Growing your own Greens
This year I have decided to set myself a veg garden challenge: to grow all my own greens for one full year. I have grown various veg in the past, potatoes, beans, tomatoes and courgettes being particular favourites, and have always had some edible leaves around, but it has been hard to tell exactly how much food I’m producing, and some choices haven’t been the most space efficient or well suited to our slightly shady garden. My hope is that setting this clear target will make it easy to measure exactly how well we are doing (i.e. am I nipping to the supermarket to pick up a forbidden bag of rocket) and how achievable this would be to other families with a similar small back garden or even just some patio or balcony space. Of all the categories of veg to start with I’ve chosen leaves for two reasons: they have a big environmental impact and they are one of the easiest things to grow throughout the year, theoretically even in gardens like mine that are challenged for sun. This combination should make them the perfect candidate for many of us to have the satisfaction of growing our own and making a difference, whatever our gardening experience.
In the UK we seem obsessed with ready to eat salads, buying about 445 million bags of salad every year. Shockingly, we end up throwing away 40% of it, 37,000 tonnes of leaves or about 178 million bags. This is a terrible waste, but in some ways is very understandable as these bags have a short shelf life even in the fridge, and those of us that don’t shop daily end up buying enough for the week and then having to ditch what’s left when it goes bad. These figures don’t include other leaves like kale, pak choi, whole lettuce and spinach, but they must surely pose the same problem, needing plastic to contain and protect them but with a short shelf life which destines them for the bin. They are also one of the only vegetable types where it is pretty much impossible to avoid plastic waste. I have found that if you pick your supermarket (or better still your greengrocer) carefully you can get most veg plastic free, but salad and greens are always bagged for freshness.
As well as growing for the greater good, there are some more selfish reasons to grow your own too. Although the health benefits of eating lots of greens far outweighs any risks, it’s also worth considering that many green veg are treated repeatedly with pesticides when commercially grown and spinach and kale ranked second and third in a list of the top 12 most contaminated food products published each year by non-profit organisation, the Environmental Working Group (see the full list here). They’re also one of the most expensive items in the fruit and veg aisle and so a really worthwhile food group to grow from home.
So I have made my promise to myself, but if I have learnt anything over the years it is that to stick to a New Year’s resolution you need clear parameters, so here are mine. I’m including all leaves (salad, spinach, kale, cabbage and, perhaps hardest of all, my beloved pak choi) but excluding broccoli and cauliflower which are staples of my son’s diet (he’s less keen on kale or mizuna for example!) and which take a lot of space and time to grow for a one off harvest, making them impractical in our limited plot. I’m starting the counter from my first cutting of salad, which I expect around early April, until the same day next year. If I had wanted to start from the first of January I would have had to sow seed at the end of last Summer when unfortunately, I was away with work, but now (the first week of March) is the perfect time to start.
Our space is limited and I still want space for tomatoes, courgettes, cucumber, beetroot and beans, and my husband and son like to bond over planting and harvesting potatoes, so my plan is to stick to fast growing options that can be harvested on a ‘cut and come again’ basis. For baby salad leaves this means cutting them down and letting them regrow but for Kale and some cabbages, this means pulling a few lower leaves as you need them. It just isn’t practical to hang around for months waiting for a head of cabbage or broccoli to mature and, in my experience, if these crops let you down you find you have put all your leaves in one basket. Much better to grow tender young veg and keep monitoring what does well and where, tweaking planting to produce enough food.
I’m hoping I have space to try out a few methods of growing the same thing to see what works best and what is most practical for a gardener like me, with great enthusiasm but never enough time. I’m also going to try and compare what we produce to what I would have bought in terms of flavour, texture and ease of preparation. I’m a big fan of wildlife, but not when it finds its’ way onto my plate, and whilst I love peppery leaves, I’ve definitely picked some salads from our garden in the past that have been more thought provoking than palatable. Hopefully I’ll find some ways to keep easily prepared mild, delicious, tender greenery on our plates this year, and keep your fingers crossed that our table won’t go bare come winter!!
