Broccoli head from Spain priced 20p in supermarket.

[KnittyNorah]

I suspect we were very limited in expectation and need say 40/50 years ago. The vast vast majority of people never travelled...it says a lot when a Vesta curry was seen as something exotic...and we did consider it exotic , us that had no former access to chili's, pepper, noodles etc etc.
If I think back to my childhood in the 1960s and 70s, grapes and oranges were available but that was about it . I assume they were shipped in.

As aside subject, what astounds me is how people haven't cottoned on the environmental impact of the flowers available at supermarkets, a huge amount are flown in from Africa and South America, the carbon footprint must be enormous.

Yes, it was only my dad's interest in growing 'different' things and membership of a Europe-wide seed-swapping club which meant that I had a much higher exposure to 'exotic vegetables' than most people in that time. We also used to go on holiday overseas long, long before the 'package holiday' came into being. Not that a cold beach on the North Sea coast was any better in Belgium or Holland than it was in Whitby or Cromer, but it was different and so was the food and drink. The fact my dad was a teacher did give us longer to 'play' with than most other people of course so if the car broke down on the autobahn, or something, it wasn't the disaster it could have been.
I also had my first aeroplane journey when I was about five or six - I can remember bits of it - we flew to the Isle of Man on an old Dakota that had been 'converted' for passenger flights.
The oranges thing was a ... problem ... in our house. My parents were fervently anti-apartheid and anti-fascist so that meant no oranges from either South Africa or Spain; they were unsure about the Israel/Palestine business and opposed to the McCarthyism rife in the US so no Jaffas or Florida oranges for us either. We did have tangerines at Christmas though, and oranges of some sort or another would make it into the fruit bowl occasionally. Not sure where they came from, though. Bananas from the Windward Islands were preferred - and grapes, especially black grapes, were exclusively bought as gifts for hospital patients. If you got black grapes when in hospital, you knew you were very seriously ill! So it'd mostly be the visitors who ate them.

The flower thing is interesting - and sad. Not just the carbon footprint but the chemical input into them and the unregulated pesticide exposure of the poor souls who must tend them ...

 

[Oldhippy]

Yes, it was only my dad's interest in growing 'different' things and membership of a Europe-wide seed-swapping club which meant that I had a much higher exposure to 'exotic vegetables' than most people in that time. We also used to go on holiday overseas long, long before the 'package holiday' came into being. Not that a cold beach on the North Sea coast was any better in Belgium or Holland than it was in Whitby or Cromer, but it was different and so was the food and drink. The fact my dad was a teacher did give us longer to 'play' with than most other people of course so if the car broke down on the autobahn, or something, it wasn't the disaster it could have been.
I also had my first aeroplane journey when I was about five or six - I can remember bits of it - we flew to the Isle of Man on an old Dakota that had been 'converted' for passenger flights.
The oranges thing was a ... problem ... in our house. My parents were fervently anti-apartheid and anti-fascist so that meant no oranges from either South Africa or Spain; they were unsure about the Israel/Palestine business and opposed to the McCarthyism rife in the US so no Jaffas or Florida oranges for us either. We did have tangerines at Christmas though, and oranges of some sort or another would make it into the fruit bowl occasionally. Not sure where they came from, though. Bananas from the Windward Islands were preferred - and grapes, especially black grapes, were exclusively bought as gifts for hospital patients. If you got black grapes when in hospital, you knew you were very seriously ill! So it'd mostly be the visitors who ate them.

The flower thing is interesting - and sad. Not just the carbon footprint but the chemical input into them and the unregulated pesticide exposure of the poor souls who must tend them ...

Your parents sound like some of the greatest people Inever met.

 

[mudsticks]

Yes, it was only my dad's interest in growing 'different' things and membership of a Europe-wide seed-swapping club which meant that I had a much higher exposure to 'exotic vegetables' than most people in that time. We also used to go on holiday overseas long, long before the 'package holiday' came into being. Not that a cold beach on the North Sea coast was any better in Belgium or Holland than it was in Whitby or Cromer, but it was different and so was the food and drink. The fact my dad was a teacher did give us longer to 'play' with than most other people of course so if the car broke down on the autobahn, or something, it wasn't the disaster it could have been.
I also had my first aeroplane journey when I was about five or six - I can remember bits of it - we flew to the Isle of Man on an old Dakota that had been 'converted' for passenger flights.
The oranges thing was a ... problem ... in our house. My parents were fervently anti-apartheid and anti-fascist so that meant no oranges from either South Africa or Spain; they were unsure about the Israel/Palestine business and opposed to the McCarthyism rife in the US so no Jaffas or Florida oranges for us either. We did have tangerines at Christmas though, and oranges of some sort or another would make it into the fruit bowl occasionally. Not sure where they came from, though. Bananas from the Windward Islands were preferred - and grapes, especially black grapes, were exclusively bought as gifts for hospital patients. If you got black grapes when in hospital, you knew you were very seriously ill! So it'd mostly be the visitors who ate them.

The flower thing is interesting - and sad. Not just the carbon footprint but the chemical input into them and the unregulated pesticide exposure of the poor souls who must tend them ...

Good times.

I also had an early exposure to the widest possible variety of veg, my grandparents being market growers in the north.

My parents also teachers and we holidayed in the wilder parts of Europe, camping and touring, and visiting local markets for fresh produce, again before it was the 'norm'

In those days , and still now in some places a low income 'peasant' diet was a tremendous variety of local fresh veg, some simple carbs and precious, delicious, but not that abundant protein in the form of meat and dairy.

Now a 'low income' diet (in Northern Europe) often comprises cheap easy to transport, and store , hyper processed foods, from industrialised systems .

No good for (wom)man nor beast really, but it's what's 'afgordable' when budgets are squeezed in every other way....

This year I'm growing some yellow tomatoes from a fellow peasant farmer in Spain , he brought the fruits to our gathering at the COP in Glasgow, last November, I transported one home, extracted the seed, and now the seedlings are about 3" tall in the propagation grernhouse.

No idea what the variety actually is, but I've labelled them Xavier, as that is the chaps name..

Will be interesting to see how they turn out..

 

[KnittyNorah]

Good times.

I also had an early exposure to the widest possible variety of veg, my grandparents being market growers in the north.

My parents also teachers and we holidayed in the wilder parts of Europe, camping and touring, and visiting local markets for fresh produce, again before it was the 'norm'

In those days , and still now in some places a low income 'peasant' diet was a tremendous variety of local fresh veg, some simple carbs and precious, delicious, but not that abundant protein in the form of meat and dairy.

Now a 'low income' diet (in Northern Europe) often comprises cheap easy to transport, and store , hyper processed foods, from industrialised systems .

No good for (wom)man nor beast really, but it's what's 'afgordable' when budgets are squeezed in every other way....

This year I'm growing some yellow tomatoes from a fellow peasant farmer in Spain , he brought the fruits to our gathering at the COP in Glasgow, last November, I transported one home, extracted the seed, and now the seedlings are about 3" tall in the propagation grernhouse.

No idea what the variety actually is, but I've labelled them Xavier, as that is the chaps name..

Will be interesting to see how they turn out..

I have a friend who is German and lived in Mexico for 30-ish years. She worked (she's retired now) for the World Food Programme and was based in Mexico to cover emergencies in Central America, the Caribbean etc etc. Anyway, long story short, she had various ongoing programmes in and around Mexico City for slum-dwellers, especially mothers with children, to grow fresh herbs and veggies to add to the government rations of oil, beans and tortillas, and to sell in the markets. When she started these programmes , she used her own roof as an example of what could be grown in a tiny space at different times of the year and had a buffet-style dinner party for various influential people, using the ration goods and stuff she'd grown herself. ALL of her guests were HORRIFIED at the delicious multi-coloured, differently-shaped, differently-tasting tomatoes that she was serving as part of a salad. ONLY bog standard red tomatoes were acceptable to these folks; they were very wary of even tasting yellow, orange and purple ones, never mind striped ones ... LOL!

 

[Pat "5mph"]

So if you see a dark haired 'stringbean' surreptitiously gardening greens after dark..
You know who it is...

Lol @mudstick!
I guess your son, being a uni student, lives in or around the trendy west end.
Tell him there's no need to hide his veg gardening in that area. There are plenty of local community gardening groups, with many veg growing projects on the go, all on social media.
He could even get a part time job at Locavore, they have a mega organic growing area not far out of Glasgow.
He will soon find out that here food growing is challenging.
Last year our last frost was at the end of May, after a sunny, warm April.
Tomatoes without a heated greenhouse or polytunnel are particularly challenging, most years they don't mature to red, because by the time we can put them out to fruit the long days start shortening again.
This year I have started my tomatoes indoors in January.
They are ready to go out now, but I cannot chance it.
If one grows as a hobby, like @KnittyNorah's dad used to, crops like tomatoes, here in Scotland, become very expensive, by the time you buy the protection against the elements.
My little gardening group (we grow for pleasure, but also to share with the community) have spent a fortune of our own money since 2020 transforming local neglected council land into a food growing area.
The council now want to know what we are growing - we are in their radar because I have applied for small grants.
Useless all of them : the "South Lanarshire Food growing liason officer" whatever that means, sent me 4 small balcony planters with assorted seeds that she says "were in season", to get the community growing.
I don't know what season she was referring to, because it was still snowing when she send them to us.
It was also still snowing when she asked for updates on how the growing was doing
Meantime, I have just ordered a bulk bag of compost, horse manure and woodchips for this season: this veg growing malarkey is as costly as the cycling!

This year I'm growing some yellow tomatoes from a fellow peasant farmer in Spain , he brought the fruits to our gathering at the COP in Glasgow, last November, I transported one home, extracted the seed, and now the seedlings are about 3" tall in the propagation grernhouse.

Ahem ... I hope your tomatoes have a plant passport
Friends and I have smuggled plenty of veggy matter through customs: I have a mega Cypriot grapevine growing in my front garden the original plant was an illegal immigrant many years ago
I don't get grapes from it, the idea was to grow it for the leaves to make stuffed vine leaves (dolmades).
One interesting crop this year will be goji berries. I got a cheap goji on sale somewhere for a couple of pounds, planted it along the back fence, it's thriving.
I don't think I like goji berries, but someone in my network surely will. Apparently it's unusual to get them fresh because they don't keep once off the plant.
I will propagate, barter the new plants

 

[KnittyNorah]

Lol @mudstick!
I guess your son, being a uni student, lives in or around the trendy west end.
Tell him there's no need to hide his veg gardening in that area. There are plenty of local community gardening groups, with many veg growing projects on the go, all on social media.
He could even get a part time job at Locavore, they have a mega organic growing area not far out of Glasgow.
He will soon find out that here food growing is challenging.
Last year our last frost was at the end of May, after a sunny, warm April.
Tomatoes without a heated greenhouse or polytunnel are particularly challenging, most years they don't mature to red, because by the time we can put them out to fruit the long days start shortening again.
This year I have started my tomatoes indoors in January.
They are ready to go out now, but I cannot chance it.
If one grows as a hobby, like @KnittyNorah's dad used to, crops like tomatoes, here in Scotland, become very expensive, by the time you buy the protection against the elements.
My little gardening group (we grow for pleasure, but also to share with the community) have spent a fortune of our own money since 2020 transforming local neglected council land into a food growing area.
The council now want to know what we are growing - we are in their radar because I have applied for small grants.
Useless all of them : the "South Lanarshire Food growing liason officer" whatever that means, sent me 4 small balcony planters with assorted seeds that she says "were in season", to get the community growing.
I don't know what season she was referring to, because it was still snowing when she send them to us.
It was also still snowing when she asked for updates on how the growing was doing
Meantime, I have just ordered a bulk bag of compost, horse manure and woodchips for this season: this veg growing malarkey is as costly as the cycling!


Ahem ... I hope your tomatoes have a plant passport
Friends and I have smuggled plenty of veggy matter through customs: I have a mega Cypriot grapevine growing in my front garden the original plant was an illegal immigrant many years ago
I don't get grapes from it, the idea was to grow it for the leaves to make stuffed vine leaves (dolmades).
One interesting crop this year will be goji berries. I got a cheap goji on sale somewhere for a couple of pounds, planted it along the back fence, it's thriving.
I don't think I like goji berries, but someone in my network surely will. Apparently it's unusual to get them fresh because they don't keep once off the plant.
I will propagate, barter the new plants

Because my uncle was a farrier, and rented out stables at his smithy - which was a very old one, in a sort of courtyard of a long-demolished mill - my dad had a never-ending source of horse-manure and so his greenhouses and frames were situated on genuine old 'hotbeds' of warm straw-and-manure. This was at about 275 m above sea level in north Derbyshire. Last frost was reliably mid/late May and first frost, end Sep/early Oct. A county cricket championship match in June in a neighbouring town was once snowed off. It was my dad's hotbeds made ALL the difference to the harvest, year round!

 

[classic33]

@Pat "5mph" , does the cat still guard your tomato plants?

 

[Pat "5mph"]

It was my dad's hotbeds made ALL the difference to the harvest, year round!

I have seen a YouTube video by Charles Dowding, where he has such a hotbed in one of his greenhouses, to germinate seedlings faster.
I don't think I'll ever have those facilities, but maybe could improvise with milk cartons of hot water

 

[Pat "5mph"]

@Pat "5mph" , does the cat still guard your tomato plants?

BigCat (in my avatar) sadly passed in 2020.
Alfie, who I adopted later, likes to sleep under the willow tree in the shade, he's not interested in tomatoes
Rosie, that I adopted shortly after Alfie, likes to get high on the catnip mint I have growing a big pot 😄

 

[KnittyNorah]

I have seen a YouTube video by Charles Dowding, where he has such a hotbed in one of his greenhouses, to germinate seedlings faster.
I don't think I'll ever have those facilities, but maybe could improvise with milk cartons of hot water

They can get so hot that they'll cook your seedlings!

 

[Pat "5mph"]

They can get so hot that they'll cook your seedlings!

Aye, Charles was putting his seeds trees on a structure above the hotbed.
His thermometer was registering 50C at the core of the hotbed!
Fascinating stuff this veg growing, I wish I was into it when younger, would have learned more by now

 

[KnittyNorah]

Aye, Charles was putting his seeds trees on a structure above the hotbed.
His thermometer was registering 50C at the core of the hotbed!
Fascinating stuff this veg growing, I wish I was into it when younger, would have learned more by now

When the water froze in the stables where I kept my horses, we dug a hole in the muck heap, lined it with heavy duty polythene and filled it with lidded buckets and sealed jerrycans of ice. We covered them over with an old door and more polythene, and piled the muck back over. Next morning, gallons of lukewarm water!

 

[mudsticks]

Lol @mudstick!
I guess your son, being a uni student, lives in or around the trendy west end.
Tell him there's no need to hide his veg gardening in that area. There are plenty of local community gardening groups, with many veg growing projects on the go, all on social media.
He could even get a part time job at Locavore, they have a mega organic growing area not far out of Glasgow.
He will soon find out that here food growing is challenging.
Last year our last frost was at the end of May, after a sunny, warm April.
Tomatoes without a heated greenhouse or polytunnel are particularly challenging, most years they don't mature to red, because by the time we can put them out to fruit the long days start shortening again.
This year I have started my tomatoes indoors in January.
They are ready to go out now, but I cannot chance it.
If one grows as a hobby, like @KnittyNorah's dad used to, crops like tomatoes, here in Scotland, become very expensive, by the time you buy the protection against the elements.
My little gardening group (we grow for pleasure, but also to share with the community) have spent a fortune of our own money since 2020 transforming local neglected council land into a food growing area.
The council now want to know what we are growing - we are in their radar because I have applied for small grants.
Useless all of them : the "South Lanarshire Food growing liason officer" whatever that means, sent me 4 small balcony planters with assorted seeds that she says "were in season", to get the community growing.
I don't know what season she was referring to, because it was still snowing when she send them to us.
It was also still snowing when she asked for updates on how the growing was doing
Meantime, I have just ordered a bulk bag of compost, horse manure and woodchips for this season: this veg growing malarkey is as costly as the cycling!


Ahem ... I hope your tomatoes have a plant passport
Friends and I have smuggled plenty of veggy matter through customs: I have a mega Cypriot grapevine growing in my front garden the original plant was an illegal immigrant many years ago
I don't get grapes from it, the idea was to grow it for the leaves to make stuffed vine leaves (dolmades).
One interesting crop this year will be goji berries. I got a cheap goji on sale somewhere for a couple of pounds, planted it along the back fence, it's thriving.
I don't think I like goji berries, but someone in my network surely will. Apparently it's unusual to get them fresh because they don't keep once off the plant.
I will propagate, barter the new plants

Him not a student, but has quite a few friends up there, who are.

And he's been and volunteered at a couple of community farms too, but seems determined to grow his own as well..

I think the challenge, of growing in obscure places is part of the attraction - I'm passing through next month so maybe I'll get a tour of the clandestine greenery

Did you try your vine leaves for dolmades yet?

I have seen a YouTube video by Charles Dowding, where he has such a hotbed in one of his greenhouses, to germinate seedlings faster.
I don't think I'll ever have those facilities, but maybe could improvise with milk cartons of hot water

Hotbeds do work for sure, but they take some construction, and management.
Used to use them years ago but I have to confess to having thermostatically controlled propagation benches nowadays..

What a cheat..

You'd need something to keep that hot water hot though..
Umm... such as a pile of steaming manure.??

I spread a load of innoculated woodchip yesterday, that was getting pretty steamy , loads of lovely mycelium running through - it was almost cooking the trailer base..


So much life going on, in and amongst, and all around, once you start to to look

 

[gbb]

It's just how trade in perishables largely 'works' atm.

It's deliberately set up to be weighted as a buyer's market, once the produce is grown, then suppliers are at the mercy of the multiples, who can cancel contracts or impose price reduction s.

It's all well documented.

It certainly used to be but in a way, that may be changing.(the following is based on my observations of 45 years in the food industry, no more)
Look back 20/30 years ago, lots of successfull independant suppliers, some who grew locally large and made a lot of money. Indeed, they were at the mercy of the retailers. Contracts tended to be 1 year, there were plenty of other packers out there eager to take the work.
I remember a local potato grower who developed a successful contract with Tesco, all went well for years, Tesco started pushing him to upgrade his premises, eventaully he spent £1million(a lot of money then)...6 months later, they dumped him, he folded as a result.

I recall the fear there was as annual contracts were due for renewal.

Christain Salvesens( frozen veg suppliers and processors) on the other hand were a major transpot, logistics, storage and processing company with clout, the then largest operator of Mercedes trucks in the country with major processing facilities throughout the UK and its own distribution network. The retailers they packed for slowly eroded away the margins until it basically didnt pay...Salvesens got out the market. TBF, their sites were getting old, not energy efficient, bespoke machinery was very expensive
to replace etc etc. A lot of money needed spending, i guess the margins didnt make it worth doing.

But now the complexity thats grown in the system, traceability , logistics, its all much more integrated and realistically, only the big boys can do it, crops and purchases are planned a year in advance...there simply arent the packers/suplliers out there that can do it, contracts are longer, retailers work far better with their suppliers, they have to really. Its still hard and demanding but theres more certainty now.

As said, this just seems my take on it within my small sphere, its a huge business out there, im sure there are still bad examples out there too

 

[mudsticks]

It certainly used to be but in a way, that may be changing.(the following is based on my observations of 45 years in the food industry, no more)
Look back 20/30 years ago, lots of successfull independant suppliers, some who grew locally large and made a lot of money. Indeed, they were at the mercy of the retailers. Contracts tended to be 1 year, there were plenty of other packers out there eager to take the work.
I remember a local potato grower who developed a successful contract with Tesco, all went well for years, Tesco started pushing him to upgrade his premises, eventaully he spent £1million(a lot of money then)...6 months later, they dumped him, he folded as a result.

I recall the fear there was as annual contracts were due for renewal.

Christain Salvesens( frozen veg suppliers and processors) on the other hand were a major transpot, logistics, storage and processing company with clout, the then largest operator of Mercedes trucks in the country with major processing facilities throughout the UK and its own distribution network. The retailers they packed for slowly eroded away the margins until it basically didnt pay...Salvesens got out the market. TBF, their sites were getting old, not energy efficient, bespoke machinery was very expensive
to replace etc etc. A lot of money needed spending, i guess the margins didnt make it worth doing.

But now the complexity thats grown in the system, traceability , logistics, its all much more integrated and realistically, only the big boys can do it, crops and purchases are planned a year in advance...there simply arent the packers/suplliers out there that can do it, contracts are longer, retailers work far better with their suppliers, they have to really. Its still hard and demanding but theres more certainty now.

As said, this just seems my take on it within my small sphere, its a huge business out there, im sure there are still bad examples out there too

And alongside the tendency towards bigness goes increased mechanisation, specialisation, leading to monocultures requiring greater amounts of fossil fuel inputs , chemical and machinery wise, spiralling upwards
.

A loss of diversity, not just biodiversity but also crop diversity, compounding the problems of monocultures .

Not to mention the loss of resilence in a system when you only have a few very large dominating players reliant on links in a long supply chain.

And longer longer supply chains, also require larger amounts of fossil fuels for transport, and refrigeration, and packaging.

Without those big fossil fuel inputs, which we're supposed to be cutting back on, the whole system is a bit cooked..

(Not to mention the reliance on 'cheap' labour)

Covid, and the 'other event' that shall not be named showed up the fragility of relying on so much imported stuff.

Businesses like mine carried on same as ever, prospered even, because we hadn't got locked into a situation dependant on so many other external inputs, our local markets remained loyal..
Keener even
.

Labour is my biggest cost, but working alongside others of like mind, in a chemical free environment, surrounded by the delights of the natural world , whilst doing skilled craft work , is now quite a lot of peoples idea of a reasonably nice way of working.

Thankfully..

Yes it's quite hard work at times, but I don't ever have to go to the gym for weight training - every day is leg and arm day..

T'internet has also opened up new avenues for smaller and medium scaled growers to market and sell direct and via local networks and growers cooperatives and thus capture more of the final sale price, enabling their businesses to prosper via the support of food concerned citizens.

I've seen a big increase in other people setting up to do that in the last ten years or so.
Those aspirant growers and farmers still struggle to gain secure access to land and the other resources necessary, but awareness is building.

Little bits of change are happening here and there, as food and how it's produced moves up the agenda , for lots of reasons.

Hopefully that will keep going, the elms scheme is supposed to be helping with all that, but there's still a lot of uncertainty surrounding all that too.

'Interesting times' to be in our line of work, I'd say...