Grow Your Own

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A well know Dittie by Q. Kumber

I was reading yesterday about how the flight ban was affecting supplies of fresh fruit and vegetables. True, a great deal of tropical fruit, bananas, oranges and grapefruit will have to be imported by sea and air, but surely not so for popular vegetables like potatoes, carrots and beans.

The sad fact is, this country does import potatoes from Egypt, carrots from Holland and beans from Kenya. Just think of the air-miles and additional cost.

When we were isolated and stood alone during World War II, everywhere you looked there were allotments, fields and even parks cultivated and producing fresh and healthy fruit and vegetables. “Dig for Victory” was the call.

I still have some of those leaflets - they were tucked away in my mother’s old cookbook.

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After the war things were very slow to improve and my father had an allotment in addition to the back garden. Plants that needed lots of watering, like lettuce and tomatoes were grown at home, and potatoes, cabbage and carrots were in long rows up at the allotment.

How do I remember all this?

Because Dad got me to help.

Whether I managed to help or just got in the way I know not! - but I do remember climbing into a huge wheelbarrow (which he had build) and being pushed up to the allotment.

I remember this large shed where gardeners could keep their tools, seeds and fertilizers - and I can still remember that wonderful ‘earthy’ smell that it contained.

Dried chicken manure no doubt, and things like “Blood, fish and bone”.

This was usually early on Sundays mornings and dad would dig up potatoes and carrots whilst I would pick the sprouts. There was no ride home for me as the barrow was now loaded up and the contents rushed home for Sunday dinner.

How fresh can you get?

We managed and were all well fed and healthy.

So the country now sits here almost totally dependent on imports.

Buy British - save air-miles.

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So when the politicians knock on your door this week, ask them who is to blame if you cannot feed your family properly this election time, just make it clear to them that without the eu, its rules and regulations, this country could grow what it wanted, it could fish where it liked, it could reduce our dependency on overseas food imports to a minimum, so that natural disasters such as this latest volcano ‘thing’ would have a minimum impact on families here.

My ‘hero’ Boris Johnson (London’s Lord Mayor) came out with a gem the other day.

He said "What crouton of substance did Clegg offer last Thursday, in the opaque minestrone of waffle?”

And what’s this?

“The Health Food Manufacturers’ Association released a report a couple of years ago saying that two thirds of Britons thought chips counted as a five-a-day vegetable.”

Is it not true?

For two years I've thought chips came from Potatoes?

Spoilt my day!

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