Articles

One of the great lessons I’ve learned in my time as a GIYer is that the sowing season doesn’t stop at the end of Spring. In fact, if you want a consistent supply of vegetables over the winter, and particularly in the difficult “gap” months of March, April and May, then this is a crucially important time of the year to be sowing seeds.
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Like most GIYers I did a little rain dance with the arrival of rain after nearly a month of drought conditions. What a fickle bunch we are! Don’t get me wrong, I’d much prefer a little heatwave to our more standard climate, but the daily watering outside was somewhat of a chore. I suppose that beautiful warm sunshine by day followed by a decent shower of rain at night would be the ideal weather pattern for this time of the year. That’s not much to ask is it?
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It’s a nice surprise to discover that what you have considered a real nuisance in the veg patch, could in fact turn out to be a blessing. I’ve been plagued with chickweed for well over a year now in the small polytunnel.
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It is fair to say that it has been a long and thoroughly miserable winter, with almost 6 months of grim weather at this stage. The impact has been minimal enough for the home-grower but we should of course spare a thought for the people who make a living from food production, particularly commercial growers and farmers.
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There’s a great scene from Michael Moore’s 2015 documentary Where to Invade Next that focuses on school dinners. He visits a small rural town in France and goes to the ‘best place to eat in town’ – the local school’s cafeteria. In France, they consider school lunch to be part of the teaching day.
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As we move towards sowing time, my inner critic is active again, goading me to get started on work in the veg patch. Every time I look out the window at the veg patch, or visit it to grab a leek or some parsnips for the dinner, it starts up its never-ending critical commentary.
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I am a massive fan of apples and the “apple a day keeps the doctor away” lessons of youth have stayed with me all my life. I’ve often thought it strange however, that such a traditional saying must surely have originated at a time when it would have been difficult to follow the advice and eat an apple each day all year round.
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Over the last few years I’ve noticed a definite snootiness about using raised beds for growing food, which I find ridiculous. It’s almost like if you are not out there double digging your soil and breaking your back to suffer for your vegetables then it’s considered cheating. Personally I am all for the occasional cheat if it helps me to grow better veggies or helps me to grow them with less time and effort expended.
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I was about 5 hours in to my monster 8-hour ‘pickle-athon’ and up to my neck in diced fruit, veg and vinegar syrups. I had just peeled, cored and chopped 2kg of pears (I didn’t count how many pears that is, but it’s a lot), and a pan of boiling, sugary stickiness had just overflowed on the stove. The kitchen looked like a bomb had hit it. I was tired, cranky, sweaty and hungry (ironic, given that I was surrounded by mounds of food).
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I've discovered as I get older that I am person that loves to square things away, and that applies equally with food-growing where I am constantly looking for things that simplify what can be a pretty complicated life-skill.
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