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I’ll just pop out and get some fresh veg... from my back garden
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| How does your veg garden grow? Frances-Ruth Barker tends to her vegetables while one of her chickens looks on in the back garden of her Mile End home. Picture: STEVE ARGENT (76753-5) |
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By the end of the interview, those chickens would have names.
Frances-Ruth Barker gave a rather pitying look.
"They aren't pets," she declared.
"They are livestock - and livestock do not have names."
The two chickens in question were clucking contentedly in their "home" - all 15 feet of it.
They had a coop, plus a weatherproof run leading inside, food and water troughs, lots of gravel and lots of space. They could fly on to the garden wall, too; Mrs Barker had not clipped their wings.
Just beyond this chicken heaven was a small vegetable plot and a cold frame housing germinating peas and runner beans.
The bulk of the vegetables - peas, french, broad and runner beans, beetroot, pumpkins, tomatoes, lettuce, garlic, courgettes, swedes, leeks, swiss chard, blackcurrants, white currants, strawberries - are a short distance away in an allotment.
Or half an allotment. Mrs Barker said a full allotment would have been too big.
Her husband probably agrees. He does the digging.
Of course, when you take all this in you can't help but think The Good Life.
Even though Mrs Barker and her husband, Chris, have more or less forbidden the comparison, there has to be some mention.
Not only are the Barkers into grow-your-own in a big way, but their chickens provide eggs, they recycle and reuse all the time and Mrs Barker has just set up a food group.
This is not done out of economic necessity. This is done because the Barkers want to do it.
"It isn't that hard - and we get so much out of it," said Mrs Barker.
"What we hoped to do was turn our backs on supermarkets.
"At the beginning, Chris, like myself, did not think we would be able to get out of the supermarket culture - especially when it came to groceries and household goods.
"Fresh foods were easier - we decided to grow as much as we could and to go to local shops for meat, fish and bread, although I do bake most of our bread in my bread-maker."
Mrs Barker has always been keen on good, local food, but is concerned we are now so far removed from food production we know next-to-nothing about how it gets from farm to table.
After the birth of their first daughter, Evelyn - now 2 - she decided she wanted to feed her family not only on good quality food, but food which was ethically produced and value-for-money.
Her husband was right behind her, and if they could sidestep supermarkets, so much the better.
"The supermarkets charge a premium for organic food," she explained.
"And supermarket food, generally, is no longer cheap.
"I also think there is not only too much choice in supermarkets, but too much temptation.
"People buy a lot more than they need. They impulse-buy - and when I shopped in supermarkets, I was one of them. The way we waste food is dreadful."
The Barkers live in a Victorian end terrace in Colchester's Mile End.
They met in the late 1990s when they were both police officers with Essex Police, and married in 2000. Mrs Barker had previously trained as an operating theatre nurse. By the time she was 30, she was a police sergeant. Now 36, she has two children, Amelia was born 17 months ago.
"It was never a conscious intention to have this kind of lifestyle," said Mrs Barker.
"And I am not for one minute decrying those who shop at supermarkets or don't grow their own. But we decided we would try to go down what some would call the self-sufficiency road.
"Having less disposable income thanks to our children sort of encouraged us."
But what about groceries? Household products? Toothpaste? Soap?
"That," said Mrs Barker, "is where the food group comes in."
She set up the Mile End Food Group to buy ethical and "fairer" trade groceries cheaper.
"We buy in bulk, so it is cheaper - and we buy from a company which was recommended online by downsizer .com."
Mrs Barker swears by this free information site: "It helps with all kinds of queries associated with growing your own, ethical shopping, cooking from scratch - and recommends places to shop. So, we don't need the supermarket!"
But she doesn't get everything online.
"I still go to Boots for make-up - I buy so little, it is hardly worth doing anything else."
We were back outside looking at the chickens.
Hermione and Harriet, I said. I think they looked rather pleased.
THE MILE END FOOD GROUP
The Mile End Food Group was set up along co-operative lines.
Currently, there are six members who bulk-buy each month from an online grocery company.
"We buy everything grocery-related and some fresh foods which we can freeze," said Frances-Ruth Barker.
"Together, we spend about £200.
"The groceries are delivered to my home and we split the cases.
"Because we bulk-buy, we can buy far better quality goods - and I don't have to trail around supemarkets with bored children!"
The food group buys:
tin foods - tomatoes, tuna, baked beans
flour
rice
chutneys
washing-up liquid
washing powder
household cleaning products
shampoo
toilet rolls
butter
cheese.
10:25am Monday 14th April 2008
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CommentPosted by: andy, colchester on 7:27pm Mon 14 Apr 08
What a brilliant scheme.Love the green flower pots :)
What a brilliant scheme.Love the green flower pots :)
Posted by: Frewen, Colchester on 8:11pm Mon 14 Apr 08
Website is downsizer.net (not.com)
Website is downsizer.net (not.com)
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