"If we are blessed with an abundance of choices about food, we are surely also obliged to consider the responsibility implicit in our choices. There has never been a more important time to think about where our food comes from. We could make for ourselves a safer nation, overnight, simply by giving more support to our local food economies and learning ways of eating and living around a table that reflects the calendar."
Barbara Kingsolver 'Small Wonder'
Harper Collins (2002)
People Who Love Gardening
From window box to market garden, if you enjoy growing things you will almost certainly grow a few edible plants. This CD-ROM covers growing up to a hectare of vegetables as this is the area that is not adequately covered in the gardening literature, however, all gardeners will find useful information that will make their job more enjoyable.
The Visitors To Our Farm
Many of the visitors to our farm, and we do get rather a lot of them, are curious about how a small operation, on very marginal soils can produce high quality vegetables and fruit and survive economically in a food market which is dominated by mass produced produce. Often the visit results in information overload. This CD will let our visitors revisit the farm in the convenience of their own home and answer the questions they forgot to ask.
People Who Phone Us
Lots of people pick our brains over the phone. Often they can answer their own questions by visiting our website but sometimes they need to know more. If they cannot visit the farm then we hope that this CD will help them more fully understand what we do.
Visitors To Our Farm
Judging from the emails and phone calls we receive, there are a number of people who initially contact us because we sell unusual, professional quality, gardening and farming tools. They then realise that we are doing what they are either doing or dream of doing and they want more information. This is it - as complete a guide as we can provide at this stage.
Aspiring Vegetable Growers & Farmers
In his seminal work "The Farming Ladder" George Henderson talks about agricultural work and the perception that the public and workers have of it. Basically he says that almost any form of work is held in higher esteem and he gives as an example the fact that young men would rather work in a factory doing repetitive dirty work than working outside in the fresh air at different and varied tasks requiring skill and initiative. When he asked why this was so they told him that farm work had no standing. We suspect that the same attitudes persist today and this CD is in a small way our strategy to demonstrate the interesting challenge and complexity of good vegetable production and the worthiness of this work.
...And What Are These People Who Contact Us Like?
The common thread is that they are people with a curiosity about the source of our food and a deep need to provide the best vegetables, fruit and flowers for themselves, their families, their friends and others.
Realistically these needs cannot be fullfilled by the vast majority of the population but for those who :
• have large kitchen gardens
• who run small market gardens
• or run Community Supported Agriculture operations (CSAs)
There is always something to be learned from other growers and we are happy to share the ways that we do things.
This CD is for you in the hope it will help to make your vegetable gardening fun, more efficient and more profitable.
This CD Is Also For Us
We live in a world where most people are becoming more and more dependent on other people providing all their needs.
As the gulf between poducers and consumers continues to grow so does the new industry of "Quality Assurance".
Our own experience in food growing has shown us that no concerned individual should rely on any "Quality" Assurance scheme. Real quality comes when there is a direct link between the producer and the consumer - when you can look your family in the eye and say "taste this, I picked it just before I cooked it". Or when you can look your vegetable supplier in the eye and say "thank you - what you gave us last week was terrific!".
Our frustration is that there are so many consumers and so few of us who are actually producing food. We have produced this CD as our way of encouraging lots more growers to get on and do it - with the earnest hope that you will be more than successful.
We live in a world where most people are becoming more and more dependent on other people providing all their needs.
However. . .
"There is no way that we can come here and pretend that we have it all figured out...
We ask people to adapt pieces of what we say, or what anybody else says. I strongly do not recommend somebody adopting our whole program.
Every farm is different."
Dick Thompson - speaking to Innovative Farmers of Ohio
January, 2004
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