Eat your greens

Now that I grow my own, I am eating far more greens than I ever have, my mother would be proud of me! They seem to taste so much sweeter and less bitter than the shop bought varieties which I have always found difficult to eat. I am not sure whether this is because we eat ours so quickly after picking, and if we bought them they would of been no where near as fresh?

Chard its something that we thought we would try and grow in our first year, and it has been a true success for us.  The leaves are amazing, and we have so much of it that we really don’t know what to do with it all. Something we have to learn is how to grow the right amount and put enough seeds in, not to over do it, we are becoming a bit all Charded out!  I never knew that chard leaves grew so large, well to be honest I don’t ever remember eating Chard or seeing it in the supermarket.That is something to consider when growing your own, how many more varieties of foods you can grow, which you just wouldn’t normally see to buy, and to be honest that is such a shame, Chard for instance is lovely. We have been eating it like spinach either in a salad raw, or lightly steamed, absolutely delicious.

For years I found greens totally unpalatable, and now think it is a conspiracy to make them horrid in someway by parents, my home grown ones just seem so much nicer to eat than I remember. This is to the point that we are making a choice to eat greens in salads for a change, and not just cucumber and the normal salady bits we would use.

The other big leaves that are taking over the garden are the rhubarb plants, how big do they grow, well they are too big for our little garden I can confirm that! But I can’t wait to eat the stems in a lovely crumble of sorts, rhubarb is such an old fashioned type of fruit that you just don’t really see in the supermarkets either, it’s the same with gooseberries, and one of my favourites greengages. They are on my list for when we get a bigger space to grow our own.

I know that by learning more about wild foods and growing my own I am expanding the variety of foods that I am eating, and this has to be better for my body, and it is nice at this time of year when you get a chance to really feast on your earlier labours. I think I might get a taste for harvest time!

Enjoying the countryside, it’s nothing to fear!

It’s interesting with the rising impact of food, fuel and gas prices, how at a time when probably growing your own, and wild foraging is becoming more of a viable option, I hear a programme being advertised on the radio which is about the dangers of gardening! Tetanus, and other diseases which you could catch, even I was scared and I am out in it everyday!! But people lived for years growing their own, foraging etc, before we even knew about these ‘dangers’, and in many respects were very healthy.

I really do think the media just want to create a level of fear around those things which they can’t control, and for which large corporations don’t benefit from in any large way. They of course want you to stay in, you are using up electricity, and gas that way, which we don’t do when we are out all the time! It’s going to be hard enough for some people to afford to live a quality of life, but to have this fear of the unknown continually pushed at you is ridiculous. I’m not saying that there isn’t a level of knowledge and mostly common sense needed, but the rest is scare mongering.

The outdoors is not enjoyed enough, yesterday we were out walking and picking apples, apples which people are leaving due to not really knowing if they are ok to eat or not any more. Isn’t that ridiculous, that people have become so distanced from something which really is so easily identifiable. But it is the fear that you might catch something which is constantly played out through adverts, and the media which has created this cycle.

We enjoy the countryside everyday, eating from it 2-3 times a week, collecting everything from berries, to mushrooms, to herbs, and greens, it is something which we love doing. We met a family yesterday out playing, and they were saying how they were so different from their friends who would never consider taking their children out in the evening to play as they were doing. What a real loss of true world experience, the media scare parents into thinking their children need keeping in the house, within our sight, even tagged, yet I really believe the danger is from the media and large corporations that run them with their business interest solely in profiteering, not from the woodlands that we play in!