Grow your own... wherever you live...

It is consistently more and more difficult to find organic vegetables and fruits, readily available and at an affordable price, at least it is in some countries.  Other lucky people like the Americans have Farmer's Markets in most cities, something that should be promoted in all major cities all over the developed world.  Why only the developed world?  Because that is where our diet and our health is suffering in favor of accessibility to all vegetables and fruits all year round instead of just seasonal ones, and mass production to meet demand which means that most of our vegetables and fruits are picked before they are ripe and kept in cold storage until they reach the consumer.  They are treated with unhealthy levels of pesticides so that as much of the crop as possible is viable - all of which enter our bodies when we eat them.  And don't even get me started on GMO produce and the lack of labeling.

Let's face it, nowadays we know very little about what we are putting in our bodies and the potential effects that food can have on our health.  Our busy lifestyles mean that we want convenience above health.

Prices for organic foods are still a lot higher in comparison to the mass produced foods and people are now beginning to try to grow their own.  I have had a vegetable patch for the past 6 years, as an inexperienced gardener I tend to stick to the summer months for growing as I am scared of trying during the winter months for lack of a green house and the fact that where we live, temperatures do go way below freezing in winter.  But this year I have promised myself I am at least going to try and carry on after the summer bonanza of wonderful home grown produce.  I grow: potatoes, lettuces, tomatoes, runner beans, peppers, onions, egg plant, leeks, courgettes (squash), pumpkins, cucumbers, and I am still trying to grow strawberries although the birds usually get to them before I do!

My husband was skeptical the frist year I said I was going to plant a vegetable patch.  He's is not a great

vegetable eater and prefers salads as his main source of vegetables, and will only really eat fruit if it is already cleaned, peeled and cut into bite sizes chunks in a dish and put in front of him.  So, I almost jumped for joy the first time I gave him produce from our garden and he readily admitted that he'd never tasted anything like it.  I made the Spanish version of ratatouille (Pisto), made with courgettes, onions, tomatoes and peppers - he will now eat it happily and can't wait for the vegetables from our garden to be ready to eat - he has even taken on watering the garden in the evenings and is all for starting a project for a green house to extend our own veggie growing all year round.  Now if he can be convinced maybe you can too.

Now, I admit, we are lucky, we have a garden with enough space for a veggie patch and the kids still have loads of space to play without destroying the tomatoes - now if I could just get the dog to stay away... yes, it seems my veggies are so good that even the dog eats them!

Lots of people don't have a garden, and lots of city dwellers don't even have a balcony or terrace that they could use to grow their own veggies - or so they think.  However, you really don't need that much space to have your own little area to grow vegetables.  You would be surprised as to how much produce you can get from a small number of plants.  Quite often I have so much produce that I end up giving it away to friends and neighbors and turning it into tomato sauce and preserving it for the year to come.

One of the major requirements for your vegetables to flourish is sunlight, so as long as you have a sunny room, terrace or balcony you can put them on your are ready to go.  However, in hot countries such as Spain, be careful with the summer heat if your plants are on a cement terrace or balcony it can get too hot for them, so best to have them somewhere you can move them with ease to the shade.  A good idea for this is to put them on a base that has wheels and you can move them easily.  You will need containers of at least 10 inches wide and 12 inches deep - the bigger the pot the better as they need space to grow.  Make sure the containers you use have drainage wholes in the bottom to stop the roots from rotting.  You can also get very creative and make the containers into decorations too.


Tomatoes are ideal for home growing, especially the baby or cherry variety as your will get lots from just a couple of plants, peppers are also good and lettuces just keep producing as long as you cut them
and eat them leaving the roots in the soil.  Courgettes need a lot of space as the plants can grow to be quite big and I wouldn't recommend pumpkins or cucumbers unless you have space to let them crawl... you can train them to grow up and over a trellis and go vertical instead of horizontal to save space.  Lots of people are using hanging baskets to grow vegetables nowadays and therefore economizing on space, believe it or not some can even be grown upside down.  Another way of economizing space is to use walls!  Yes there are even ways to grow veggies on walls - but I would recommend them being outside walls!

So who is going to give it a try?  I'd love to hear about your experience.

Useful Links:

Grow Food not Lawns
Gardening Know How

Social Nutrition:
You can make an appointment to improve your health with Social Nutrition either in person (Madrid) or online (Skype).  Just send an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com