Hi folks,
I really enjoy food, including cooking, so Ironman training is just the job for me – lots of food. When I can I buy my victuals (or as John Cleese would say, comestibles) at local farm stores. In this case, the company is called ‘Small Potatoes’ and they stop by Johnny’s, just over the road, a couple of times a week.
Small Potatoes Farm Stall. Great food. I'm cooking some now. Yum! Yum!
They sell vegetables, fruit, cheese, eggs, meat and whatever is in season. Furthermore, they don’t have a Website or a Blog, but they do great business. As in blogging, ‘content is king.’
My real issue with food right now is how to combine the thoughts of Gary Taubes with my love of vegetables and fruit. Another challenge with locally grown produce is the cost. It is well worth the extra money IF you have the extra money. Guess I’ll just have to work it out. Anyone got any good ideas on that conundrum? To be honest, I have found that the very best food is that which you grow yourself, but gardening does take time. The second best source is a local farmer, and then you have to follow the road to factory farming. People tend to attack the factory farm machine for many good reasons, which I understand, but this system did rescue people in America from starvation. Then starvation turned into Metabolic Syndrome, which highlights the importance of both the quality and the quantity of food that you produce, when you are trying to feed a nation of many millions. If we can find a way to combine (Excuse the corny pun. Ooops! Another corny pun) the efficiency of global factory farming with local produce and minimal carbon footprints, whilst making such foods available to people with all levels of income, that would be great. We just have to dream the dream, instead of polarizing the debate, and I bet we’ll find a way. Humans are pretty bright as primates go, so I am hopeful.
I’m off to cook some food I bought at Small Potatoes, after a nice bike ride and preceding an easy swim. And yes, I do love cheese.
PS I have been told that I use too many exclamation marks (aka “a screamer, a gasper, a startler or … a dog’s cock“). I stopped for a while, but I noticed that they are creeping back into my narrative. I just like them!!!!!
It does not take a lot of time or garden space to grow your own.
Techniques developed in the WWII “Dig for Victory” campaign showed it could be done.
I am currently trying container gardening. I am growing potatoes and some herbs.
In each container I have got a yield of between 5 and 8.5lbs of spuds. I planted 25 containers. They were planted two a week over 3 months. When the final top up with soil/compost is done I tried planting broad beans. They add nitrogen to mix give you a few beans and improve potatoe yield.
I am now looking up tips for potatoe storage.
None of this is too time consuming.
I have a small cold greenhouse and a conservatory. These are used to bring things on early in the season and for tomatoes and flowering cacti. (man livith not by spuds alone.
Yes, we can complement agrobusiness. With the years of economic depression ahead of us we need to learn and learn quick.
potato.
Nothing else to add.
Who was that politician?
Dig for victory politician?
Lord Woolton was appointed Minister of Food. He was appointed by Neville Chamberlain (!!!) in October 1939. Neville Chamberlain was looking to reduce the need for food imports. This was acheived with the reduction being 50%.
Look on BBC website at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2263529
There are some great posters there
Sample quote:-
“The whole of Britain’s home front was encouraged to transform private gardens into mini-allotments. Not only this, but parks, formal public gardens and various areas of unused land were dug up for planting fruit and vegetables. Kensington Gardens dug up its flowers and planted rows of cabbages. The government also encouraged people to keep a few chickens or ducks for eggs. Some communities set up pig clubs, feeding the pigs on kitchen scraps and sharing the pork when the pigs were slaughtered. Hyde Park had its own piggery. Goats were kept for milk and rabbits for stews….”
Hi Trevor,
All of this is true but it takes a lot of time, all the same. Here things grow well, but so do weeds and parasites, so it is a full-time job to keep a garden going, and if you have a full-time job when are you going to do it. If everyone went ‘back to nature’ the population would have to drop by at least 50% or more. If you want an interesting ‘analysis’ of this situation, I recommend ‘The Rational Optimist’ by Matt Ridley. Interesting thoughts in there. I do plan to put in a winter garden if I can find time with all this business set up, sick kids, kids going back to school, blogging, etc. etc. Nothing like fresh vegetables through the winter.
Dig for Victory. Believe it or not, I remember people talking about that when discussing there ‘allotments,’ which is where the name came from, I imagine. Allotted space.
Cheers,
Kevin
No. Not back to nature.
Look at Marginal Cost Analysis. I am looking at having a small influence “at the margine”.
Also container gardening (growing things in big containers or plastic bags!) is not labour intensive.
Strange most sciences look at the whole or at the average and economists look at the margin.