On 2013-08-16 19:42:23 +0100, David Hill said:

On 16/08/2013 19:28, sacha wrote:
On 2013-08-16 12:14:57 +0000, David Hill said:

Do you remember when veg [plants were sensibly priced.
I remember when cabbage plants would be less than 10 bob a hundred
(For the youngsters 10/- or in todays money 50p)
saw this special offer today
Autumn & Winter Brassica Collection-Plants x 64
Tasty & Healthy Winter Crops ... More
Pack Quantity: 64 Plants, 16 of each variety
Items Total £16.95 Postage & Packing £4.95 Total £21.90

I remember when a lot of things were sensibly priced but unfortunately,
wages were very low and so were expectations. Young people marrying
didn't *expect* to buy a house immediately but certainly expected to
rent for quite a while. Nor did they 'put off' having a baby until
they'd bought a house and furnished it completely, as some do now. Did
employers pay social security stamps back in e.g. the 50s? I just don't
know but they have to pay all those things now and, imo, it's essential
but of course, there's a knock-on effect. Now, things have gone full
circle and I know some young living and working in this area who never
expect to own their own homes because property here is just so
expensive. Food prices have roared upwards and e.g their own cooked,
sliced ham is £17 per kg from our local butcher because the price of pig
food has gone up, for example. There's a famous gardener whose prices
for absolutely everything leave us simply breathless and we can
guarantee that a large amount of that goes in advertising and glossy
catalogues. The power of telly…!


Yes National Insurance "Stamp" was paid by both employer and employee,
but in those days you got no benefit till you had 26 stamps on your
card.
Also you bought most plants at the right time and bare rooted, it was
introducing so much container grown, and much of it from outside the UK
that both pushed up prices and brought a lot of pests and diseases
into this country and spread to so many domestic gardens.
Though you did grow a range of rockery and herbaceous plants "Pot
Grown", and you bought them from Nurseries.

I do remember that so much was autumn planted, probably from my
maternal grandfather. But he grew all his own veg etc. though I don't
recall a greenhouse. I do remember a large sieve he used to make
compost for seeds, I suppose? Most of his garden was fruit & veg - not
a big garden, though bigger than some modern plots - and the 'front
garden' was paved with a flower bed in the middle and aubrietia growing
out of the wall. My paternal grandparents had bigger gardens, one of
them being a Rectory and that was also producing a lot of veg and
fruit. There was a lovely old lean-to greenhouse with a big grapevine
in it. One of my earliest memories is being taken to see a blackbird's
nest in the brambles trained against a wall, from which my grandmother
made bramble jelly, as my mother did later in another house. My
personal recollection was that everyone with a bit of ground grew their
own food as much as possible. I just wish I remembered more detail.
Everything was still rationed when I was little so providing as much as
you could from your own resources must have been terribly important
then. My grandmother shook Jersey milk 'topping' up in a jar to produce
butter and it took her hours to do it, to supplement the butter ration.
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk