Hi all,
here is another question sparked by your responses to my earlier questions about the motivations for fruit and veg gardening. Quite a few of you have mentioned that you enjoy the fact of being able to feed yourselves and your family with what you grow. So this has set me thinking again:
Why is being able to feed oneself and/or one's family important / satisfying?
Why is buying good produce from shops, farmers markets, farm shops or similar not quite the same?
Are we aiming for self sufficiency?
If yes, why is that important?
If not, does that matter in terms of the satisfaction of growing something to feed ourselves?
That's enough questions for one post, I think. As ever, really looking forward to your thoughts.
P.S. And for those who haven't seen my earlier posts, I am an academic and hope that what comes out of these forum discussions will, at some point, find its way into an academic publication. I will not, of course, reveal any (real or forum) names or other identifying information or indeed the name of the forum. I won't benefit financially from this (as if...).
Why is it good to be able to feed ourselves and family?
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JohnN
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Hi Anja
Many of our correspondents have put forward all sorts of reasons why they enjoy growing vegetables and eating them, and I agree with them all. Feeding one's family and oneself is, surely, just the "icing on the cake", so to speak. How many "hobbies" can one enjoy in life with an end product that is of positive, practical use? (Ok, fishing for trout, salmon and sea fish!)
Many of our correspondents have put forward all sorts of reasons why they enjoy growing vegetables and eating them, and I agree with them all. Feeding one's family and oneself is, surely, just the "icing on the cake", so to speak. How many "hobbies" can one enjoy in life with an end product that is of positive, practical use? (Ok, fishing for trout, salmon and sea fish!)
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Nature's Babe
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It's important to me because straight from the garden is superior in nutritional content and flavour, vegetables in transit deteriorate considerably unless frozen fresh, and because I know there are no polluting chemicals put on my garden. Our health is important to me.
Also ethically it is fairer to the environment and to animals and insects than mass produced factory farmed, and that is important to me.
Being realistic, complete self sufficiency would be difficult, I do it just to produce the bulk of our food really, bananas and oranges would be difficult etc some things need a warmer climate to grow.
You ask why is buying good produce from shops, farmers markets, farm shops or similar not quite the same? Well a lot is picked underripe and ripened in transit resulting in pretty tasteless tomatoes for example, those ripened on the vine in the sun have far more flavour and sweetness. Many are laden with dubious chemicals too, a lot of farmers I know have their own veg patch, rather than eat what they mass produce with the aid of pesticides and chemical fertilisers.
Also ethically it is fairer to the environment and to animals and insects than mass produced factory farmed, and that is important to me.
Being realistic, complete self sufficiency would be difficult, I do it just to produce the bulk of our food really, bananas and oranges would be difficult etc some things need a warmer climate to grow.
You ask why is buying good produce from shops, farmers markets, farm shops or similar not quite the same? Well a lot is picked underripe and ripened in transit resulting in pretty tasteless tomatoes for example, those ripened on the vine in the sun have far more flavour and sweetness. Many are laden with dubious chemicals too, a lot of farmers I know have their own veg patch, rather than eat what they mass produce with the aid of pesticides and chemical fertilisers.
Sit down before a fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconcieved notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.
By Thomas Huxley
http://www.wildrye.info/reserve/
By Thomas Huxley
http://www.wildrye.info/reserve/
My main reason is the freshness of the produce. We don't have access to farmers' markets or farm shops, so the alternative is the supermarket and even he best ones cannot provide vegetables which take a few minutes or an hour at most to go from plot to pot!
Self-sufficiency would be ideal, but we cannot grow fruit here and must restrict ourselves to the more common vegetables.
Self-sufficiency would be ideal, but we cannot grow fruit here and must restrict ourselves to the more common vegetables.
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Primrose
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I grow our own for a variety of reasons, but not necessarily in this priority.
1. I like to think that the veg & fruit I grow help to reduce our cost of living. We live in a high Council Tax area, so even the front garden earns it keep by being the area where our redcurrants, blackcurrants, gooseberries, strawberries and a grape vine are grown. As inflation takes hold and pensions lose their value, self-sufficiency, even on a small scale, helps to maintain a reasonable standard of living.
2. I love the convenience of just being able to pop out into the garden to dig up fresh produce - my own chosen varieties for flavour. The two shops close to where we live usually have a motley selection of wilting vegetables which are not turned over quickly enough because many people travel further afield to shop in bigger supermarkets. Our veg can go from plot to pot within minutes in the peak of health without loss of vitamins.
3. Many vegetables such as onions, beans, tomatoes are imported, so growing our own reduces the need for more food miles. I also feel that every nation should aim to be as food sufficient as possible. There's an irony in green beans being grown in Kenya when we are perfectly capable of growing them ourselves. Wars & other crises in the past should have taught us to make the most of our ability to feed ourselves as a country, rather than relying on others. Growing our own and being self-sufficient reduces our reliance on other countries and the potential to be emotionally blackmailed. We have all seen how some countries have been cut off from oil supplies for example.
4. In a world that will eventually be unable to feed its growing population, I believe we have a duty to understand how to grow food and provide for ourselves, even on a small scale. Obviously climate means that we cannot grow all the food we would like to eat, (bananas, citrus fruits, pineapples, etc.), nor do most of us have the space to keep livestock. The fact that our food production resouces are restricted should not prevent us from producing what we can and learning how to feed ourselves with it effectively and innovatively.
5. The feeling of well being from even a limited amount of self-sufficiency is a comfortable and optimistic sentiment to have, as well as enabling us to keep fit and stay in tune with the rhythms of nature. I believe this makes us emotionally better adjusted individuals as a result.
6. We do buy from farmers markets, farm shops and supermarkets where necessary. However, we do not know the full provenance of many products bought from these sources, or the chemicals and herbicides which might have been used, or even the age of some of the products. We also use petrol to get there so this is not as environmentally friendly as getting food from our gardens or nearby allotments.
7. I also resent adding profits to the coffers of some big supermarkets (Tesco especially), who I believe have done much to put put smaller local shops and growers/farmers out of business by their ruthless negotiating methods. Every grower or farmer put out of business by a supermarket means that the ability of this country to produce its own food is diminished, and that knowledge and skill is lost to us, as well of the livelihoods of those involved.
8. I also HATE the marketing policies of the supermarkets who only encourage perfect looking food to be sold. What I grow and pick from our vegetable patch gets eaten no matter mis-shapen it may be. Nothing is wasted. Supermarkets encourage food wastage on a massive scale because of this policy. Whole fields of lettuces are ploughed under because they may have imperfect outer leaves. Tons of tomatoes are composted from commercial poly tunnels because they are too big or too small. All this involves enormous waste, not just of the food products themselves but the time, effort and wages of those who have cultivated them. So food, time, money and human effort is wasted and contributing nothing to our national economy. Every tomato, bean and other vegetable grown in our garden is used and eaten. What can't be eaten in the form of spent haulms, etc. is composted and recycled, so nothing is wasted.
Next time I pop outside to pick a few salad leaves, I must remind myself of all this.
1. I like to think that the veg & fruit I grow help to reduce our cost of living. We live in a high Council Tax area, so even the front garden earns it keep by being the area where our redcurrants, blackcurrants, gooseberries, strawberries and a grape vine are grown. As inflation takes hold and pensions lose their value, self-sufficiency, even on a small scale, helps to maintain a reasonable standard of living.
2. I love the convenience of just being able to pop out into the garden to dig up fresh produce - my own chosen varieties for flavour. The two shops close to where we live usually have a motley selection of wilting vegetables which are not turned over quickly enough because many people travel further afield to shop in bigger supermarkets. Our veg can go from plot to pot within minutes in the peak of health without loss of vitamins.
3. Many vegetables such as onions, beans, tomatoes are imported, so growing our own reduces the need for more food miles. I also feel that every nation should aim to be as food sufficient as possible. There's an irony in green beans being grown in Kenya when we are perfectly capable of growing them ourselves. Wars & other crises in the past should have taught us to make the most of our ability to feed ourselves as a country, rather than relying on others. Growing our own and being self-sufficient reduces our reliance on other countries and the potential to be emotionally blackmailed. We have all seen how some countries have been cut off from oil supplies for example.
4. In a world that will eventually be unable to feed its growing population, I believe we have a duty to understand how to grow food and provide for ourselves, even on a small scale. Obviously climate means that we cannot grow all the food we would like to eat, (bananas, citrus fruits, pineapples, etc.), nor do most of us have the space to keep livestock. The fact that our food production resouces are restricted should not prevent us from producing what we can and learning how to feed ourselves with it effectively and innovatively.
5. The feeling of well being from even a limited amount of self-sufficiency is a comfortable and optimistic sentiment to have, as well as enabling us to keep fit and stay in tune with the rhythms of nature. I believe this makes us emotionally better adjusted individuals as a result.
6. We do buy from farmers markets, farm shops and supermarkets where necessary. However, we do not know the full provenance of many products bought from these sources, or the chemicals and herbicides which might have been used, or even the age of some of the products. We also use petrol to get there so this is not as environmentally friendly as getting food from our gardens or nearby allotments.
7. I also resent adding profits to the coffers of some big supermarkets (Tesco especially), who I believe have done much to put put smaller local shops and growers/farmers out of business by their ruthless negotiating methods. Every grower or farmer put out of business by a supermarket means that the ability of this country to produce its own food is diminished, and that knowledge and skill is lost to us, as well of the livelihoods of those involved.
8. I also HATE the marketing policies of the supermarkets who only encourage perfect looking food to be sold. What I grow and pick from our vegetable patch gets eaten no matter mis-shapen it may be. Nothing is wasted. Supermarkets encourage food wastage on a massive scale because of this policy. Whole fields of lettuces are ploughed under because they may have imperfect outer leaves. Tons of tomatoes are composted from commercial poly tunnels because they are too big or too small. All this involves enormous waste, not just of the food products themselves but the time, effort and wages of those who have cultivated them. So food, time, money and human effort is wasted and contributing nothing to our national economy. Every tomato, bean and other vegetable grown in our garden is used and eaten. What can't be eaten in the form of spent haulms, etc. is composted and recycled, so nothing is wasted.
Next time I pop outside to pick a few salad leaves, I must remind myself of all this.
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PLUMPUDDING
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Brilliant answer Primrose, not much I can add as it sums up my ideas perfectly.
I grew up helping my father in the garden and when my children were small I decided I would prefer to feed them home grown food rather than stuff from the shops that I had no idea what had been done to it.
Another bonus of growing your own is that you can choose varieties for flavour. Shop bought produce rarely lives up to its appearance.
I grew up helping my father in the garden and when my children were small I decided I would prefer to feed them home grown food rather than stuff from the shops that I had no idea what had been done to it.
Another bonus of growing your own is that you can choose varieties for flavour. Shop bought produce rarely lives up to its appearance.
I find I just like to grow veggies and fruit. Being able to produce even just a small amount helps the family budget, also we like the flavour of home grown.
I agree with Primrose, I can't say much more than that.
My husband say all the plums in the kitchen yesterday and asked if I was making jam with them, when I said I was he said good as it is much better than shop bought.!
I agree with Primrose, I can't say much more than that.
My husband say all the plums in the kitchen yesterday and asked if I was making jam with them, when I said I was he said good as it is much better than shop bought.!
Thanks for your thoughts, again. I know exactly where you are all coming from - it's just fresher and usually tastes better, and you do know where it comes from.
And yes, I can also relate to the idea of self-reliance - as a country and as individuals. Knowing one can produce just something for oneself is somehow comforting. Although, strictly speaking of course, I at least still rely mostly on the seed companies for seed, and also buy other things for the veg garden. But still, it feels different.
And yes, I can also relate to the idea of self-reliance - as a country and as individuals. Knowing one can produce just something for oneself is somehow comforting. Although, strictly speaking of course, I at least still rely mostly on the seed companies for seed, and also buy other things for the veg garden. But still, it feels different.