Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

Digging in: Britain's green revolution on the home front
Huge rise in home-grown vegetables amid increasing distaste for factory
food
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/food/story/0,,2052949,00.html
John Vidal, environment editor
Monday April 9, 2007
The Guardian

During the second world war the government famously urged every able man
and woman in Britain to "dig for victory" - to grub up their flower beds
and tear up their lawns to grow vegetables to avoid widespread hunger.
Today, a new British land army of gardeners appears to be doing the same to
avoid eating industrially-produced foods.

New figures from the Horticultural trades association show a 31% increase
in the sales of vegetable seed to householders, and a corresponding 32%
decline in the sale of flower seeds. We are also buying nearly twice as
many seedlings and young edible plants like tomatoes and marrows, and are
growing far more herbs than ever before.


Confirmation that the worm is turning away from flower growing to
vegetables comes from the Royal Horticultural Society and seed companies,
which say that vegetable seeds sales are now outstripping flower seeds for
the first time since the second world war.

Suttons, which sells nearly a third of all household vegetable seeds in the
UK, said this week that there had been a massive increase in vegetable
growing in Britain. "We are seeing a big move away from flower seeds to
vegetables. There has been a dramatic rise in things like sales of onions
and potatoes. Spuds in particular are nearly 60% up on last year, which was
20%-30% up on the year before," a spokesman said. This year the company
expects a 30% increase in its sales of UK vegetable seeds.

The proof that we are going back to our roots is seen in Britain's 330,000
allotments. Thirty years ago thousands of acres fell into disuse and were
taken back by local authorities for development. Today, almost all
allotments are full and it is nearly as hard to get one as to get a place
in a good school.

"I've got people climbing all over me for allotments. Our waiting list is
closed and there's no chance of even getting on to it. It's becoming a real
bun fight," said Bruno Dore, site secretary of the Shepherds Hill
allotments group in north London. The city is now believed to produce
nearly 16,000 tonnes of vegetables a year. "There's definitely a big
increase in the demand for allotments," said Geoff Stokes, secretary of the
National Association of Allotment and Leisure gardeners. "Sites which were
vacant for years are now full."

The reasons given for the shift to vegetable growing in the most urbanised
country in Europe range from a political desire to not be beholden to large
supermarkets, to a new awareness about healthy food and the environment,
and deep dissatisfaction with industrially grown food.

"It's the fact that chefs are beginning to take up the idea of healthy
foods and concern over chemicals," said Mr Stokes. "Fifty years ago people
turned to vegetable gardening to save money. Now it's for fresh food and
lifestyles."

"I find it the best way to relax, the nearest thing to personal and
political freedom," said Joanne Nutley, 25, a Manchester allotment holder.

The seed sellers also detect a profound shift taking place, with people
wanting to grow old varieties of vegetables that the industrial food system
has left behind and legislation has made hard to grow.

A myriad of specialist seed clubs has been set up because it is technically
illegal to sell seeds that are not on the government-approved national seed
list, designed to provide large scale farmers.

Yesterday Prince Charles added his weight to the heritage vegetable seed
movement, urging people to grow older varieties to maintain biodiversity.
Speaking on the 60th anniversary of Radio 4's Gardeners' Question Time, he
said it was "crucially important" to preserve genetic diversity.

"What could be crazier than to reduce ourselves to fewer and fewer
varieties? [Or] to have the kind of EU legislation that makes it impossible
to sell the seeds of all those varieties? Hundreds of varieties [of
vegetables] that our forefathers took a lot of trouble to develop are being
lost. The old varieties are not hugely productive, but they have disease
resistance."

Garden Organic, Britain's leading organic research organisation, now has
10,000 members in its heritage seed "library". Members exchange and
distribute over 800 old vegetable varieties.

"There is a big increase in interest in growing older varieties. Our
courses are well over-subscribed," said Andy Strachan, an adviser with
Garden Organic.

Seed sellers also say that vegetable growing is no longer for middle-aged
men. "Now there a lot of young people getting interested," said Ben Gabel,
a director of the rapidly expanding Real Seed catalogue, a specialist club
based in Pembrokeshire, south Wales. "There are very definitely two classes
now and a big age gap between them. There's the traditional allotment
holder, but definitely a younger group, people around the age of 30 who are
more adventurous in what they grow."

"Allotments are teeming with with upwardly mobile types and ecologically
motivated people trying to break free from the grip of the supermarkets",
said Frances Jones, a young Manchester allotment holder. The
grow-it-yourself food movement is increasingly controlled by women, says
the Horticultural Trades Association. They now account for 77% of the total
spend on herbs, 59% on young edible plants and 47% on edible seeds.
Moreover, around 80% of the total expenditure on grow-your-own vegetables
gardening is from households without children.

But the grassroots grow your own movement goes far further than vegetables,
with as many as 200,000 households keeping chickens, and 35,000 beekeepers.

"There are more bee keepers in London now than in years," said John
Chapple, head of the London bee keepers association. "All the associations
are growing, and where it used to be that it was all men of a certain age,
it is now young professional women. There's been a big swing."

Expert view: No garden? No problem

What? No garden? No problem. A window box is all that is needed to become a
foot soldier in that growing land army - but stripes can be earned with
even the most modest bit of open space, such as a yard, patio, balcony or
flat roof.

There are only a couple of rules of engagement before you go over the top,
the first being sunlight. A bit of shade is no problem, but best to choose
a south or south-west facing location.

The second is variety of species; depending on what you are growing and
where, a suitable strain is important. There is no point trying to grow
climbing beans if they have no wigwam to climb, or carrots that sink deep
roots if your bed is shallow.

The next question is what sort of container. A growbag is an obvious option
for tomatoes (avoid those that contain peat for ecological reasons), but
for many other crops a simple wood box, a minimum of a foot deep and a foot
wide, will do - and as long as you like. And don't spend your hard-earned
cash at a timber yard. An old palette, dismantled and reassembled, is fine.
Fill it with a mixture of topsoil and compost, and off you go.

Few species sink roots to a depth of more than 10ins, and some, such as
radishes and spring onions, much shallower than that. If you want potatoes,
they would be happy inside a couple of old car tyres, stacked on top of one
another. But bear in mind that all containers dry out quickly. Conversely,
make sure they have drainage too with holes and a few small stones at the
bottom so they don't become waterlogged. Also, watch out for excessive heat
for such things as brassicas.

As for what to grow, take your pick. Go for freshness - things that would
soon wilt in the shops were it not for all that packaging and
refrigeration.

And finally, never forget the enemy. Pests comes in three varieties - those
with two legs, those with four legs, and those with no legs. Take no
prisoners.
Bruno Dore