Hedging is not just about money

One of the likely issues we will have later this year due to coronavirus is a shortage of fresh produce. This is absolutely not the same as OMG WE ARE ALL GOING TO STARVE! For starters, a fair proportion of the population doesn’t eat fresh produce at all. In general, young males living in cities don’t, and the very existence of my older self is living proof that it doesn’t kill you. Indeed, the very existence of urban food deserts shows that you can live perfectly OK without fresh produce, though perhaps you shouldn’t do it for more than 10 years once you have reached 30, for your general health. so once again, I am saying things may not taste as good as normal by the Autumn. We are not going to starve by Autumn. There are just some lines you won’t find in the produce aisle that you usually do.

We should tip our hats to the fact that society has managed to keep the wheels running despite the lockdown in terms of the essentials. The Chinese managed it, the Italians have managed it, we are managing it, I hear you can even buy bogroll again 😉 This is not an existential challenge. But we are going to face shortages of fresh produce in the Autumn, and we import a lot from Spain, which is not having a great time of things. The price is likely to go up and the quality will be down.

But you can do something about it, particularly as you may have more time on your hands. Now (in the UK) is a good time to start. Last month would have been better, but you start where you find yourself.

Now I am the first to admit that this isn’t really my area of expertise. I am writing it because I am closer to an ordinary punter, but I have observed Mrs Ermine, for whom this has been a passion from childhood.

Hit the tasty and the exotic first, particularly if you don’t have a garden

We will be fine on staples I should imagine. There will be shortages of some basics, because we import more than half our food, and we featherbed our aristocracy to ruin our soil¹ or play silly buggers on our hills. Tim Lang summarises the issues of how we got here, a combination of our early industrialisation and imperial past, we grow about half our food.

but if you turn some of those issues on their head, we will probably be OK, because we can probably pay more on the global market than poorer people. T’ain’t pretty, but it’s the way of the world. But you can fight back and make Autumn taste a little bit better, if that matters to you. If it doesn’t, then I am sure Nando’s and your local kebab shop can keep the show on the road. About a quarter of London’s food by value is eaten outside the home- there have been reports written before the current crisis promoting the kitchenless city. NYC has already got there in part ².

Probably the easiest win for the space-challenged are herbs – a little goes a long way, they are usually cut and come again, they don’t need huge amounts of water, you can use a window box. But they do generally want sun. They make things taste a lot better, and fresh always beats dried. You can grow these from seed, but for a window box get ’em from a supermarket, given garden centres aren’t open. Compost is a problem, some supermarkets carry it. It’s not essential, my younger self never realised you were meant to use compost. I used earth from the garden. Sure, things work better if you have compost, but use what you have to hand. The young Ermine was perhaps unwittingly channelling Masanobu Fukuoka’s natural way of farming ahead of time. There’s too much dogma in gardening. The will to life of most things is strong. If you want to optimise yields and germination rates, sure you have to work harder. But seed is cheap, in most cases JFDI and see what happens.

If you have a small space, then eschew staples. There’s no point in trying to grow a field of wheat in your back garden. Similarly a bag of Maris Piper or King Edward spuds is cheap. Don’t bother. If you are going to grow potatoes, grow fancy ones with a distinctive taste –  something like Pink Firs. You can also grow potatoes in compost in containers on a patio.

We didn’t cover ourselves with glory with tomatoes, they went out too early too fast, but will still happen

Look at what’s expensive, and favour that. Favour the vertical over the low and spreading. We³ favour tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, though we also do beans and lettuce. Grow from seed, it’s cheap and lets you succession sow so you don’t end up with more than you can use at any one time

Stagger your planting, because you stagger your eating in the usual way of things