Editorial licence?

[alan refail]

As the introduction to this article

http://www.kitchengarden.co.uk/news/bac ... -with-peas

I read this:

As a small boy, the highlight of a summer’s day for Joe Maiden was to walk with his father to the allotment where he would pick Joe a handful of peas to shell and eat fresh. Follow Joe’s advice now and you need never be without home-grown peas on your plot.

Why create the idea that peas can be grown all year round. Nowhere in his article does Joe suggest this!

[glallotments]

A bit like an earlier article suggesting that leeks could be started off early in a heated greenhouse to get an early crop - what happened to seasonal food?

[Johnboy]

Hi Alan,
I must confess that I laughed when I read the caption under the picture of the Pea Greensage.
JB.

[glallotments]

The same person is the gardening expert on our local radio and has been happily telling everyone for a couple of years that the contaminated manure problem has 'gone away' and that you could flush out the contamination by watering.

[Nature's Babe]

Eventually I guess the contamination gets flushed into our water supply, better to stop the toxic stuff before it causes problems I think.
Actually i do grow peas in the winter, pea sprouts and pea shoots too,
thay are quite delicious, though not in the garden,
Also because I have a south facing lean to greenhouse I can plant peas quite early in guttering and just slide them into the garden as soon as practicable. I agree with Primrose though that seasonal is best, when its summer and hot I fancy salads not leeks, but they are great to add to stews and soups in autumn and winter.

[Primrose]

I remember as a child, the joys of autumn arriving and the pleasure of having the first heads of celery appear in the shops, all covered in earth with that strong celery aroma . Virtually every vegetable is available all year round now and I feel we have completely lost the joys of eating seasonally and adapting our menus during the year accordingly. To me there is something almost repugnant about eating strawberries in January. I know I have a freezer full of home-grown ones but why anybody would want to eat imported tasteless ones beats me.
If you grow your own vegetables you are much closer to nature, understand the cycle and can do this but those who rely 100% on supermarket bought vegetables are completely divorced from the seasonal reality. Although I love tomatoes, I'd just as soon avoid those tasteless things available in winter, and if I want some salad, rely on some freshly grated carrot or lovely crunchy white or red cabbage.

[glallotments]

Nature's Babe - the contamination doesn't wash out - thet is one of the problems - it is bound up in the plant materials and won't leave until the plant material decomposes.

Maybe fragments of the plant material will wash away and move elsewhere but the problem wll remain until the plant material decomposes and the soil microbes break down the residue!