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Written by Nigel
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Saturday, 27 September 2008 |
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It’s never been the most popular job in the gardener’s calendar, but now is the time to start thinking about next years vegetables. So go find your spades people and forget about the gym. It’s time for some real exercise – digging over the vegetable patch. The main objective here is to bury the annual weeds, to add manure or compost where necessary and to aerate and improve the soil structure. And, if it’s done now leaving the rough soil exposed the winter frosts will break it down even more and by spring it should only need superficial attention. That’s my plan anyway.
 Growing your own vegetables or herbs is something just about anyone can do. Does anyone remember the days before Jaime got to be the saviour of the school dinner when he used to grow herbs in a window box? Growing and caring for your own produce can be a revelation. We are so far removed from the process of animal and plant husbandry that few of us care where and how our food was produced. We spend hours in front of the TV and our only contact with food is a microwaveable ready meal. It’s no wonder the UK is becoming a nation of heart attacks waiting to happen.
I for one am glad that the fat has hit the fan. We have all sneered for far too long at Americans for being stupid and fat, but where America leads the Brits wobble after. Of course none of the politicians, film stars or food industry execs is corpulent - that would offend us. I mean everybody knows you have to be poor to do fat really properly and it certainly helps to be stupid too. And boy, are we stupid! cramming disgusting 'food products' into our mouths that are making us ill, while worldwide 850m people are suffering malnutrition. Something has to give. The irony is it seems that it is likely to be us. We will gorge ourselves to an early death.
The concept of husbandry - of caring for your animals, land and environment as partners in the process of providing good food - is alien to almost all food production in the West. The global food companies, who have power far in excess of any government, are motivated only by short-term profit. As a result we have a highly processed, bland, unhealthy diet that is intensely wasteful to produce.
I am starting to believe we are in deep trouble. But if everyone with a garden made a point of growing something that they liked to eat, that would be a start. I know our gardens should be an oasis, a retreat from the problems of daily life. Consequentially, any reasonable person wants to fill their garden with soothing green and flowers and peace and harmony. So, to become involved in the ethics of food production can seem like too heavy a burden for any garden to bear. But an allotment can provide a huge range of vegetables. A window box or pots packed with herbs can make a significant difference, if not to your diet then to your whole attitude towards food.
By sowing the seeds, getting your hands dirty and relating the soil to the plant, by having to find out the best season to plant and harvest, having to water or worry about the weather, you connect to the real production of food and understand husbandry. As a rule, the less processed food is the higher its nutritional value. By not wasting the fruits of your hard work, you start to treat food as something valuable, not disposable.
We are being told to eat five fruit or vegetable portions a day, which is clearly a good idea. But if you buy these from a supermarket, many of the nutrients will have been lost in the processing. If they are a uniform size, colour and shape they will undoubtedly have been sorted and selected according to appearance rather than taste. If they are sold as 'British' then they will almost certainly have involved migrant labour working under Dickensian conditions. If they are out of season then they will have been grown under polythene covers that defacing the countryside. If they are not loudly proclaiming themselves to be organic you can be sure that they have been produced under a chemical regime that you would never, ever choose to use in your own garden.
Farming has become so impossibly remote to most people's lives. Even in the countryside, more than 90 per cent of people have nothing to do with agriculture whatsoever. But I believe that gardens and allotments have taken their place. They are real and dynamic and integrated into our domestic world. Many of us with a garden grow herbs, fruit and vegetables and the brave few keep chickens, but we are still a distinct minority. If more gardeners could grow something edible then this could make a huge difference to the way we look at our global supply of food.
It is a big claim, but a practical one. You simply clear a piece of ground, dig it over, buy some seeds and it starts to happen. Simple as that. |
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 21 September 2008 )
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