Home Truth

I know summer has finally arrived when I get round to going strawberry picking. I love the idea and look forward to it with great anticipation but usually only ever manage to turn up when the season is over and all that‘s left to pick is gooseberries.

Anyway, yesterday, my little girl and I managed to pick a huge basket of beautiful shiny red strawberries and are now dishing them out to Nursery, friends and anyone who wants some! What an educational, back to nature, feel good experience.

And it does indeed look like we will have strawberry fields forever, according to the owner, who can make more from strawberries than any vegetable. I got him started when I mentioned locally grown produce….. “I get people like you in all the time….you say you want home grown but then I grow it and you take one look at it and suddenly you don’t want it any more!…..you want everything the same shape, the same colour, no blemishes….you should see the mountains of apples that are rejected in Kent by the supermarkets…what happens to them, I wonder…”

At this point, I surface to interject “It’s my kids who refuse anything with a mark on it and it’s hard enough to get them to eat fruit and veg as it is….”

Big mistake.

“Children only learn from one person” he continued “- and that’s their parents (so that’s two people really but I wasn’t going to argue the point)….it’s up to you to be an example……if you saw a yellow cauliflower and a white cauliflower, which would you pick? (neither actually, as cauliflower is pig food in my humble opinion, but again, not a point worth making) - the white one of course….but you‘d be wrong. The yellow ones have far more flavour…..”

Fair point, but I did feel rather on the spot by this stage and my bored daughter was about to start throwing stones at cars, so I mumbled some feeble apology and weak justification (“Well, we have just been picking your strawberries”) and left.

Not before buying some beautiful Californian cherries. Guess that counts as an offset. Making the whole thing a neutral experience every way you look at it.

Filed under: sustainability, simpler lifestyle on July 12th, 2007