Weeding the Web

A Good Weed: Digging Deep in the Garden Book II

"It's really pathetic," said a friend, "that a 5p charge should make the difference." He was lamenting the fact that, despite being a sailor, despite spending his time on the ocean, despite knowing the terrible pollution caused by plastic bags etc, it was only when the paltry tax came in that he began to remember to take a bag to the supermarket. I was reminded of this while reading the recently published second book of John Walker's Digging Deep series.

For those of you who missed my review of Digging Deep Book One when it came out before Christmas time last year, these volumes bring together John's thought-provoking articles which were originally published in Organic Gardening magazine.

An intriguing "what if?" approach runs through this second volume, a view firmly fixed on what might happen if we started to think about working together. In the fourteen chapters, I find myself in sympathy with many of John's ideas. A couple of years ago, I was struck by the difference that fenceless gardens might make and, in Waste of Space, John imagines the eco-benefits that pulling down fences might have, while making green spaces properly useful.  Or how might garden centres react  to our rejection of the packaging that often accompanies plants? How about a dedicated Freegardening extension to Freecycle? What about combating the power of supermarkets with Earth Centres, hubs of local horticultural knowledge that also pooled skills and grew community?

There's no doubt that we're a long way from implementing many of the ideas - you might not consider all of them desirable. But taking as he does a sideways look at our current problems, and publishing these articles at a time when political norms seem to be withering like a Round-Up treated weed, John encourages a clear-eyed examination of the status quo that you could find yourself applying to your own gardening activities.

Any moment now, Digging Deep Books III and IV, the final two of the series, will be published. Each in this series is a slim volume attractively presented with lovely suede-feel covers featuring photographs taken by John. All feature the wryly humorous style that made the first volume so easy to read. They'd make great stocking fillers for Christmas, or why not treat yourself to all four and catch up with some radical, earth-friendly ideas over the New Year?  Order from Earth-friendly Gardener.

 

Which? Gardening annoy Soil Association with results of research

Ouch! The latest Which? Gardening magazine crashed through the letterbox yesterday, having blazed a trail in the day's newspapers.

In a two-year research project, Which? found home-grown organic produce to be no more nutritious or tasty than non-organic. In some cases it came off distinctly worse.

Here we go again.

Interested parties have leapt to defend organic. According to the Daily Mail, the Soil Association has branded the research "irresponsible". Actually, a quick look at the Soil Association's press release shows that it's not the research per se that it deems irresponsible, but the use of pesticides that have been implicated in the rapid decline of the bee population and the use of metaldehyde.

Much is made of the result that tasters preferred the non-organic tomatoes, but several thoughts come to mind. Taste is affected by the soil in which a plant is grown, and by the water and feed it receives...