A growing section of gardeners and allotment owners are producing their own strawberries amongst other summer fruits in order to cut down on costs. The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) took a survey and discovered that 66 per cent of the people who took part admitted to viewing melons, strawberries and raspberries as too costly to have regularly, while 37 per cent said that they had plans to grow their fruit over the next year in order to economise.
The findings revealed an increase in the idea of “edible gardening” and according to opinions polled on the RHS website, the amount of people getting all green fingered and growing their own food had made a steep rise from 29 per cent last year to 88 per cent today.
The Horticultural Trades Association reported healthy profits from seeds sales for edible plants, which went up from £87m in 2004 to £118m last year. Within the same period, fruit trees and plants sales went up from £23m to £30m.
Seed companies are expecting their best year in sales yet in 2009. The economic downturn is inciting people to go back to becoming self sufficient to a degree unknown in this country for many years.
In fact, the National Trust revealed that the demand for people to grow their own food is at such an all time high, that they have had to resort to releasing land from their own sites to aid people. In a three year plan they hope to create enough land to sustain around £1.5m of fruit and vegetables for use by individuals and community groups.
Tom Sharples, marketing manager at Suttons Seeds reported that the return to people producing their own vegetables has paved the way for others to follow in growing their own fruit. He said, “We have seen fruit sales go up by something like 20 per cent in the past year, with the main increases in soft fruits like blackcurrants, redcurrants and strawberries. I think a boom in strawberry growing is inevitable, particularly as people are able to grow varieties that are different to those in the supermarket, which are often criticised for being tasteless.”
Seed suppliers Thompson and Morgan reported their profits from fruit plant sales had gone up 400 per cent in the last few years. B&Q are hoping to cash in on the trend too as in April they will launch a new range of strawberry plants ready for spring planting - the time for planting mature plants was September last year. The DIY specialists predict customers could save a sumly £200 a year when producing their own fruit “Growing your own fruit and vegetables is a trend which is gaining momentum. Strawberries are a popular choice because they’re easy to grow and don’t need a lot of space,” said Joclyn Silezin, its horticulture buyer.
Helen Bostock, the gardening adviser at the RHS, said, “Strawberries and other soft fruits have become a luxury item in many people’s shopping baskets and are getting prohibitively expensive to buy as part of weekly shop.
“We are seeing people who started growing their own vegetables last year now moving on to try soft fruits like strawberries and raspberries.”
