The Challenge of Knowing What Feeds Us
by Mary Meadows

One of my work activities is inspecting organic farms for either new or continuing organic certification. One gets to ponder life and its mysteries when travelling the highways and byways, and what has struck me is the fact that most of our organic farmers are now on the other side of fifty.

My thoughts have taken me back to the good old days (it's all relative!) when almost every household had an orchard of sorts and a veggie garden. In our suburban backyard, we had an apple, an orange and a mandarin tree, half a dozen hens and a veggie patch that covered about a third of the space. The chooks didn't always live out their natural life: sometimes one was sacrificed by way of the axe separating its head from its body. Being a sensitive soul, and after being exposed to the spectacle of the headless chook doing three laps of the backyard, I still have difficulty preparing chickens for eating purposes.

The main thrust of this observation is that we need to teach the young about the process of growing food, especially our own food. So many people now live in apartments, townhouses or big houses on tiny blocks, with nary a food in sight – unless, of course, you are a bee or a flying honeyeater. A Polish friend of mine, Krystina, as a child was constantly embarrassed by the fact that her father had turned their suburban front yard into a potato patch. His main reason for growing potatoes was only partly as a food source; the other reason was that he made a very heavy duty liqueur out of this wonderful tuber.

Some of the more enlightened in our midst do have the fruit trees and the vegetables growing, and places like the Northey Street City Farm in Brisbane is doing magical work educating the general populace about what can be done in a suburban environment. Some schools do have gardens – but unless this gardening activity is reinforced on the home front with kids having their own veggie patch to tend, a lot of the impetus can be lost. Apart from the benefits of home-grown produce and education in relation to how plants grow, there is the added benefit in this techno-crazy world of giving kids the opportunity to get their hands into Mother Earth and become grounded. My guess is that if a group of teenagers were asked where and how ingredients such as chocolate, vanilla and maple syrup are grown, a lot would not know. In general terms, we trust that the foods we eat are going to be of benefit to us, and it is only when we find ourselves allergic to something that we question this.

So, what to do with your small- to medium-sized patch, and with Christmas coming and no time to organise anything or know what to plant? A good way to start is to mark out an area, remove the grass, lightly till the soil, and then plant some green manure seeds from Green Harvest at Crystal Waters. Also purchase three or four packets of Good Bug Mix and scatter the seeds around the perimeter of the patch. Hopefully the plants will grow up in time to attract beneficial insects – if and when the pest insects arrive.

Plan what you want to grow, and in the New Year dig in the green manure crop and plant your seedlings or seeds. Depending on the condition of your soil, you may need to add blood and bone and perhaps dolomite if your soil is acidic.

If you only have a verandah as outdoor space, you can use polystyrene boxes or terracotta pots to grow also sorts of wonders from strawberries and mints to cherry tomatoes and lettuces. The negative is that this method requires a disciplined watering regime, but if you have the containers in a spot that you walk past every day, the trigger is there.

We can depend on the organic farmer to provide our fare. This is excellent for the grower and for Maple Street Co-op. However, unless we do more about reinforcing the benefits of growing our own food and encouraging the young to become involved in the process, we could very well run out of small, eco-friendly organic farmers.

[From "Maple Street Co-op News", December 2005/January 2006; published by The Maple Street Co-operative Society Ltd, 37 Maple Street, Maleny, Qld 4552, Australia, tel (07) 5494 2088, email maplest.co-op@serv.net.au, website http://www.maplestreetco-op.com.au]