Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi all,

I'm new to this forum, looking forward to exchanging plenty of great ideas with you all. I have a small garden at home, which is not terribly well stocked or tidy but I quite like it like it is. I also have half an allotment plot, also not as well maintained as I would like to, but time is an issue.

I love working in the allotment, though, it's so peaceful and I really enjoy growing my own fruit and veg from seed, the satisfaction is immense and I like the feeling of being a bit closer to nature and to my food.

I am also an academic at the Open University with an interest, among other things, in consumer behaviour. So I have recently become interested in delving a bit deeper into why people these days want to grow their own food. It's not like we can't buy it in abundance. Yet, it really seems to have taken off after a period of very little interest when allotments went unused and disappeared.

I have my own ideas of why this is but what I'm really interested in is what others think, why they are doing it. So I would be really chuffed if vegetable gardeners out there felt inclined to spend a few minutes posting why they're doing it, what they get out of it, why it's fun, why it's sometimes not fun, what deep (and not so deep) emotions it speaks to.

I am looking to conducting some more in-depth research into this but this is my first stab at collecting some views, impressions etc.

Looking forward to reading lots of posts on this.

Anja

P.S. Disclaimer: I will eventually aim to use the information I'm getting through various means (including this) to publish an academic article on this topic but I will not divulge any personal information (even if it's available on your profiles) and I am not standing to make any money out of this. If I do get to publish any of this I'll also make it available to anyone interested on this site. I hope this does not contravene the rules on soliciting as I'm not trying to sell anything.

P.P.S. I have posted this question on a different gardening forum last week (and got some great responses) - so if you go there as well, please accept my apologies for cross-posting.

Hello, Anja, here it goes, in order of importance to me:

1 working the land and being in the fresh air
2 getting fresh produce
3 knowing it's grown (mainly) organically
4 saving money

Hope that helps,
Monika

In no particular order -

Working outside
Being more 'in touch' with nature/the elements
Satisfaction and pleasure of growing and eating own produce
Providing food for family
Giving surplus to friends and family

Hi Anja,

In no set order
Being outdoors in all weathers
in touch with nature
putting food on the table
making home-made jams, pickles,chutneys
enjoyment that comes with having an allotment
Last and not least being part of this forum which is good for the mind body & soul

Regards


Kevin

Hi Anja, first, welcome to the forum here, what an interesting way to get to know us all. should be fun to read the contributions. BTW, i like a garden to be less than pristine too, nature doesn't work that way either

Why I garden ?
I'm passionate about producing wholesome tasty fresh uncontaminated produce and preserving surplus for the winter months. It combines with my love of nature and I garden in an effort to support and work with nature rather than destroy it. Gardening offers opportunities to observe natures processes and increases my sense of awe and respect for the intelligence that created this amazing complex and interwoven life here in the universe. I am ecologically aware and it helps me lower my carbon footprint whiich should help mitigate effects of global warming for my grandchildren.
What I get out of it?
The exercise helps to keep me fit
The produce helps to keep me healthy.
Security of knowing its chemical free.
contact with natural soil boosts my immunity, being out in the sun increases my vitamin d
I save seed which means I can afford to be generous with gifts of seeds plants and produce to neighbours friends and family
Why it's fun ?
I can try new and novel plants and produce not found in the shops.
Interactions with nature are fun, this morning I watched fascinated as a bee on a leaf was grooming itself ! If curious, identifying and learning about unusual species is fun and I learn something new each day so it's never boring.
Its an outlet for my creativity, both in the garden and in the kitchen.
It's a regular source of inspiration for my poetry and haiku.
Sharing with new growers can be fun too.
why it's sometimes not fun?
Mostly it is fun, if it's not fun its usually my own fault, a long drought this year caused me to feel the daily watering was a bit of a drag - reason too much in pots so next year less pots more in mulched beds and new greenhouse border, should be easier.
what deep (and not so deep) emotions it speaks to ?
Take gardening to its deepest level, and I believe as Fukoaka said it is a spiritual practise.

We allotment because it's a social place ,we swap produce,ideas on growing and generally pass time with lovely folk.
We grow because if you've ever tasted a REAL tomato you wouldn't buy one ,same goes for sweetcorn and cucumbers.
For us growing is part of our history ,grandparents etc and passing on ... I was going to say skill but it's not it's a "feeling a ...I can't find word it's just what we do that seems right ! Sorry if this is a little vague but putting growing into words is for me surprisingly difficult even dare I say it emotional

Main reason(s) why I started growing (about ten years ago):
1. The idea of being able to produce for myself one of life’s essentials – food – had always appealed to me.
2. To save money.


What I like about it:1. It is so therapeutic. Working the soil, being in the fresh air, the peace and the quiet soothes the emotions.
2. The best bit – the anticipation of things to come, each spring as the season gets underway.
3. The thrill of finding the first new potatoes of the season, or the first little carrots, which never diminishes.

What I don’t like:
1. Peak harvesting time. I know that sounds strange, but the endless round of watering, weeding, picking, pickling, making soups and preparing produce for the freezer becomes too much! I am almost glad when some things stop producing!

What I have got out of it:
1. I have learnt to be philosophical about crops that fail. It is going to happen sometimes, because so many factors are out of your hands! My approach now is one of ‘plant lots of different types of fruit and veg’. Yes, I am disappointed if something ruins one particular crop, but I soon get over it, because there are plenty more crops that are doing just fine.

And there is always next year!

Mouse, it made me feel better reading that you find peak harvesting time a bit too much. I thought it was just me, and have always felt a bit guilty for feeling that way when I should be grateful for the abundance...I shall feel less stressed now.

pongeroon wrote:Mouse, it made me feel better reading that you find peak harvesting time a bit too much. I thought it was just me, and have always felt a bit guilty for feeling that way when I should be grateful for the abundance...I shall feel less stressed now.

It´s strange, isn´t it!

And I even admit to being a little relieved when I discovered that the wind had brought down my runner beans earlier this week. Needless to say, I decided that it wasn't possible to re-erect their supports!

Hello all,
thank you very much for your responses. So much interesting stuff coming out already.
I'll start going through these in a bit more detail soon and then I'll probably be back with another post to ask some more questions. Hope you will feel like responding to those as well.
In the meantime, keep them coming, it's great stuff.
Anja

Hi Polly, hoping you will share the results of what you gather from this and the other website, should be interesting stuff.

Our reasons in no real order are:

As a hobby and pastime - we just enjoy gardening and being outside

To get exercise - can't think of anything more boring than going to a gym every week

To acquire fresh fruit and vegetables of a much better flavour than anything available commercially. We can grow varieties unavailable.

For the satisfaction of producing our own food.

To also be surrounded by wildlife and to be part of a greater community - not just human.

To be able to know exactly what it is we are eating and make informed decisions as to whether or not we use any chemicals and only if that should prove to be absolutely necessary rather than just as a blanket preventative.

Really it's a general quality of life choice.

Hi all,

Thanks, again, for your thoughts on this question. I've now started a first run of analysis and think I've identified 9, partially overlapping themes to what motivates you (and respondents on the other forum) to grow your own fruit and veg.

The themes are, in no particular order:
*Connection with land/nature
*Environmental / ecological reasons
*Sense of achievement
*Feeding oneself and family / self-sufficiency / doing things for yourself
*Family / friends / the social aspects
*Health / physical benefits
*Mental / emotional / spiritual benefits
*Better taste / better quality / greater enjoyment of cooking
*Cheaper / less waste / making use of everything

I'm going to do more with this and will let you have more fully thought out results at a later stage. In the meantime, I think that some of the above would merit a little bit of further discussion, and so will post a few more questions (in new threads) over the next few days / weeks that arise from the answers I've already had. I look forward to receiving as many great contributions there.

In the meantime, anybody feeling inspired to post here, please do, I'll keep looking at it.

Best wishes,

Anja

Hi Anja,

I first started growing veg just for enjoyment, when we first bought a house in 1973. My father had grown lots when I was a child and I suppose there was something about following in his footsteps, but it was really the encouragement of a neighbour that got me going. It was an especial pleasure watching the children enjoy watering and picking the beans and tomatoes; they appreciated home-grown veg at an early age and gained a sense of the process of growing food from seed to table.

We moved in 1985 from north Brickhill, former farmland, to a small town house near Bedford railway station with a very small garden, but I still tried to grow tomatoes and sprouting broccoli in the winter. Wife and children loved them and so I carried on. Being a teacher, examiner and then a school governor, I didn't have too much time for any serious gardening.

Well, over the years the toms did worse and worse - always in the same place, as there was no room to rotate. Soil-sick. So one year I didn't grow any. My daughter's reaction [even though she had left home by then] was almost as if there had been a bereavement. As I had been contemplating getting on the waiting list for an allotment [so that on retirement I would be near the top of the list], I decided that now was the time to do so. At the same time people generally had really started taking an interest in growing their own and organic gardening.

As Bedford is about 20 years behind everywhere else in the country, I found there was no such thing as a waiting list for allotments and so I suddenly had one 5 years before i wanted it, but the wonderful intensity of taste and its great variety among different varieties of spuds etc convinced me that it was worth keeping up despite still being in full time teaching etc. The knowledge that there were no pesticides or other harmful chemicals in the food we ate was also very important to us and after my prostate cancer diagnosis 2 years ago I was doubly glad to be growing and eating half or more than half of the recommended foods. [I hardly needed to change my diet to conform with the recommended intake, except cutting right back on cheese, which I rather enjoy.] Discovering your own ways of doing things, such as getting my own back on bindweed by drowning it in water and using the subsequent "tea" as a feed with trace elements from deeper in the soil than most veg roots will penetrate to, is also great fun. They may not be scientific and may not always work, but they allow ingenuity free rein.

Another thing is that you can get a plentiful suppply of things you don't get in shops. How often can you buy Salsify, Scorzonera or Jerusalem Artichokes? Ditto uncommon varieties of common veg, such as Highland Burgundy Red potatoes? Feeding your visitors with home-grown oddities like these gives you a good feelign and they feel they've eaten something special [ which would be the case anyhow I suppose, as my wife is a wonderful cook].

Hope you can use some of this.
mike