I was just about to comment on this post about an episode of The Biggest Loser (USA) featuring the White House garden as ‘proof’ that anyone can eat healthy cheaply. Then I realised my comment would get very long and ranty, so it’s here instead.
Apparently, Bob from The Biggest Loser thinks that it’s easy peasy to grow a garden that will provide vegetables for eating salads all the time.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Obviously a man who has never actually gardened. You just throw seeds in the soil and they grow into vegetables, with just a bit of watering, right?
Even assuming you have available arable land, or space to put suitable planter boxes, it’s nowhere near that easy. You need money, time, and to learn about growing things. Which also takes time and possibly money.
- You need soil that will grow stuff. Not all soil will. You need to figure out if it’s already full of nutrients or not, what the local pH is, and a bunch of other things. Food plants generally need very nutritious soil.
- You need to look at what trees and shrubs are growing nearby (root systems). You need to see what kind of sun the patch of land will get, what kind of wind and weather to provide the right amount of light and stop your garden blowing over. Does the land have a slope? That will affect things too, like water and topsoil runoff. You’ll have to plan for crop rotation, too.
- You need to decide whether to till and cultivate the patch or use permaculture. You have to clear what’s growing there already and sheet mulch to stop it re-growing. If you don’t know what those things are, you’ll have to read all about them.
- You’ll need tools. A spade and shovel with a good sharp edge, a fork, a rake, and hand tools like a trowel. You can buy these cheaply, if you want tools that will break or rust and need replacing often, and also make your work harder.
- To make the soil suitable for food growing, you’ll need to add things like compost matter (which you can buy or make your own, but it takes a while to make your own), blood-and-bone, minerals, etc. Depending on the region and weather you may need to add a type of clay to keep more moisture and nutrients in the soil. And add worms if there aren’t many already in the soil. If the soil is sandy you probably need to add a liquid wetting agent. You can’t just sprinkle all this on the top either, the soil needs to be dug through to a depth of about a foot.
- Are you going to irrigate or hand water? What kind of irrigation? Drip or spray? Automated? You have to buy the stuff for that too – either the pipes and valves and timers, or a good long hose and watering nozzle and watering cans.
- Oh, now you have to keep adding stuff to the soil over the next few weeks-months. Chicken, horse or sheep manure (if you’re rural or near you can usually get this free or near-free from people with said animals, if not you’ll have to buy it), more blood-and-bone, assorted organic matter like lucerne, etc. Lots of digging involved.
- Now, you can buy plants ready sprouted, or you can set up a nursery if you have a shed or something like that. Either way, you’ll probably have to buy more stuff, or be knowledgable about what you can recycle and reuse.
- Are you going completely organic, partly organic, or relying on common chemical weedkillers and pesticides? You need some way to keep unwanted bugs and birds from eating your plants.
- You’ll need to find out what to do with your growing plants to encourage more edible growth. For instance, things that grow on vines, like cucumbers and pumpkins, you can pluck off new leaf tips to encourage the plant to spend its energy on growing the fruit instead of more leaves.
- There’s more.
I put all this down not to discourage anyone from gardening a vegie patch, but to point out the absurdity to anyone who thinks it’s a doddle and poor people and/or fat people should just get right on it. There are ways to keep your costs down and manage your gardening time and energy well, but again, you need time to learn these things from somewhere, whether it’s friends, relatives, neighbours, community centres, books, websites, DVDs, TV. And good old-fashioned experience.
This also assumes you have the climate for growing a range of vegetables to keep you (let alone a family) supplied with vegetables over the various seasons. There’s a reason California grows most of the USA’s vegetables and fruit, not North Dakota. What are you going to do with your excess produce? Canning and preserving also takes time and knowledge.
If you have the space, time and money and also the motivation or love of gardening, it’s pretty rewarding and a great way to get fresh vegetables. All this also assumes you are able-bodied enough to do all that digging, bending, planting, and watering. (Raised beds are good if you have back problems or similar, but someone still has to build and install them.) And sure, you can grow things in planter boxes if you have a balcony or rooftop, but probably only enough to supplement your grocery shopping, not replace it. Oh, and unless you own your own home, you’ll need your landlord to grant permission to dig up the yard.
Remember this if anyone ever claims what Bob claimed. Like I said, not trying to put anyone off gardening, just point out it’s not quite as straightforward as growing a chia pet, possibly Bob’s only experience of growing anything besides his ego.
