Nostalgia: Grow Your Own

Back in the 1970s, dad worked locally to home. His garden was his escape from his job. With little on TV and no home computers, in good weather there was no reason to be indoors. We had a third of an acre that was once fields (it had a pile of dumped traction engine parts and teeth from horses or cattle). The top part was for roses, a lawn and a herb garden, but the rest was for fruit and veg. While mum worked in the house, dad worked in the garden. He needed a petrol powered rotavator to dig compost into the heavy clay soil. There was no topsoil to speak of. Big chunks of yellow clay had to be broken down. It took several years of digging in trailer loads of stable manure and hen-house sweepings to turn the sticky mess into fertile soil to grow food for a growing family. When dad's job changed and he had to spend more time travelling, he couldn't spend time gardening.

When he was a lad, he and his father grew veg in the back garden and on some land by the railway track. Mum's dad also grew lots of veg just beyond his roses and the ubiquitious rhubarb. In wartime it had been "dig for victory" and my parents were still digging. Sometimes we were sent down the garden to pull carrots or onions, pick lettuces or dig potatoes for dinner (mmmm, warm fresh newly harvested potatoes with fresh mint).

Down below the rose-beds and buddlieas (smothered in butterflies so you could hardly see the flower spikes), was a greenhouse, full of tomatoes and courgettes and various seedlings ready to be planted out. Beyond it were rows of salad veg - tomatoes, spring onions, lettuce, carrots, radishes, beetroot. Unfortunately the cauliflowers tended to bolt rather than form dense white hearts. Cabbage didn't often feature for some reason. To the other side of a path were potatoes (lots of them), marrows and various beans. Each year the potato/bean beds and salad beds were alternated. The onions and carrots formed alternate rows to confuse the insect pests.

Further down, just by the shed, were raspberry canes. Dad blamed the birds for the lack of fruit, but three purple-fingered raspberry-munching children were the real culprits. Beyond the shed were fruit bushes - blackcurrants and gooseberries and more potatoes. Nearby were 3 small fruit trees - 2 apples (multiple varieties grafted on one trunk) and a pear. The fruit vanished suspiciously fast - it was so nice to eat it straight from the tree! Strawberries didn't survive in the heavy clay soil, but we did a lot of pick-your-own to fill the freezer with soft fruit. There must have been a sixth of an acre (half the garden) turned over to fruit and veg.

My attempts at growing my own are less successful due to my longer working hours (including commuting and overtime) and doing both housework and gardening single-handed. I mostly have fruit bushes and rhubarb and these are very productive. With fewer jobs locally, growing your own is becoming a luxury rather than a way of life.