Vegetable Growing: the not-so "easy" myth.

[Rosefriend]

When Dutchy came up for her yearly visit she also brought me her older copies of "The Garden" from RHS...some wonderful reading and looking forward for next year's lot already!!
I have to say that this article from Lia Leenddertz gave me food for though and I found it basically absolutely true...

Any opinions??

RF

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Vegetable growing: the not-so "easy" myth.


So here we go, head first into the growing season. March
is back, and it is a frantic time for vegetable growers,
sowing the seeds that will bring bounty later in the
year, juggling pots of ever-elongating seedlings,
clearing weeds from plots and setting slug traps to head off our greatest foe.

And it is about this time that we – by which I mean
the garden media – start telling you how easy it all is.
Gardeners may lose interest if we tell them it is pretty
time-consuming and physically hard. The implication
is: ‘What could be simpler than sowing a seed?all it
needs is water and sunlight! It wants to grow!’.

Such bold statements, however, do not factor in
that nascent seedlings maybe be besieged by frost,
encroaching weeds, slugs, blight and rust the moment
you breathe a satisfied sigh and turn your muddy boots
towards home. In fact vegetable growing depends on
annuals that must be cosseted at the start of the year,
and so is at the trickier end of the gardening spectrum.

Skills and knowledge are built up over years: a cliché
perhaps, yet there is just no better way of ramming a
lesson home than holding a blight-blackened tomato in
your hand.a book can convey everything but the heart
break that will make you do it differently next time.

What vegetable growing promises is that perfect
blend of mental challenge and physical exertion:
spells of dull, repetitive work alleviated by juggling,
calculating and thinking. Painting a wall is easy.
Sweeping a floor is easy. But you don’t find people
making a hobby of either. So do not believe the hype
– but go forth into the March mayhem anyway.

Vegetable growing is a lot of great things: creative,
challenging and ultimately satisfying. Easy isn’t
always one of them.

[Ladygardener]

Well to be hones Rosefriend, although it's not a walk in the park, the easiest and best Brussel Sprouts, Beetroot, Potatoes, Peas, and Tomatoes I grew were the first ones I grew before I realised how many predators there were and just how temperamental they are, or can be. Before I realised all the things that can go wrong. In a way ignorance is bliss and I would encourage anyone and everyone to try growing their own flowers and food within reason.

I was just telling my friend at the allotment the other day how easy it can all be if you get the right conditions and soil/compost to grow in. The physical end of it, harvesting can be fun with friends and family and although I live alone, doing things bit by bit can make it all less of a chore.

Overall I think it's quite a negative piece and should have been tempered by saying how the heart beats a little bit quicker when seeds germinate, the promise of all that is to come and the smell of Tomato leaves when you're growing them, makes it all worthwhile.

[Dutchy]

Ah yes so true Rosefriend and well said LG.

I long for the days that I could grow my beetroot without thinking and it went well too!!!
Now I know how hard it is on my new plot and somehow they still refuse to romp.

I know it could be anything from the weather to me cramping them in and all the monsters of the allotment in between.

And yet....yet I do it again every year and rejoice in that first tender little shoot and moan at the weather and all but am again happy when the little ones do get the message. And by the time they should be ready for harvest the lettuce is doing well and other things are there and the beetroot not doing well, again, just makes me shrug my shoulders and strengthens the resolution to do better next year.