gardens

[jape]

Completely off topic but how many of you have their own veggie patch these days? Even in the countryside, very few of my neighbours bother because supermarkets are so easy despite the very real contamination with banned chemicals and lack of nutrtion. I recently watched a reputable TV show where random samples of top brand supermarket food, sold as fresh or snap frozen was tested. MOST of it, cheap or expensive, had shocking amounts of pesticides and chemicals banned worldwide for decades, toxic amounts as they do not pass out of the system and build up over time, and that included the control test on so-called certified 'organic' produce!!! It also showed a serious lack of nutritional value (especially the china-sourced vegetables). You are what you eat.

I have always had a garden of some sort or other but because of my back injuries and marauding wallabies and rabbits and parrots, it gets neglected. But this year, although all the cherries got pinched by birds, I have just eaten my first ever nectarines! Small but sweet - and now the black figs are ripening ... I also just harvested cucumber and the first tomatoes along with some garlic and salad leaves. Nothing beats the taste of fresh, organic produce, of sun-warmed and ripened tomatoes especially! I am not a gourmet in any way, I hate all the TV cooking shows filling the air-waves these days as eating for me is just a chore, but this changes that a little. The health I still have, despite injuries and neglect is, I am convinced, because I was raised on almost only garden and orchard grown produce, no chemicals, just soil and shit and water and sun. In those days in UK after WW2, everyone drank water, ate from their garden and the neighbours shared around any surplus. All that was bought was bread and milk and some fruit as a treat.

I wish I could do more. From time to time I manage a whole meal of home-grown food including maybe a rabbit I have shot with the bow or far more rarely, a wild goat kid. Those meals, when coupled with wine from my neighbours' vinyards are the best!

[moilami]

Maybe I do a veggie patch in year 2015. Should actually do it before. I have a place for it and everything just near a lake and Sauna! I will first just have to become more enthusiastic of self-sufficiency regarding food.

[felix]

That sounds really nice Jape. I wish there were more options here, it's depressing to eat chinese tomatoes. They barely have any colour and taste like water. Same with all the veggies, they have no taste. Good luck finding anywhere to grow something in shanghai though, even the roaches have trouble surviving here...

[jape]

i understood that the Chinese use 'night soil' on everything, so the tomatoes must taste of something ...

[euphonius]

For me, on the 20th floor in a colony of a dozen or more 25-35-story buildings, the opportunity to have a garden is a dream. But it's a dream I plan to turn into reality, not here in China but on a family parcel in a redwood forest overlooking the Pacific 3 hours north of San Francisco. I know stuff grows there -- pot anyway -- not that I've done that. We've had poachers.

And, though I don't know the laws on this, I would certainly consider applying night soil to my garden, provided it's been allowed to compost or whatever you have to do to it. If that makes any visitors uncomfortable we can go eat at Bridget Dolans in downtown Elk, population 250.

cheers

[jape]

I know a few eco types who use it but they say there are two rules, never raw on ground near food you eat that takes it straight in (like greens) but OK round fruit trees, and never when you take meds or eat processed food. Me, I'll stick to cow shit/sheep manure, but the fruit trees do get overflow run off from the septic tanks with no problems, in fact the figs are superb!

When you going to live the dream Jeff? don't leave it too late, you need some physical and emotional strength to put it together.