How would you take another dig for victory campaign?

[Digforvictories]

There are lots of worries involving the food industry these days-
•loss of biodiversity due to mono crops
•worries about climate change and how that could lead to famine
•loss of nutritional value in our food compared to 50 years ago
•fertiliser shortages (as we are seeing now)
•even fruit rotting due to lack of fruit pickers

How would you respond to posters and adverts, incentives or propaganda basically, asking you to dig a little veg patch, plant a fruit tree, harvest/ forrage berries or leaves? What about mushrooms?

I think myself I would feel a bit annoyed if the tories came out of their mansions and private jets asking me to dig for a victory against climate change. However if the green party put out a campaign I'd be all over it. (I would be happy but annoyed if the tories did it because it seems hypocritical, however I would still be pleased if they took any step toward not destroying the world)

This is purely hypothetical, I'm not some tory scout looking for young voters but I would be interested to know how people on here would take it and I'd also be interested to know what ot would take to make the average mumsnetter think about starting a garden or engaging in a community garden (I've lived in a flat and I know how pissed off I used to get at the eco warriors asking me to start a vegetable garden)

I know allotment holders aren't allowed to sell produce (annoying when it comes to gluts and you can't give enough away or freeze/ preserve/ eat) but would you consider buying fruit and vegetables from local allotments and community gardens? Would you pick fruit from a free orchard where you don't have to talk to anyone or pay? Would you set up a vegetable patch if you get get the resources (compost/ seeds/ pots/ information) freely and easily (and locally?)
Would you be interested in forraging for something more than blackberries if you knew what was safe and edible?

i always look in the eco groups and other groups on other websites and everyones tip posts just get bombarded with 'it's not that easy to grow your own' and I'm just interested in opinions on what would make it easier and how it would be taken if we were asked to dig for victory?
I imagine it would have been taken up less if there weren't rations to deal with back in ww2 and perhaps dig for victory was only as successful as it was because people were scared and hungry?

(can you tell I've been talking to my grandad?)

That's a great idea.

Same

Love to. Unfortunately I'm disabled, DH also has mobility issues, & the soil in our new build house, while probably extremely fertile (previously it was used for farmland - animal pasture), it's incredibly sticky clay that doesn't drain at all, & at the moment it's a constant battle just to keep the weeds down. It's not even a big garden, and most of it is laid to lawn so the "vegetable patch" is only about 5m sq, the front garden is smaller, we could spend several hours a week just weeding them at present. TBH we're regretting the decision not to just get the whole lot turfed.

I grow a few herbs, that's it. Neither the time nor the inclination to do more, and I love to cook and eat with fruit and veg, but wouldn't want to do that work myself. I'm lucky that I live somewhere with neighbours who leave gluts of courgettes and tomatoes on my doorstep, community orchards, a community growing scheme where they can and do sell their produce and have a veg box delivery as well, but I am not a gardener.

I was wondering that.
Op, please can we have a list of all Tories with private jets?

I already grow veg in my allotment and volunteer in two community gardens.

I don't know why more people don't grow things.

We share loads of what we grow amongst our village there are honesty boxes with apples, beans, tomatoes, eggs.

Some people give away their damsons/ apples as they have so many. We trade with our neighbours as we have more fruit and they grow veg.

Children should know where food comes from. A 10 year old said to me after they had been pumpkin picking on a local farm, that they saw loads of dirty potatoes on the floor and couldn't understand why they had been dropped in the field.

The green spaces between homes on council estates where I live that could have been gardens for those who don't have them have all been turned into sites for multiple blocks of flats with just concrete around them.

Digging for Victory only applies to homeowners in much of the towns.

I already have a green house, lots of pots and fruit trees. I grow and freeze enough cooking apples for us year-round. I grow salads, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, courgettes and green beans that last us May to October, and I grow about 10kg of figs a year.

I bottle blackberries in syrup, make bramble and herb jellies, and blackberry vinegar. I also do swaps of garden produce for neighbours' eggs, and locally produced pork.

The thought of trying to do more, while working full time, running a department, being a single mum, and maintaining a house, makes me want to wilt. 😥

I would hope they would look at the re-wilding that's going on.

We can re-wild the bits that are not suited for putting crops on. But there's a demand for food that really needs to be met.

The mechanisation of farming means bigger fields though for efficiency sake though which has meant less hedges. That's bad so we should probably stop doing any more of that.

Thanks OhBeAFineGuyKissMe, that's really useful re. green manure. We did put in some raised beds, but we had to do it on a tiny budget so they ended up much shallower than I wanted (they're only about six inches high) and I think all the goodness is just leeching into the ground. We'll have to gradually go higher as and when we can afford it!

Thank you for that, it's a tough deal wanting a debate or a chat on here because people just want to rip you to shreds (just remember to compost my remains guys. I don't go in the trash.)

There is a photo going around of a fruit cup with a label that says grown in Africa, packaged in Thailand and distributed in usa and that really isnt sustainable is it?

I am far from self sufficient but with 5 years of becoming interested in this (only got an allotment plot 2 years ago) I am not growing enough for my immediate family to be self sufficient in
all berries (never could afford them before)
apples (Store for up to 4 months. never pick enough to last this long though)
tomatoes (freeze, looking into canning though)
rhubarb
greens
beans
there are loads.
we est lots of pickles, chutney and jam because we know how to make them now. And that's only after 5 years.

you can make nettle soup (delicious) which is just absolutely crazy. stingers. into soup. It's free.
there are lots of greens we put in salads from the lawn.
you can make apple cider vinegar from apple cores and water. It's so easy but nobody knows about it and you really have to immerse yourself in the rosy cottage videos on YouTube to find this kind of stuff.

I know everyone works a million hours and money is hard to come by for compost and pots but that's why I'm posting on here to see what people would want to make it easier. or what would make people choose local? What about a stall of fruit next to sainsburies? you're heading there anyway. I never go to the market because I think they are too far out of the way and they aren't open for long.
we can't carry on going to supermarkets eating pink ladies from Africa can we? it just isn't sustainable.

I have an allotment. It's for fun only. A very inefficient and costly way of growing food. It makes you appreciate/ marvel at how cheaply fruit and vegetables are sold for.

a van is a great idea. there is a successful meat van which is basically a butchers on wheels and he's always got long lines.
I wonder if veg would be good.

Give us all the right to have allotments again - the size of which was determined by the area needed to grow enough veg to support a family of 4 for a year - and the time to do it, and I would happily support this. And try, although my thumb ain’t all that green! All the golf courses would have to be ploughed up for it at the very least though. It might help people to stop and think about rights to land and the need for both food and ecology.

There's no allotment waiting list where I am but the available allotments are a mess. It would cost a lot of money to make them useable, though some people do. For what it's worth, I've had a disaster with most things I've tried to grow in my garden (so many viruses- raspberries, cucumbers, squash etc have been a disaster ). The only things that have grown well are the chillies. Expecting the worst, we grew too many this year and have a freezer drawer full of chillies from India, Spain, Peru and Thailand. We make our own chilli sauce and curry pastes so it's been worthwhile.

Our allotment has a communal orchard and I feel like I'm the only one that uses it. There so much fruit that goes to waste every year, there's only so many plums and apples we can get through.
I feel like we should maybe allow people from the local community in to pick some.

@Oysterbabe

Our site takes surplus produce to the local foodbank

This isn’t a war time crisis situation - so it’s not remotely comparable.

I have a courtyard garden - no room to grow more than a few things in pots (which I already do) but not enough for any meaningful produce or nutritional value. Millions of other families in the same boat. Allotment waiting list here is three years long.

Before imports and supermarkets the majority of the population were undernourished. It’s actually impossible to get all you need nutritionally by being self sufficient because of crop failures, diseases, and the fact that some foods - such as bread flour - need fortifying with certain vitamins. And it wasn’t me who came up with that, I read Monty Don said it years ago when asked if he was self sufficient.

I’d be furious at a Govt that said this, to be honest. Yes, we need more UK food security - but that’s from farms, not individuals. Also, most of our food supply problems have been caused by Brexit. The Tories created that particular mess - they can fix it.

No way.

I would rather pull my own fingernails out than do gardening.

Time poverty is the big issue here.

It wouldn’t be for me - I love being outdoors, enjoying nature, parks and other peoples gardens, but I just don’t enjoy gardening. Too much responsibility.

I live not a million miles away from Thanet Earth, so a lot of fresh produce comes from there and other Kent farms anyway 🤷‍♀️

I had a lot of spare apples from my apple trees this year and I tried to give them away, but nobody wanted them. They were nice organic apples too.