Why am I doing this?

I feel that I need to explain my reason for growing Veg. Perhaps it’s the nature of ‘blog writing, or the nature of studying ‘pastoral theology’ where you are constantly being encouraged to analyse what messages your sending out by your actions and what your justification or motif is. Unfortunately doing this I am aware I’m indulging in a long diatribe of my own, not particularly well informed, thoughts. Something I promised not to do in my first ever post – sorry.

While it is nice to be able to claim growing veg is about environmental credentials. In reality, I have no illusions about the significance of the environmental benefits of me growing some veg. I also don’t have any illusions about being able to feed my family with the amount that I plant, let alone the amount I actually grow successfully. In fact, I question if ‘The Good Life’ expandable to the point that every family is fed off their own land? Would the world be significantly better if everybody could grow all they needed? In reality it would be a massive shift from the current state of things. Land would need to be more evenly shared, everybody would need to have the time to spend planting and growing. Based on my own success growing – there could also be significant issues when some people have no crop. Also, while I’m willing to accept that some of the ways we grow industrially aren’t good for the land, could we grow nearly enough for the population if we didn’t use modern farming techniques?

So I’m not trying to lead a green revolution, as nice as that would be. However, as can be seen in the way many shops and restaurants have started indicating greater details of where food has come from, there is something very pleasing to know not only where the food comes from but how it was grown and even to have the intimate relationship of having grown it yourself. I actually started gardening because I had a garden that needed developing and wanted to put it to use. I was also keen to get a better feel for the growing seasons because I do think veg tastes better in season, whether the alternative is artificial climates or globe trotting veg.

In reality I find digging, choosing the plant varieties, planting, maintaining and harvesting a great way of forcing myself to take the time to be. Ok, so ‘digging’, ‘choosing’, ‘planting’, ‘maintaining’ and ‘harvesting’ all sound like verbs, but they give time for my mind to slow down a bit, which can be extremely important. It’s very spiritual, helping things grow (I could quote from one of Paul’s letters, but I’ll resist the temptation). Actually, I think this probably resonates with a lot of people I know who grow veg and I wonder if it isn’t the most typical reason people keep growing veg.

There is another reason that I enjoy growing veg. Mrs gardener (this is where I realise ordinare as a title has some drawbacks as it would not apply well to Mrs gardener) particularly enjoys cooking and eating good veg, so it is nice to be able to discuss what she would like to eat in the coming months, and for me to supply it. In addition, by growing some of the heavier and more regularly used veg (potatoes for example) we are able to significantly decrease our burden when we are walking back from the grocers.

So there are plenty of reasons why I’m growing veg and I don’t think they’re too idealistic or unrealistic.