verging_on_random

Vegeprivation

April 11, 2007 on 9:25 pm | In Uncategorized |

Ever since I moved up to this part of the world, 12 or 13 years ago, I’ve been growing most of my own vegetables. Tomatoes, sweet corn, peas, beans, chilis, capsicums, cabbages, cauliflowers, broccoli, okra, cucumbers, lettuces, Chinese greens of various kinds, rocket, all sorts of herbs, eggplant, squash, leeks, hell the list just goes on and on … I grew them all. People would drop by and stare, I kid you not. The next day they’d come back with friends to prove they hadn’t been bullshitting about the man who could grow food.

Here these will give you an idea:

I’ve now found the one significant flaw in the new home, which is that I can’t grow veges any more. Not until next spring anyway. There’s only one open space and it only gets sun for the warm 6 months of the year, which means my food production will be severely curtailed. It’s like the nuclear winter’s descended.

Since I only planted a few things in January this season’s crop has been a joke … especially when the scrub turkeys came around in February and scratched the whole lot into the next state. Bastards. All I harvested were a few eggplants, some okra and the ever-reliable snakebeans. Oh and mint, it loves the shade. I’m thinking of setting up an export business.

In the mean time I’ve had to go back to buying veges from shops. Ugh. Talk about a shock to the system. Somehow limp snow peas, tomatoes that remain rock-hard and flavourless even after two weeks being bright red, broccoli going yellow at the edges and dull soft zucchinis are hard to stomach after 12 years of eating stuff that was picked 30 minutes or an hour before it was cooked.

I love the new place and hope to stay for a good long while but my dream remains that one day I’ll have a decent little property where I can grow all my own veges, plus melons and other fruits, and keep a few chooks. Industrial food has lost its savour.

Unfortunately by the time I realise my dream there probably won’t be any water left to make the damn things grow.