[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] A Cunning Plot

[Bill Totten]

How to grow vegetables without breaking your back

by George Monbiot

Monbiot.com (April 07 2008)

Introduction to the Guardian Growing Your Own guide


Why do people become obsessed with growing vegetables? It's not exactly
high-octane. It won't make you rich or boost your social status. But
millions who can afford to buy their food devote every free moment to
the kind of labour our ancestors were glad to abandon.

I think it is because the results are tangible. In much of the rest of
our lives, we work our butts off without discovering whether it makes
any difference. But in this case you can see and taste what you've done.
You can admire the work of your own hands, and this is the greatest
satisfaction that any task can give you.

I do most of my gardening at night. I lie in bed walking, in my
imagination, around my vegetable beds, working out what I could do
better. I love this strategising. It takes my mind off the bigger issues
and allows me to see - when otherwise I feel powerless - that there is
something I can change.

When I took on my first allotment, I covered it in black plastic to kill
the weeds, then spent a year talking to other gardeners and studying
their patches. The failed plots taught me as much as the successful
ones. I began to discover why people couldn't control their weeds and
slugs, why their beds were drying out, why their soil had compacted and
why they were producing for only six months of the year. I learnt more
before I touched my own plot than I have done since.

I realised that most of the work I needed to do would take place before
I planted the first seeds. By clearing the ground of perennial weeds
then building raised beds and putting down several tonnes of manure, I
would save myself hundreds of hours of pointless labour later on. It was
hard work, but not as hard as spending the rest of my life struggling
with a plot that hadn't been established properly. From then on
gardening became almost too easy. I was growing all the vegetables we
could eat in about half the time I wanted to spend. So I took on another
plot, and another. I ended up with five, growing vegetables on two and
fruit on the others.

As soon as they were ready, and the hard work was over, we moved to
Wales. Everyone thought I was crazy: all that work for nothing! But it
wasn't for nothing - it was the most satisfying thing I have ever done.
I started all over again, building a new plot in our back garden, and
working out how best to adapt to the different conditions there. This
extreme gardening has kept me fit for the past five years. I think I
must have moved fifty tonnes of earth and manure.

Now at last I can stop hauling muck and remember the other reason for
growing vegetables. Some species - such as potatoes, onions and squashes
- keep their flavour for months after they’ve been picked. But most
begin to deteriorate immediately. I've noticed that even half an hour
after I've picked them, crops like sweetcorn, purple sprouting broccoli,
radishes and french beans lose much of their sweetness (the vitamins
start to break down as well). After they've been sitting in a shop for a
few days, you might as well eat this newspaper.

I find that I am becoming that most anti-social of creatures, a
vegetable evangelist. I want to take people by the shoulders and beseech
them to save their tastebuds before they go to the devil. With this in
mind, let me suggest a few techniques which will make vegetable growing
easier and more productive.

1. Get yourself a digging hoe (in this country they are sold under the
Spanish name, azada). Everywhere else people use gravity to break the
soil, bringing a hoe down onto the ground. In Britain we work against
it, lifting the soil from below with a fork or spade, which doubles the
work and knackers your back. A good azada will dig out brambles with a
single stroke and break up compacted soil very quickly.

2. If your plot is full of small perennial weeds, such as couch grass or
marestail, don't try digging them out. Cover it with damp-proof membrane
for twelve or eighteen months. (Don't use carpet, which contains toxic
flame retardants). Otherwise you'll engage nature in a battle you cannot
win.

3. Don't walk on your beds and don't manure your paths. In other words,
keep them separate, preferably by building raised beds.

4. Don't grow your perennials (such as fruit bushes or rhubarb) in the
same bed as your annuals. They'll harbour weeds, which will keep
invading your vegetables.

5. Keep your compost heap as far from your vegetables as you can. This
is where the slugs and snails breed, and they will destroy everything
within a radius of about ten feet.

6. Start your vegetables as early as possible, under cloches or on the
windowsill. They become well-established before the slugs wake up and
the summer droughts start.

7. As soon as you've harvested one crop, sow the next. There are at
least twenty kinds of vegetables and salads (mostly oriental varieties)
that you can grow through the British winter. You should be able to eat
fresh greens every day of the year.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/apr/05/growingyourown

Copyright (c) 2006 Monbiot.com

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/04/07/a-cunning-plot/

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