Song for Jasmine

Easter has come and gone, and those of you lucky enough to have a garden may well have been out in it planting things. I don’t have a garden, and my mum is probably raising her eyebrows right now because I didn’t get that much done in hers over Easter, but I do have a terrace, and I am looking forward to trying my hand at growing a few plants this year.

I’ve grown vegetables in pots before, but not without pesticides and fertilisers. This year will be different, I intend to follow the growing trend and see how well I manage without chemical assistance. If it’s good enough for Michelle Obama, it’s good enough for me!

Michelle Obama wants to plant an organic garden in the white house lawn, and apparently this is upsetting the agricultural chemicals industry in the US. They are concerned that it sends the wrong message because it is organic. This despite the fact that more and more people out there are moving away from pesticide use. The fourth Semaine sans Pesticides (‘week without pesticides’), just last month, was twice the size of the one last year.

14 countries participated, from Canada, South America, Europe, and Africa (a summary is available online). Pesticides are nasty chemicals, and it seems a lot of people, the world over, think we can do without using so much or so many of them. But how?

Fortunately for the small gardener, there’s a lot of good information out there about natural pest control, such as using coffee to repel slugs and snails, using neem oil as an environmentally-friendly pesticide, companion planting, for mutual pest-resistance, selecting plants to attract useful insects, and growing vegetables in pots. I’ve even read some of it, and have decided what I want to grow this year.

I want to grow lettuce, beetroot, chard, and spring onions. Beetroot leaves are good in salads, so they’re not just for the roots. I also want to plant a few herbs (basil, thyme, rosemary, mint), as much for the smell as anything. I’ve chosen these plants for a variety of reasons:

• they’re easy and fast to grow, so I can hope to get something quickly
• for the most part, they’re cut-and-come-again, so I can hope for a long season
• lettuce and chard, in particular, don’t keep too well in the fridge. By growing my own, I hope to have them fresh whenever I want them.
• they don’t need staking, so occasional high winds and storms won’t damage them (I hope)
• in the event of a disaster (hailstorm, heatwave, locusts, whatever) I should be able to replace them rapidly

Incidentally, if your parrot likes beetroot, do bear in mind that it retains its colour as it passes through the digestive system of your feathered friend. Jasmine liked beetroot, but the first few times we gave it to her we were a little concerned about the red droppings at the bottom of the cage a few hours later!

I also want to grow some flowers, partly for the colour but also for the local birds and insects – some of them anyway. The local bees will probably like the thyme, and I’m sure they’ll go for sunflowers too. The sunflower heads will be kept for feeding the birds later in the autumn and winter.

The minimal research I’ve done so far suggests that french marigolds are good at deterring aphids, so they’ll be very much in evidence, in and around the other plants. Nasturtiums are easy and, if I am to believe what I hear, edible too, but I’m not convinced. Maybe I’ll try them, maybe not.

I don’t intend to be too ambitous with my gardening this year. I won’t have a great deal of time for it and I’m not expecting to save a lot of money. I do expect to grow some tasty food, and to have a lot of fun in the process. I’ll let you know how it goes!

The BBC published an article on Tuesday with the title Farmers fear EU pesticide rules. Interestingly, a few hours later they changed the title to “Euro MPs back pesticide controls”. This concerns the very law that I mentioned in a previous post, “Optimism“.

It’s a shame the BBC changed the title, but the story still made it out into the world with that title, so i feel I am allowed to refer to it as such. So why should British farmers fear these rules? The majority of the EU states welcomes them, as do I, though the MEPs don’t ask me for my opinion.

Apparently, they fear the rise in price that would follow the drop in productivity, even to the point that the ‘British carrot’ could become extinct. Why, then, does the Soil Association believe otherwise? The Soil Association is an organisation that supports and promotes organic farming. They published a report in October 2008 entitled “England And Wales Under Organic Agriculture”, in which they discuss the consequences (email them if you want a copy, it’s not available for download). They point out that going completely organic could, for the UK, reduce the use of fertilizers by 95%, spraying by 98%, and increase jobs by 73%. There are many other benefits, not least of which is a huge reduction in the carbon footprint of their food.

The common objection to going organic is that yields would decline. This report shows that they would not suffer as much as is often claimed, Britain would not starve. It might even be better off with the right balance of farming techniques, there’s plenty of scope. If the Argentinians can manage to raise organic beef on large farms and export it around the world, surely Britain can do likewise?

Unfortunately, the soil-association report doesn’t mention the fate of the British carrot, so I don’t know what would happen there.

France is not so scared of going organic, it seems. The French are putting 12 million euros annually into turning their farms organic. They want organic production to grow considerably in the near future. France is the biggest consumer of pesticides in europe, but they don’t seem to be scared of running out of carrots as they change their ways.

Personally, I buy most of my food from a French organic chain, Satoriz (Jasmine often came with us). Their prices are reasonable, the quality is good, and they have a full range of organic products, from soap and baby food to beer and wine. Oh yes, and carrots, like the one at the top of this post. I’ve also noticed that the food I buy from there tastes better than food I get from elsewhere. Satoriz have a lot of shops in my area, and have recently opened a large new outlet. I hope they continue to do well.

America, too, has an agricultural system strongly based in the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. As Obama prepares to be sworn in as president, there are people calling on him to reform the way the USA produces food, citing largely the same reasons.

So if all the French, the Argentinians, and the USA think they can produce food without so many chemicals, I have to wonder what the British farmers have to fear? Surely they aren’t really scared for their carrots?