Its true I now only have to step out of my back door to get most of my weekly shopping whether it be fruit, veg, eggs it all now just a few steps away. But it is not your average supermarket there are no ready meals, so called special offers or rude check out staff who want you out of the shop as quickly as possible. The best point about the super market in my back garden is everything is free and my super market has not closed down all the small local independent shops in a 5 mile radius either. It's very green and has a virtually zero carbon foot print as all waste is composted or recycled.
Ok I am talking about my Vegetable garden but that is basically what it is and if we treated it like a supermarket we would realise that every day is a special offer.
But not only is your vegetable garden like a super market it is also like having a cash machine in your garden. Because growing your own food is like printing your own money as Ron Finley says Ron is a food growing activist from America. He started his campaign when Las Angeles council threatened him with legal action after he started growing food in front of his house on the grass verge in LA.
He has been encouraging people ever since to grow there own food in what ever space they can use whether it be a grass verge or a window box.
I would like to try and encourage as many (everyone) to grow at least some of the food they eat, I still don't know why fruit and vegetable growing is not compulsory to be taught in schools. In fact the government should have a national campaign to get everyone growing just like what happened during the war. The momentum for people to grow there own carried on way until the 60's until the modern supermarket was born. Since then as food has become on tap 24hrs a day 7 days a week and ready meals and processed food are taking up more of the shop than ingredients and fresh food. This is when the decline in people growing there own food started add in shrinking gardens on new build houses and councils selling off allotments. Only spelled disaster for anyone wanting to grow there own even if they wanted to they did not have a big enough garden to do so. So they turned even more to the super market for there food needs and before we knew it we have a generation that dose not know how to grow it's own food. We have recently had a resurgence in people wanting to grow there own mainly sparked off by the recession and several food scares but there is still a long way to go.
But why don't the government encourage everyone to grow there own food my theory is that you can not Tax what is grown in your own back garden. But you can tax ready meals and processed food but what about everyone's health if the country eats a healthier diet of lots of highly nutrisus organic home grown produce the nation would be better off. I'm sorry to say this but healthy people don't make money it's a bit like cigarettes the government know that they cause cancer and create a big bill for the NHS every year. But they also produce billions of pounds in tax and this out weighs what is spent making people well from the effects of cigarettes. So the government make a profit from peoples ill health it's a bit like you can not tax garden compost but you can tax a chemical fertilizer so the government never promotes organic growing as they don't make as much tax compared to conventional growing. So we all need to start a revolution and open a super market in our back garden, front gardens, balcony's and window boxes and start being responsible for the food we eat no matter how small the contribution you make. Every lettuce leaf we grow will help to a healthier life, a better environment, a better future for our children and break the chain of comersulatation of the food we need to survive.
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