Dear Editor,
In one of my articles some time ago, I mentioned that I found in my clippings‘ file two articles on home gardening. The second article considers the savings to be made from home gardening.
The article is entitled ‘Sowing Savings in a Kitchen Garden.‘ It is written by Michael Durham and was published in the magazine Money in March 1974. We learn that in March 1974 “Vegetable gardening is booming, thanks to steeply rising food prices and the new American yearning for a simpler, better life.”
A Gallup poll in America at that time found that home gardening was more popular than golf, tennis and downhill skiing combined. It also found that non-gardeners would start a vegetable garden if convinced that it would save between US$200 and US$300 a year.
This immediately sets us thinking of the ‘good old days‘ when a few dollars went a long way. For instance, it was calculated that the tools needed for vegetable gardening – a spade, bow rake and trowel – would cost US$18.
Vegetable gardening for us can be a hobby and most hobbies cost money. Apart from that, most of us can find no time for hobbies. Those who are not engaged in some productive occupation will also tell you that they have no time. They, too, are busy doing something or other. Therefore to undertake to develop a home garden we must be prepared to spend money – for expert advice, for a gardener, for tools, and, sometimes, even for additional earth, manure, water.
There are exceptions, of course. Some of us can make time and have books at hand to show us how. The late Keith Kirkpatrick, our late first local Postmaster General, often described to me what pleasure he took in tending his vegetable garden even when he held that high position. At dawn he was down in his garden sifting – yes actually sifting – earth for his garden beds. He used manure and artificial fertilizer in separate layers and watered away from the plant stem. The results were fine crops, too many for his household and therefore shared with relatives and friends.
Other than as a hobby, what purpose can there be in having a home garden? The Gallup poll in the United States found that some people garden for “the joy of it,” for “peace of mind” or “to encourage children.”
It is worth noting that an agronomist of the Evergreen Nature Study Club has been working with youth groups in and around Georgetown, training them in the way they should go – growing food plants and loving the soil. In a three-month course he entices them from idling and shows them the essence of home gardening. Congratulations to the local club on the occasion of its fifteenth anniversary.
Succession gardening is one lesson to be learnt. Crops are rotated on the same patch of ground and the recommendation is as follows: first, tomatoes, boulanger, peppers, ochroes, cucumber or pumpkin; second, peas and beans; third, poi, pak choy, spinach, celery, lettuce or corn; fourth, carrots, radish or sweet potato.
There is a reason for all this. For instance, peas and beans fix nitrogen in the soil. There is some additional advice. Plant marigold to ward off bugs. Make a compost heap with vegetable waste from the kitchen, leaves and other waste vegetable matter. Sell your excess crop to vendors in the markets – they never have butter beans, collards, mung beans, or winged beans.
I end on the same note as the article in Money: “The philosopher Bertrand Russell once noted that while intellectuals tend to question whether life is worth living, gardeners are certain that it is.”
Yours faithfully,
Eileen Cox