The Home Grown Challenge
Well, just how realistic is it to eat only local produce? Rob & Janet, founders of Home Grown have decided to practice what they preach and
only eat the vegetables they can grow in their garden or grown within 10 miles of where they live, for 1 year, beginning August 1st.
From the vegetable patch in their garden and a couple of 8 x 6 greenhouses they reckon they can produce a large proportion of their vegetables all year round.
Rob says: "Its quite a big change to first look for locally grown food instead of nipping dwn to the nearest supermarket.
It has encouraged us into finding out exactly what is produced locally as we wanted to have as good a choice as possible all year round.
Within a few minutes of talking with friends we heard of a honey producer, someone raising Christmas turkeys, a trout farm and a farmer selling fresh beef - there's a lot more out there I am sure."
See how we are getting on - our monthly (or thereabouts) diary.
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| The Rules |
Well, more like guidelines really. We are not in this to be martyrs! Hopefully, it will be fun and we might just learn something from it all.
Here's what we are going to try to do:
- The only fresh vegetables we are going to eat will either be what we have grown ourselves or what we can purchase from other growers within 10 miles of our house.
- For the rest of our food needs (meat, fish, dairy, fruit, honey, etc) we will try to use as much as possible from local producers.
- Keep a record of how we get on (how close to 100% can we get?).
Here's the plan:
- List all the fruit, veg and herbs, etc. we would like to eat (and that we think will grow in our area) on a month by month basis for a year.
- Work out what and when to sow and plant.
- Find out what we can store/preserve to give us as much variety as possible (especially through winter/spring).
- Seek out as many local food producers as we can (any local banana groves?).
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 Costs too much?
I am sure lots of us have thought about how we might reduce our carbon emissions. Sadly it often requires a large up-front investment - such as for a new central heating boiler, solar panels, wind turbine, etc. If you have not got this money (and who has right now?) these projects are non-starters.
A Step in the right direction
Given that our climate is ideally suited to growing a wide range of vegetables, its surprising how much we import from all round the world.
Just take a look at the labels on the veg available in your supermarket - you might be surprised just how far it has travelled.
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The cost to the environment of hauling these huge volumes of food across the planet is huge. If we could eat a bigger proportion of our food
from local sources, its got to help cut down the energy use and transport pollution.
A Cheaper option
Growing your own vegetables requires only a modest layout and this can be stretched out over a longer time period.
A lot of us already have a few gardening tools and you don't have to rush out and buy a 40 foot polytunnel to get started.
Freecycle is a great source of second hand tools (I got my secong greenhouse and glass that way).
Joining a local gardening group like Home Grown can be a good start. Pooling knowledge about local producers, what grows best and even what's available for free (wild mushrooms, hedgerow fruits, etc).
As we have found, there is lots of local knowledge (and enthusiasm) out there.
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Want to Join us?
Why not have a go yourself? See what's possible where you live.
Contact us here for more information.
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