Saturday 31 March 2018

Vegetables With Arms And Legs And Faces!

Now lets see:  There's Pat Pear, Ben Banana, Bob Broccoli, Connor Carrot, Grace Garlic, Adam Aubergine, Sophie Strawberry.  The vegetable characters are soft toys!

The Goodness Gang toys sat on top of our chest freezer.
Lidl have introduced The Goodness Gang toys.  Their purpose is to encourage us to eat 5 portions of fresh fruit and veg per day.  The offer is until the 8th of April for customers to collect stickers for the free toys. You get two stickers for every twenty Euros you spend.  

I think its a great way to get children interested in eating fruit and vegetables.  Don't you?  I wish our two had an interest in growing veg!  I saw an Asda (wish Asda was down here) advert last night saying they had carrots for sale for 20 Pence!  Is there any point growing them?  Course there is! 
 

Any one taking on a new veg plot or allotment this year?  I think its terrible that there waiting lists for allotments in the UK.  I live in the Irish countryside (next to the sea) and all I ever see is fields full of grass, cattle and sheep. It never use to be like that in Ireland. 

When I was younger, so much younger than today.  Don't worry I am not going to sing the Beatles song.  Every farm, or so it seemed grew a field of vegetables for themselves and cow cabbages and mangels for the carthorse and cows.  Then a long came the EEC and the countryside is empty.  Well apart from an odd milk tanker, the post van and silage and slurry time.

Perhaps parts of the countryside could become Eco villages with cheap houses and lots of vegetable plots?  What do you think?  Bring back the peasant stay at home farmers.  If only!

12 comments:

  1. Perhaps I am too working class?

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  2. No, you're not too working class Dave. I'm afraid most people's expectations these days are not sufficiently fulfilled by 'three acres and a cow'.

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  3. Thanks Philip. Yourself and me are lucky enough to have our own smallholding in the countryside. Some folk can't even get an allotment to rent.

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  4. I have always lived in a town or city, so I didn't get to see farmland - just one or two allotments - so choice of fresh veg was limited and probably not as fresh as it should be. I envy you having that choice. What we get now is perfect veg, e.g. no blemishes and each item identical in size to its neighbour which makes purchasing very mundane. That's not to say kids shouldn't be encouraged to eat, though. I persuaded my lad to eat his greens so that he would be as big and strong as a neighbour's husband. That worked!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Valerie. I often wonder what the varities of fruit and vegetables are in the supermarkets. The countryside needs a shot in the arm and I think affordable ecovillage like housing would help. Thanks!

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  5. I did a comment to this last night but didn't publish it Dave. Small farms and making a living is a very emotive subject. As for vegetable and supermarkets and sizes that is an emotive subject for farmers. Somewhere a farmer produced the carrots and it cost a lot more than 20p but that is all he would have got for them from Asda.

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  6. Yes it is very emotional Rachel. I think people like HFW and the National Trust have helped make land available to rent for people to grow their own.

    I am told that farmers here to sell their produce via the local cooperatives and then other European farmers undercut them and they stopped growing vegetables to sell. I find smallholding life far too isolated and lonely. I would like to see ecovillages to rent or buy with allotments, people and an end to monoculture. Thanks!

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  7. Growing your own vegetables is a satisfying and nutritious substitute for the local market. Here are some tips for starting your own vegetable garden. carote

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