Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>]

That moving away from nature has been going on a long time here. Son is about 32 now and he went to school here since he became 5. We used to give him and his sisters a lunch to take along to school consisting of home baked bread and maybe cheese or smoked ham. They were laughed at so much that they soon gave up any lunch. All the rest of their class came equipped with crisps, mars bars and coca cola. Brown bread was called hippy bread. By the time they got to secondary school quite a few of their class mates had trouble getting up the stairs to the next floor and their next class.

 

If we here can grow/keep alive turmeric Paul then you should be able to as well I think. I grow it in pots and it does quite well in warmer months in tunnel or green house. As soon as we get regular nightfrost I get it inside on the window sill. Growth is not fantastic, the root only doubles in size in a medium year. Ginger seems to be a bit hardier. We had it overwinter in a tunnel for many years in full ground and only the severely cold winter of 2000 finished it off.

 

John

Well, we don't bother with the really local mkts here either cause they're a joke. You need a critical mass of growers to bring in customers, but u need customers to bring in growers, Catcch-22 ... Mkts in our state association get blanket liability insurance, costs little. I sympathize with all those who keep selling in spite of it all & wish we could help in some way. And we always encourage people to grow their own. Just takes practice & learning like any tradespeople. It must be discouraging to see native Irish going fast food or processed. That hits close to home actually. We have hispanic in-laws dealing with the usual degenerative symptoms, going to doctors & picking up pills & McDonald's on the way home - whose families all used to be active & healthy into old age. There's a high % of Navajo etc here with higher incidence of serious health problems, unknown just a couple generations back. It's across the whole population, disability is creeping into younger age brackets. I'm a cancer survivor myself & take food more seriously than I used to. Turmeric is amazing stuff but can't grow it in this climate.

On 3/27/2014 6:10 PM, John D'hondt wrote:

I am sure we have foodies in Ireland as well but not really in any numbers within a hundred mile radius from us. To get to such towns you need to use the Irish road system and that is a bit sub par. Used to get visits from my in-laws (from Belgium) but after the FIL killed his second BMW here in one of the uncountable potholes he gave up coming.

 

Locally the farmers markets are a dismal scene with most producers taking almost everything back home with them at the end of a long day and that counts for vegetables, jams and baked goods. It is very hard to compete with supermarket prices.

And that is not all. The native Irish have moved a long way from natural food. And there is a realistic danger of being sued for huge compensation should you sell a head of lettuce that has one small slug hiding between the leaves.

 

It is no big problem for us. Whatever vegetable we can't eat ourselves helps to feed the life stock.

John

Apparently you have producer & consumer prices going opposite directions. Hey, same here. Which is why we have to sell direct to eaters, & go for the better informed clientele, foodies if possible.

They seem to gang up on us for the early greens, esp kales promoted on some cooking shows. We can't do well competing with lots of low value chiles, summer squash, cukes etc. Things that grow easily with a tractor/tiller, chemicals, & cheap labor. However a Delicata winter squash goes for a good price. Had one customer run up asking for Delicata, said she saw it on Facebook ?? - found out the market camera gal shot one & stuck it on the market's Facebook page.  Anyway we're forced to pick our markets carefully & try to tailor growing for expected demand. Ahh, the tricky part :-(  .  The selling is when I get good help from the expert who grew up cooking Italian since she was big enough to reach the kitchen counter. I remember the 2 ladies both trying to buy the last box of Italian tomatoes, & they agreed to split it.

It seems too many growers think of it all as just produce, whereas customers are thinking Food To Eat for supper. And they don't consider selecting varieties for flavor - to be Food - to give people a reason to spend their money on them & not somewhere else. Give 'em varieties & taste they can't get at a supermarket. This is what we've learned, & have to keep relearning.

On 3/27/2014 3:43 PM, John D'hondt wrote:

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