My Family's 'Vegetable Patch'

My home, 1997-ongoing

Allotments and vegetable patches have long been one of the core elements of UK green activism, I never fancied it. Out of duty to the cause I eventually did an organic gardening class and got an allotment to try and find out why. To my surprise the allotment was in my dreams for a month.

The veg patch is now embedded in my lifestyle. I like composting half our 'rubbish', dig the engineering challenges of water collection and aquaducts, like the exercise opportunities, and find the social side of seed, knowledge, and surplus sharing kind of pleasing. Some of the veg really does taste a lot better than shop food, like home grown sweet corn.

I suspect the main green gain though is that the veg patch is another good reason for not flying round the world on summer holidays, not driving to the gym, or using govt waste services.

But best is that its a minor act of rebellion, every courgette grown is a finger salute to Tescos. I get to say who is a weed and who gets an extra shovel of manure. I am not just a consumer, in our veg patch we are kings and queens.

Having said that, the veg patch is a noticeable bill reducer.