For goodness sake grow some potatoes, cabbage, carrots, peas, lettuce and every other common garden vegetable, says Paul Peacock
“ Heathrow was the source of most of the vegetables for London. Today the catchment is the whole world.”
city cottage lifestyle
City Cottage
Lifestyle
For goodness sake grow some potatoes, cabbage, carrots, peas, lettuce and every other common garden vegetable, says Paul Peacock
I am getting fed up. The argument goes that we shouldn’ t grow common vegetables because you can buy them in the shops so cheaply. It’ s an argument that is driving me mad for all kinds of reasons.
Instead, they say, grow something that is expensive, or just not available. That way you can experience something new and save a few pennies too. I even heard one TV punter saying he wasn’ t surprised demand for allotments was dropping off while garden media stops focusing on crops that are hard to grow yet cheap to buy!
City Cottage Philosophy
We strongly believe we should be growing all the vegetables we eat. It’ s not hard, you don’ t need much land, and there are lots of reasons for this.
All those cheap to buy vegetables from supermarkets are not cheap. At one time, for example, Heathrow was the source of most of the vegetables for London. Today, the catchment is the whole world. We import around 40 % of our vegetables from all around the world.
New potatoes from Kenya, Brazil, tomatoes from Spain, salads from as far afield as the Far East. Yes, these foods might well be cheap in money terms, but from an environmental point of view, they are costly indeed.
What is worse, the proportion of our food imported is increasing, despite the fact that 5 % of our vegetables are now grown on allotments and in gardens.
Better food
No matter what they say, a carrot dug up one day in a field, even a UK field, washed and packed the next day, shipped to the distribution centre the next, and thence to the individual supermarket before sitting on a shelf for a day or two is nowhere near as nutritious or flavoursome as the one I just pulled from my plot ten minutes ago, and will eat for my dinner in another twenty minutes.
“ Heathrow was the source of most of the vegetables for London. Today the catchment is the whole world.”