Veg

Naturally as part of this whole "going back to nature" thing I wanted to grow my own veg. The more you read about the crap they spray on crops the more it worries you. Organic really is the only safe option. We started to go organic when in London but the cost was really high plus the major difference between supermarket stuff and organic is that the latter goes bad so much quicker.

So, a kind neighbour lent me a rotivator (that's the thing that turns up the ground) and I attacked a piece of garden. About 4 hours later I was still raking and picking out bits of grass. If anyone thinks all this growing your own stuff is fun, think again. It is hard, back-breaking work. The next day I spent another 4 hours or so raking it over, levelling it and getting it ready for seed. Half of me thought, "I really can not be bothered to do this; Tescos is the best!"
But there is something deeply spiritual (for want of a better word) about the whole process. Its like removing something bad in order to grow something good, i.e. getting rid of your bad traits to sow some future good actions. While doing the work it was satiating at an internal level. I actually remember thinking at the time that there should be some law whereby everyone has to to grow at least one thing, whether some basil in the kitchen or a cucumber in the garden. You get much more appreciation for food and how mother nature works.

At the moment society is no detached from food - meaning its something they eat. Food is more than that. I really do believe the addage "you are what you eat is true", literally. Everything has an energy and is made up of ingredients - those gets transferred into your body. Although it is not scientifically proven, and is more of a personal idea, I really think that kids nowadays act so badly because the meat they eat is so full of hormones, drugs and God knows what else. Man wasn't built to eat so much meat, and when you do it should be real meat not some poor animal that has been bred in a 2x2 metal cage and fed crap from morning to night. Their misery must translate someohow into the meat too, having a knock-on effect to those that eat it (maybe?). At a certain time in my life I was asked to eat meat once a week. Over the coming months I really did notice a change in myself: less anger, more patience, a feeling of being light (weight wise not the stuff the sun makes) and on the whole a lot happier.

Anyway, enough rambling, I now have tomatoes (my God! I didn't know they tasted so sweet), marrows, sweetcorn, radish, lettuce, beetroot, spring onions, french beans and runner beans. Not bad.....

Hopefully next summer there will be a lot more to come as I am still planning out how to use the land. I want to get as much of our veg from the land as possible.