Wartime growing and spring on the smallholding (From Smallholder)

Wartime growing and spring on the smallholding

5:02pm Tuesday 16th February 2010 in

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Spent Sunday in my greenhouse trying to work out what had survived the winter and what hadn’t. Bit difficult in some cases so have given some plants a “second chance”. Very glad to see that the mint that I bought from the supermarket cheap shelf has flourished and is happily spreading as are the plug herb collection I was sent to try. This was mainly thanks to the £2.00 greenhouse heater purchased from the local boot sale which looked really clunky and old fashioned but turns out to be vastly superior to the modern one which was no match for the frost.

The old one also has a tray for water so it evaporates and stops everything drying out from the heat. For Valentine’s day, as well as the obligatory flowers, I was also given another little plug herb collection from Aldi’s – Indian herbs – which included curry plant (please can anyone tell me how to cook with this herb as I have a massive bush as well), cumin, two sorts of mint, coriander and basil. So in order to plant this out I had to get into the greenhouse to make some space.

On visiting Lidl’s on Saturday I bought several lemon balms at 69p per plant (reduced from £2.49) and a sage plant. I deliberately chose the limp ones and left the healthy ones as I thought they might get bought. A man at the checkout asked me why I was buying dead plants and Mick, my partner said, “yes I wondered that as well!” The herbs and I were proved right though as by the evening the lemon balms had lifted up their heads and gone a deep green while the sage was thinking about it. In the morning they were all perky so they are now in the greenhouse waiting for it to stop snowing (they are quite big plants as well).

I went back on Sunday to buy the rest as they were amazingly good value but they had sold them all so I was pleased. I think I am going to become a “guerilla waterer” and carry around a water bottle in supermarkets to top up thirsty plants. It might be cheaper than having to buy them! On Thursday I went to the Ministry of Food Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum which was a special press day arranged by the Guild of Food Writers. We were very lucky to have Terry Charman, the Senior Historian/Curator of the Imperial War Museum to give us an in depth tour. I was thrilled to see a copy of the Smallholder Encyclopedia, edited by an early Smallholder Editor, Walter Brett, on show in the green house. There will be an article with photos in the next issue of Smallholder (April) but I would recommend this Exhibition which covers a lot of ground (!) in a smallish space.

I do know a lot about wartime gardening and food as I am particularly interested in it and am fortunate to have quite a big collection of books and of course, Smallholder magazines, from this period, but I learnt a lot. The Exhibition took us from the Land Army and Allotment movement, through to the Lease and Loan of food from America, which I did not know about, a history of the rationing with the quantities on display, war time recipes and the average diet.

I was surprised to learn that eating out did not require coupons and I learnt a lot about the “British restaurant” as well.

It was amazing how much of the advice given 70 years ago is applicable today – there were regular Food Facts which perhaps we should go back to having on the news.

For example DO cook potatoes in their skins, this prevents their goodness dissolving in the water DO server something green and raw every day (I don’t think they meant a caterpillar here!) DON’T soak vegetables long, their vitamins and minerals seep out into the water DON’T throw vegetable water away, use it for soups and sauces (Although I don’t do this every time, I was taught at school to use veg water in this way, especially for things like cauliflower cheese where the white sauce was half milk and half the water the cauli was boiled in. I’ve also tried saving veg water as a fertilizer for the garden but it stinks though I do put it on the compost when I remember (cooled of course). Being quite greedy I especially liked, DO provide at least one pound of potatoes per head every day and less bread.

And they had to be reminded..

DO serve swedes when greens are short or for a change. Of all the root vegetables Swedes are rich in Vitamin C.

I went to visit my mother at the weekend and asked her about the rationing and she said that people were different in their dietary habits, this period being pre Elizabeth David and certainly pre foreign holidays. It would have seemed alien to live off vegetables for most people and curries/garlic and other things that make dishes tasty and interesting were not in common use.

I wonder sometimes if we would manage maybe a bit better in some ways today as we are less entrenched in our ideas of what you eat at each meal and more prepared to use a range of ingredients. On the other hand, of course, it would be a big shock for many people to have to eat seasonally and of course, to remove the ready meals from the equation.

My mother said that it did really bother people not having access to meat but on the other hand, there were fresh veg available. She did say our family were very fond of their hens and would never have eaten them and that apart from herself, no one else in the family grew anything though she had an allotment and worked in a nursery. This did shatter my image of war time gardening a bit!! Also that the playing field that our house backed on to in Isleworth was never cultivated throughout the war. Food for thought! But then this was pre London airport and Middlesex was a network of market gardening so perhaps it wasn’t really necessary? And finally, I am half way through an Open University Course, Twentieth Century Texts and in my research on WH Auden, I came across a book of essays called, “The Dyers Hand”. In this he talks about a mythical college for bards and he says each student would be required to look after a domestic animal and cultivate a garden plot! Great training for the young poets of the nineteen thirties and equally applicable today. It amuses me (is that quite the word or is it more of a wry smile) that having dismantled the old Rural Science education in secondary schools, we are now trying to put it back. I was at school in the seventies and it upset me greatly that the Radcliffe School, Wolverton, which I attended, closed down their farm the year I arrived and wouldn’t let me join in while I was there because I was in the top streams. Too clever to cultivate and cook. Ironic then, that I spent the rest of my working life working in the area where both these things were paramount and to this day I cannot understand why being able to write a high marked essay means that you are too clever to soil your hands gardening. A very strange concept indeed. It’s nice to see growing getting the recognition in schools that it should have – without food humans are unable to function so what can be more important than being able to be at least partly self sufficient?

Liz is reading Wartime Recipes purchased from the Imperial War Museum and War Time Gardening for Home Needs (published in wartime and is a National Food Handbook issued by Amateur Gardening) by A G L Hellyer. This weekend she is visiting Anglesey Abbey to see the snowdrops and continuing with the great garden clear up but being careful not to disturb hibernating insects and small mammals.