If you are spraying pesticides in your vegetable garden, you have kinda missed the point of growing your own food in the first place.

I know for sure that my grandad did not use pesticides, he grew vegetables for himself and his family, including me when I came along. In fact, I have a memory of sitting on his lap drinking sweet, boiled turnip juice out of a tin cup. I know, I dare you to try that with your own kids today, see how far you get. I’d get thrown out of my own house if I suggested such a thing, what between the protein bars, and the smoothies, sprouting broccoli and avocados, I wouldn’t stand a chance. There is no doubt our food system has changed, some for the good, some for the not so good.

He grew carrots, they were amazing, my dad grew carrots they were amazing. My Grandad grew carrots for the Johnsons and the Blakes the families that lived in Cregg castle, he was the head gardener there and grew those vegetables in the walled garden at Cregg. Those families were the lucky ones, they didn’t need to subsist on a diet of potatoes and turnip juice. They had tomatoes, imagine tomatoes on your plate locally grown in the 1950s. it did happen you know. But you know something else? They were an absolute luxury, no doubt about it.

I mean where else would you have gotten tomatoes in the West of Ireland in the 1950s as a normal person, you wouldn’t, and when or if you ever did, imagine what that would have been like? I do remember podding peas, that was a remarkable thing, really and truly.

I also remember harvesting the apples and the jam jars hanging on strings to stop the wasps, I remember all the different varieties of apples, and of putting them on metal sheets in the shed to keep them for the autumn and stop disease spreading by spacing them out.

It was a different era, some good some not so good.

But you know what my grandad and my dad did not do? They did not use pesticides, they didn’t. My grandad had two work horses, one was called Snowball and he also had a small mixed farm, the same one we have now, he never sprayed it. It wasn’t a conscious choice, he just didn’t have the option, there were no chemicals available to him and yet he grew the food.

The food was tasty, simple wholesome. As I have gotten older, I still love a simple meal of new potatoes and fresh seasonal veggies, what’s not to love about that?

Chemistry belongs in a lab not on our food, there is little doubt that going out to spray our food with chemicals to stop other creatures from eating it and then bringing that food into our homes and eating it ourselves is a little bit silly.

As always, we need your support during the summer more than ever, the time of the best Irish seasonal plenty.

Thank you

Kenneth

PS PLEASE if you can at all continue to support us during the summer we would really appreciate it. If you haven’t gotten your ticket for our sustainability festival yet, please click here to get yours, this is a not for profit event to celebrate all that is good in food in Ireland, check out the line-up it promises to be an amazing day.