials.

I wonder when I see pictures of Israelis uprooting ancient Palestinian olive trees, I don't know what proportion of the crop they used to produce.
Bread makers are great, I know exactly what goes in my bread, stoneground wholemeal flour, yeast, bit of sugar, bit of salt, an oz of butter and water.

 

[redback]

Bread making is a great quality assurance. Growing and storing your own potatoes, melons, garlic and onions also saves heaps. I'm making passata from my own tomatoes now.
I soften and freeze chickpeas, green lentils and red kidney beans from 1 kilo packages that I buy. These are frozen and brought out when I want lentil stew, pasta, Mexican or soups. The canned products have too much salt IMHO.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Growing and storing your own potatoes, melons, garlic and onions also saves heaps.

The missus tells me potatoes are so cheap it isn't worth it, but I recon mine taste better, also I read that the average commercial potato plant gets sprayed eight times in its lifetime.

 

[Sean Regan]

Got to say, we buy frozen chips and roast potatoes from Iceland.
But for mash, I buy King Edwards from Sainsburys

 

[Meadowlark]

The missus tells me potatoes are so cheap it isn't worth it, but I recon mine taste better, also I read that the average commercial potato plant gets sprayed eight times in its lifetime.

Yes, and you know those skins absorb some of that residue. We enjoy eating the skins with baked potato but would never do that with commercial bought spuds.

 

[redback]

It's become more a DIY topic then a shopping topic. I would like to add one more DIY item and that is picked flowers. I'm a newbie in this regard but I noticed that on Valentines Day a fairly small bunch was costing $50. Also, I'm planning to go polyculture in my vegetable garden and adding flowers provides biodiversity as well as aroma, color for inside, pollinator attraction and predator habitat.
There is a Flower Cutting thread right next to this topic and Louis Ferdinand has his usual brilliant photos. Yeah sweet peas, cosmos and zinnias.

 

[Meadowlark]

I'm launching a major initiative into attractor flowers this spring, @redback...we'll have to compare notes...but my interest isn't about cheap or biodiversity or whatever.

I've been hooked by butterflies. Fascinating creatures. I decided last summer in the midst of a wave of butterflies that it was about time in my life that I was able to identify these marvelous creatures. The least I could do to show some respect.

My count is at a meager 35 varieties and holding until spring.

 

[redback]

I've been hooked by butterflies.

It's another topic but butterflies and moths are surprising. Can they fly into the wind? How do they know where their target plants are?