Claire Black: 'What really appeals to me about growing my own is the thought of a bit of hard graft'

Published on Saturday 22 May 2010 19:19

'TATTIES, onions, maybe some rhubarb…" I run out of steam and it makes me feel curiously unambitious.

"What about radishes? Or chard? Or carrots?" pipes up my non-gardening-but-afraid-of-nothing friend.

"Carrots are too hard," I say meekly. "I've been told that they get scoffed by bugs. I don't even know what chard is but I have considered cabbage."

I don't have a garden. I don't even have a window box. I'm on the list for an allotment but in this city I could well be too elderly to do anything but sit on a bench smoking a pipe as the hairs on my chin grow ever longer by the time I get one. I have, however, just signed up for a Grow Your Own Veg course with the Edinburgh Community Backgreens Association (www.ecba.org.uk).

It only took a "Dig for Victory" postcard to convince me. It popped through the door last week, I called straight away, and a quick blether and 60 quid later, I am booked on to a six-week course during which I will learn how to construct my own raised bed. (I've actually done this before – it involved railway sleepers that were so heavy they made my dad start crying. Come to think of it, he also did that in 1982 when he decided to undercut Everest by fitting our double glazing himself. Great weight always made him emotional.)

I will also learn how to protect my veg from "pests and diseases and other stresses", understand how to "minimise gluts" and get my head around how to "cope with too much". Those sound like seriously transferable life skills to me. Really, I can think of few contemporary ills that wouldn't be solved by the general application of these principles. It's just a bonus that if followed they might also lead to some purple sprouting broccoli.

So there'll be 12 of us beavering away for three hours a week at a site in Leith and I can't wait. Dirty fingernails, slugs, spades – it'll be great.

"Have you got concerns about food security?" asked my earnest, environmentally concerned pal.

"Erm, no," I said, once I'd managed to expunge the image of dangerous food (marauding broad beans?) from my head. She then told me that 40 per cent of our food is imported, which is a lot I suppose, but given that the only edible thing I've ever grown is cress in a pot with a face on it so that it looked like hair, I've got to be realistic about how bountiful my harvest is likely to be.

What really appeals to me about growing my own (sorry eco-warriors) is the thought of a bit of hard graft. Without boring you with details of my wellbeing, I have realised recently that there is quite honestly nothing that makes me feel better than doing something that requires minimal brain power and exposes me to calluses, bruises and strained muscles. Feeling tense? Try a bit of filling. Anxious? Sanding is much better than two large glasses of even the nicest wine. The only thing I wouldn't recommend is putting up shelves. That is a recipe for insanity, no matter how balanced you're feeling.

But I've done most of the stuff I can do in my flat, so it's time to broaden my horizons. I reckon that digging, weeding, hoeing and generally pootering about in the mud is going to do me the power of good. If I get the odd tattie out of it I'll be chuffed.