UK gardening - Times past

Author

Times past

Dave Hill

2007-04-27, 9:25 am

I was just thinking about my younger days when we didn't have fruit
and veg flown in from all round the world.
We used to grow dwarf French beans as they would crop 2 weeks earlier
than runner beans sown on the same date. French beans take 10 weeks
from sowing to picking whilst runners are 12 weeks.
We used to pick Broad bean pods when they were finger size and slice
them like runner beans, the first green beans of the season.
The first English Strawberries would make =A31.00 a pound as would the
first English tomatoes.
Eggs were always more expensive in the winter as the chickens in those
days tended to stop laying in the winter.
Ah! Those were the days.
David Hill
Abacus Nurseries

Sacha

2007-04-27, 9:25 am

On 27/4/07 09:54, in article
1177664085.382209.48620@o40g2000prh.googlegroups.com, "Dave Hill"
<david@abacus-nurseries.co.uk> wrote:

> I was just thinking about my younger days when we didn't have fruit
> and veg flown in from all round the world.
> We used to grow dwarf French beans as they would crop 2 weeks earlier
> than runner beans sown on the same date. French beans take 10 weeks
> from sowing to picking whilst runners are 12 weeks.
> We used to pick Broad bean pods when they were finger size and slice
> them like runner beans, the first green beans of the season.
> The first English Strawberries would make £1.00 a pound as would the
> first English tomatoes.
> Eggs were always more expensive in the winter as the chickens in those
> days tended to stop laying in the winter.
> Ah! Those were the days.

And chicken was a treat because there was no intensive farming of them.
Everything tasted as it was supposed to taste and we looked forward to its
arrival. Yesterday, I bought some beautiful, fat English asparagus at Tesco
but alongside it was asparagus from Peru - puny stuff by comparison.
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
http://www.discoverdartmoor.co.uk/
(remove weeds from address)

'Mike'

2007-04-27, 9:25 am

"Dave Hill" <david@abacus-nurseries.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1177664085.382209.48620@o40g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
I was just thinking about my younger days when we didn't have fruit
and veg flown in from all round the world.
We used to grow dwarf French beans as they would crop 2 weeks earlier
than runner beans sown on the same date. French beans take 10 weeks
from sowing to picking whilst runners are 12 weeks.
We used to pick Broad bean pods when they were finger size and slice
them like runner beans, the first green beans of the season.
The first English Strawberries would make £1.00 a pound as would the
first English tomatoes.
Eggs were always more expensive in the winter as the chickens in those
days tended to stop laying in the winter.
Ah! Those were the days.
David Hill
Abacus Nurseries

Dave this was the 'theme' or whatever you want to call it a few days ago
about Great Britain importing too much stuff and us not being self
supporting, or at least somewhere near self supporting.

I feel we should be worried about our reliance on imports of EVERYTHING.
Just think for a while, it wouldn't take much to block our ports and thus
nothing could be brought in. I thought about this when the subject came up.
Even with my limited knowledge, I, and a very small team and the right
military hardware, could close all ports within 6 hours and keep them closed
for a very very very long time.

Think about it, so could you, or anyone.

:-((

Mike

--
................................................................
The Royal Naval Electrical Branch Association.
'THE' Association if you served in the Electrical Branch of the Royal Navy
www.rneba.org.uk

Dave Hill

2007-04-27, 9:25 am

On 27 Apr, 10:04, "'Mike'" <3...@woolies.com> wrote:
> "Dave Hill" <d...@abacus-nurseries.co.uk> wrote in message
>
> news:1177664085.382209.48620@o40g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
> I was just thinking about my younger days when we didn't have fruit
> and veg flown in from all round the world.
> We used to grow dwarf French beans as they would crop 2 weeks earlier
> than runner beans sown on the same date. French beans take 10 weeks
> from sowing to picking whilst runners are 12 weeks.
> We used to pick Broad bean pods when they were finger size and slice
> them like runner beans, the first green beans of the season.
> The first English Strawberries would make =A31.00 a pound as would the
> first English tomatoes.
> Eggs were always more expensive in the winter as the chickens in those
> days tended to stop laying in the winter.
> Ah! Those were the days.
> David Hill
> Abacus Nurseries
>
> Dave this was the 'theme' or whatever you want to call it a few days ago
> about Great Britain importing too much stuff and us not being self
> supporting, or at least somewhere near self supporting.
>
> I feel we should be worried about our reliance on imports of EVERYTHING.
> Just think for a while, it wouldn't take much to block our ports and thus
> nothing could be brought in. I thought about this when the subject came u=
p=2E
> Even with my limited knowledge, I, and a very small team and the right
> military hardware, could close all ports within 6 hours and keep them clo=
sed
> for a very very very long time.
>
> Think about it, so could you, or anyone.
>
> :-((
>
> Mike
>
> --
> ...............................................................
> The Royal Naval Electrical Branch Association.
> 'THE' Association if you served in the Electrical Branch of the Royal Nav=
ywww.rneba.org.uk

Forget about blocking the ports, harbours etc. as well as being able
to close every airport and landing strip in the UK.
I do think it's madness when in the middle of the summer with runner
beans growing everywhere you go into a supermarket and see sliced
runner beans from Zimbabwe, as if we can't slice beans in this
country.
Parsnips flown in from New Zeland in August, who the hell wants
parsnips in the middle of the summer. and I could go on and I am sure
someone else here will do just that.
David Hill
Abacus Nurtseries.

George.com

2007-04-27, 9:25 am

"Dave Hill" <david@abacus-nurseries.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1177675254.160170.54670@u32g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
On 27 Apr, 10:04, "'Mike'" <3...@woolies.com> wrote:
> "Dave Hill" <d...@abacus-nurseries.co.uk> wrote in message
>
> news:1177664085.382209.48620@o40g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
> I was just thinking about my younger days when we didn't have fruit
> and veg flown in from all round the world.
> We used to grow dwarf French beans as they would crop 2 weeks earlier
> than runner beans sown on the same date. French beans take 10 weeks
> from sowing to picking whilst runners are 12 weeks.
> We used to pick Broad bean pods when they were finger size and slice
> them like runner beans, the first green beans of the season.
> The first English Strawberries would make £1.00 a pound as would the
> first English tomatoes.
> Eggs were always more expensive in the winter as the chickens in those
> days tended to stop laying in the winter.
> Ah! Those were the days.
> David Hill
> Abacus Nurseries
>
> Dave this was the 'theme' or whatever you want to call it a few days ago
> about Great Britain importing too much stuff and us not being self
> supporting, or at least somewhere near self supporting.
>
> I feel we should be worried about our reliance on imports of EVERYTHING.
> Just think for a while, it wouldn't take much to block our ports and thus
> nothing could be brought in. I thought about this when the subject came
up.
> Even with my limited knowledge, I, and a very small team and the right
> military hardware, could close all ports within 6 hours and keep them
closed
> for a very very very long time.
>
> Think about it, so could you, or anyone.
>
> :-((
>
> Mike
>
> --
> ...............................................................
> The Royal Naval Electrical Branch Association.
> 'THE' Association if you served in the Electrical Branch of the Royal
Navywww.rneba.org.uk

Forget about blocking the ports, harbours etc. as well as being able
to close every airport and landing strip in the UK.
I do think it's madness when in the middle of the summer with runner
beans growing everywhere you go into a supermarket and see sliced
runner beans from Zimbabwe, as if we can't slice beans in this
country.
Parsnips flown in from New Zeland in August, who the hell wants
parsnips in the middle of the summer.

I don't even want NZ parsnips in the middle of a NZ winter thanks Dave. One
of my work mates was moaning/lamenting that he could no longer get locally
(NZ) grown tinned Golden Queen peaches anymore. It is cheaper to import them
from Greece, Italy or Canada than it is to purchase the metals cans for NZ
canning. The overseas peaches are apparently nothing close to the quality of
local ones. I did suggest he could grow his own and bottle them. That was
too much effort for John mind. He was correct in his moaning, he was wrong
to ignore a good suggestion. In the height of winter I used to have to rely
on imported Italian tomatos for basing pizza. Now I have a number of bags of
stewed home grown tomatos that will do much of it for me. It just feels
better.

rob

ps much of our produce is shifted to Britain by sea. Putting aside locally
grown vs importing and fresh taste issues the global warming issue is not so
significant as compared to airfreight. Moreover we can produce many things
with less enegry input than can be produced in coutry of origin it seems.
Not sure on that score however about our peaches vs Canadian peaches, my
tomatos vs Italian tomatos.

Janet Tweedy

2007-04-27, 1:25 pm

In article <1177675254.160170.54670@u32g2000prd.googlegroups.com>, Dave
Hill <david@abacus-nurseries.co.uk> writes

>I do think it's madness when in the middle of the summer with runner
>beans growing everywhere you go into a supermarket and see sliced
>runner beans from Zimbabwe,

I thought there were trade restrictions on Zimbabwe?

If we import food then it seems to me that the country exporting it will
concentrate on feeding us rather than it s own people? It's no good
saying that the income will be higher, that money is more than likely
hived off anyway.

It's the same over here.
By importing foodstuffs from cheaper sources, we undermine our own
growers, who then give up and diversify into leisure areas or exotic
stuff and the land is no longer used for our own food.
We can also regulate the way we grow in this country, controlling
pesticides etc and welfare for farm animals., but we have no control
over that overseas!

--
Janet Tweedy
Dalmatian Telegraph
http://www.lancedal.demon.co.uk

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