Today we harvested a good bunch of produce, some broccoli, a couple of gherkins, a cucumber, a lot of onions and ¾ Kg podded fresh peas.
While podding the peas my mind wandered to wonder about the work, cost and financial risk that goes into food production on a farm scale, particularly fruit and vegetables. We all take the bags of fresh produce available in the supermarkets for granted. We expect fruit to be available all year around in all seasons and weather conditions. Consumers expect the vegetables to be clean, the same size and without waste (extra leaves or stalks) pleasantly and conveniently packaged, I regularly see peeled, washed, and chopped potatoes vacuum packed for sale. Our mushrooms come in small packages, uniform in size and as white as the driven snow. I suppose my point is the next day you place a bag of fresh produce in your trolly notice the price, fruit and vegetables are often the least expensive group of food items in the shopping trolly. Ask yourself what did the farmer/producer get for this?
From our experience of gardening (and I having been raised on a farm) we have learned to appreciate the work and financial risks taken by professional market gardeners and farmers to produce our food The cost of seed, the risk of growing, heating tunnels to guard against frost, the cost of labour, diesel to transport, washing, packaging, waste other costs labour, rent/insurance/buildings, the cost of finance. Professional producers encounter a lot of expense risk and worry producing and transporting a perishable product often to a price that can be dictated by a supermarket purchasing dept. with allegiance to its shareholder or owners.
Today we podded ¾ Kg of peas, sure, in terms of hours work and outlay we lost money. But we think of the added value to us, the pride if having grown the food ourselves, from seed in our own garden withing sight of our kitchen. We dug and rotavated the ground in the Spring, we chased the birds away from the little succulent seedlings back in April, we despaired when the wind blew the plants down just as they were getting high in May, we admired the little white flowers and the bees helicoptering from flower to flower pollinating as they went along in June. Today in July, along with podded peas we produced about 2Kg of empty pea pods which will go on to produce homemade compost for next year and the plants themselves will produce a load of nitrogen as they decompose in the Autumn. We will enjoy each individual pea, each piece of broccoli and I will relish each slice of pickled gherkin on my burger for the next year.
Should you be further interested enjoy 2 minutes of podding in slow motion here below..
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