US: Public muck in to boost organic food production

Put it down to the recession, or looming global food shortages, or the population just being sick to the back teeth of stumping up venal prices for bags of wilted salad leaves in Tesco, but all sorts of people are eyeing up their gardens, patios, balconies, window boxes and back greens and seeing their potential for food production. By last year, sales of vegetable seeds had outstripped those of flower seeds for the first time since we were urged to "Dig For Victory" during world war two, and allotments are so over-subscribed, they may soon be traded on the black market.

This spring, the kitchen garden movement got another lift from none other than Michelle Obama, right, who has dug up the manicured White House lawn - which doubtless owed its verdant bloom and absence of weeds to frequent and liberal applications of weed killers and synthetic fertilisers - to plant an organic kitchen garden. Then we learned that the Queen has been busy developing the "Yard Bed", an allotment-sized fruit and vegetable plot in the grounds of Buckingham Palace. Small, shaded and with poor city soil, it is nevertheless providing nourishment for the royal table.

Note that both these high-profile women have opted to make their gardens organic. The Queen, for instance, has chosen to use liquid seaweed to stimulate growth, in place of synthetic fertilisers, and banned the use of chemicals in her potager. This synchronicity is no coincidence.



Source: sundayherald.com

Publication date: 7/14/2009

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