Spud u like

Day 28 #365DaysWild 

It is our relationship with the production of our food and drink that is destroying the wildlife we love.

Delicious organic home grown potatoes coming out of the garden now. 

Little compares to the magic of twisting out the haulm of a potato and spilling the golden or red tubers onto the dark soil then gathering them up in your soily fingers..

And here’s the rub.. Mycobacterium Vaccae - is a beneficial microbe found in healthy soil which stimulates the release of happy hormone serotonin in the brain. It is also stimulating your vital gut microbes.

But our innocent growing of organic, no-dig potatoes nourished beneath compost contrasts unfavourably with the impact of the intensive production of potatoes required for the supermarkets.

Every tonne of spuds may have been irrigated with 35 tonnes of water in an average year & a hectare may be treated with pesticides 22 times. 

Not only do our own potatoes contain significantly more beneficial polyphenols, they don’t contain the chemical residues that intensively-produced potatoes do.

No-dig potato growing is especially easy. Apply a compost mulch to the soil then trowel the seed tubers a couple of inches beneath the mulch. As the haulm grows give each plant a litre pot of compost to prevent emerging tubers going green.

The benefits…

Invertebrate populations are not devastated by pesticides.

There’s no run-off of chemicals so harmful to our watercourses and their complex biodiversity.

There’s no soil erosion caused by the combination of ploughing and heavy rains. The estimated worldwide loss of topsoil due to intensive agriculture is estimated to be between 25 to 40 billion tonnes per annum.

There’s also no need for the abstraction of water from our aquifers which is depleting water flow in rivers and streams or its impact on the vegetation struggling to live above during increasingly intense dry spells.

Intensive agriculture has led to a worm crisis too. The BTO estimates earthworm abundance is down by at least a third in 25 years. This terrifying trend is not only a threat to soil health but also to bird populations, such as the Blackbirds which eat them.

It is obvious that much of our food is not sustainable. But before we put the farming community in the stocks, let's remember that the drivers of much of this are our supermarkets who are in a relentless dive to the bottom on prices while preserving their profit margins in a world where their market share is scrutinised microscopically.

And our government at best asleep at the wheel.

As farmer James Rebanks says

'Being a farmer in Britain right now is like being trapped in the back of stolen car driven at high speed by a driver who’s high on drugs and oblivious to the obstacles ahead… and all the time shouting absolute gibberish at you from the front seats’ ..

The case for growing your own potatoes is compelling. I’d recommend you just do it.