Tuesday, 20 May 2014
Apples
I went out into the garden today to take a peek at what's growing, and I was excited to find that all of a sudden, we have apples. Now, all I have to do is keep the footballs away from them.
Monday, 19 May 2014
In The Garden, And Being 'Economically Unproductive'
If I could, I'd live in a log cabin on the edge of a forest, with a large garden in which I could grow enough fruit and veg to be more or less self sufficient. Ah yes, it would be a veritable Alaska - The Last Frontier. I'd keep chickens and occasionally, I'd chop the head off one of 'em and that'd be dinner taken care of. My freezer would be full of foraged berries and salmon I'd caught from the nearby river, and my children would play happily in the dappled sunlight that pierced through to the forest floor...
I don't live in a log cabin. I live in a three bed detached box in the suburbs, with a pretty small suburban sized garden to match. It's about 10 metres by 10 metres, if you want an actual measurement. But while I'm unlikely to achieve self sufficiency, I have managed to squeeze a fair bit of food out of my little plot over past few years. I'm engaged in an ongoing war with the children, who want to keep the lawn for important business, such as cartwheeling, while I claim a bit more of it each year for growing crops. "Mum, you're trying to turn this garden into an allotment," complained my nearly-twelve-year-old the other day. Yup. This year's crops include potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, chillis, inca berries (no, I've never heard of them either, but my dad gave me a couple of plants), strawberries, raspberries, broad beans, blackcurrants, redcurrants, whitecurrants and onions. Sticking to a budget is important in this household, and although I have no idea how much money I've saved by growing food, a quick look in the supermarket at how much a punnet of less-than-fresh raspberries costs tells me it's probably a fair bit.
I've learned a lot about growing food over the years - some of it the hard way. But if I may, here are a few bits of advice I can offer if you're thinking about growing food in a small space.
You can grow quite a bit in a small space. If you get creative, you can grow all sorts of things in all sorts of containers, from egg boxes to old wellies. I've grown carrots in tubs on the deck before, which worked pretty well. There are trailing varieties of tomato which you can grow in hanging baskets if wall space is all you have. You can grow things on window ledges and incorporate edible plants into existing flower borders.
Get to know your garden. If you're blessed with a bit of garden space, make sure you take some time to get to know it before you decide what to plant. Which direction does it face? Do you have spots which never get any sun/shade? How sheltered is it? Knowing what will grow happily in your space will help you maximise productivity and save you from horticultural despair. I know. I've been frustrated and disappointed by my attempts to grow things which just aren't happy in my mostly shady, windy garden, but I've learned what will work and positioned them accordingly. Of course, it would have been a lot easier if I'd just taken my own advice in the first place.
Grow what you'll eat. It sounds obvious, but there's no point growing something your family won't eat, even if it does brilliantly in your garden. Last year, I tried growing cavolo nero (black kale) for the first time. I was really excited at how well it grew, but this excitement was tempered by the fact that I couldn't get the kids to touch the stuff.
Choose crops which earn their keep. Much as I'd love to grow asparagus, I know there's no point in this garden, because it needs a lot of room and the season is very short. Look for crops which are compact, but which will give you a good yield, and if you don't have a greenhouse, look for hardy varieties which are happy in a less than balmy climate.
Find older, wiser gardeners. Actually, you won't need to. They'll find you. It's amazing how, once an older gardening neighbour discovers what you're up to in your garden, you'll find them popping a head over the fence and proffering all kinds of advice. While you may not welcome this every time (especially in Yorkshire, where people tend to express their opinions pretty bluntly), it's worth listening to what they have to say. Sometimes, you may find you're offered more than just advice. People are often happy to share their spare seedlings with you, and last year, one of our lovely neighbours gave us a greenhouse. Nice one.
Being 'Economically Unproductive'
In between this week's weeding and potting on, I've read quite a few bits and bobs from around the web about stay-at-home parents and how government policy reflects the prevailing view that looking after your own children isn't real work. I remember how I felt the first time I read that I was officially defined as 'economically unproductive'. That was more than ten years ago, and that realisation had a profound effect on me. All of a sudden, instead of feeling that I was doing something useful, enjoyable and valuable with my life in the raising of my children, I felt guilty, and under pressure to start planning my return to paid work as soon as I could. Even now, working as a (very) part time home tutor, I sometimes find myself thinking that I'm not doing enough. After all, I went to university, as was the expectation for my generation. I have a good degree. Surely I should have a good career now, too. In moments of clarity, when I'm not dogged by feelings of failure, I can see that I am very productive indeed. The thing is, being mostly at home doesn't just benefit my family. For a couple of years, I volunteered at my kids' primary school. I did all kinds of things, including planning specialist intervention sessions for a dyslexic child, and supporting children with special needs. Wondering about what that would be worth in economic terms, I calculated that in total, I volunteered about £3000 worth of teacher time to the school over those two years. That seems pretty productive to me.
It's a shame that successive governments don't see things that way. As far as those in power are concerned, productivity can be measured only in economic terms, which means that to them, I and those like me are of no importance. I used to just shrug and ignore reports of government announcements about helping 'hardworking families' by reducing childcare costs and so on - I accepted that we had made a choice to do things differently and provide the childcare ourselves, and that the bulk of family-related policy didn't apply to us. These days, those policies just make me feel despair. Despair that those who might have otherwise chosen to stay at home beyond a few months' maternity leave feel that they have no option but to return to work because being at home doesn't benefit them financially, or because it's seen as a retrograde step in a society where we're all encouraged to aspire to what is, in reality, a very narrowly defined idea of 'success'. I wonder if in future my generation will be seen as the last one which had any choice at all about who raised their kids; I'm pretty certain that if things continue as they are, it won't be even the remotest of options when my children are grown.
Grow what you'll eat. It sounds obvious, but there's no point growing something your family won't eat, even if it does brilliantly in your garden. Last year, I tried growing cavolo nero (black kale) for the first time. I was really excited at how well it grew, but this excitement was tempered by the fact that I couldn't get the kids to touch the stuff.
Choose crops which earn their keep. Much as I'd love to grow asparagus, I know there's no point in this garden, because it needs a lot of room and the season is very short. Look for crops which are compact, but which will give you a good yield, and if you don't have a greenhouse, look for hardy varieties which are happy in a less than balmy climate.
Find older, wiser gardeners. Actually, you won't need to. They'll find you. It's amazing how, once an older gardening neighbour discovers what you're up to in your garden, you'll find them popping a head over the fence and proffering all kinds of advice. While you may not welcome this every time (especially in Yorkshire, where people tend to express their opinions pretty bluntly), it's worth listening to what they have to say. Sometimes, you may find you're offered more than just advice. People are often happy to share their spare seedlings with you, and last year, one of our lovely neighbours gave us a greenhouse. Nice one.
Being 'Economically Unproductive'
In between this week's weeding and potting on, I've read quite a few bits and bobs from around the web about stay-at-home parents and how government policy reflects the prevailing view that looking after your own children isn't real work. I remember how I felt the first time I read that I was officially defined as 'economically unproductive'. That was more than ten years ago, and that realisation had a profound effect on me. All of a sudden, instead of feeling that I was doing something useful, enjoyable and valuable with my life in the raising of my children, I felt guilty, and under pressure to start planning my return to paid work as soon as I could. Even now, working as a (very) part time home tutor, I sometimes find myself thinking that I'm not doing enough. After all, I went to university, as was the expectation for my generation. I have a good degree. Surely I should have a good career now, too. In moments of clarity, when I'm not dogged by feelings of failure, I can see that I am very productive indeed. The thing is, being mostly at home doesn't just benefit my family. For a couple of years, I volunteered at my kids' primary school. I did all kinds of things, including planning specialist intervention sessions for a dyslexic child, and supporting children with special needs. Wondering about what that would be worth in economic terms, I calculated that in total, I volunteered about £3000 worth of teacher time to the school over those two years. That seems pretty productive to me.
It's a shame that successive governments don't see things that way. As far as those in power are concerned, productivity can be measured only in economic terms, which means that to them, I and those like me are of no importance. I used to just shrug and ignore reports of government announcements about helping 'hardworking families' by reducing childcare costs and so on - I accepted that we had made a choice to do things differently and provide the childcare ourselves, and that the bulk of family-related policy didn't apply to us. These days, those policies just make me feel despair. Despair that those who might have otherwise chosen to stay at home beyond a few months' maternity leave feel that they have no option but to return to work because being at home doesn't benefit them financially, or because it's seen as a retrograde step in a society where we're all encouraged to aspire to what is, in reality, a very narrowly defined idea of 'success'. I wonder if in future my generation will be seen as the last one which had any choice at all about who raised their kids; I'm pretty certain that if things continue as they are, it won't be even the remotest of options when my children are grown.
Friday, 9 May 2014
Hello, and welcome
First of all, I'd like to make it clear that I have nothing at all against mums doing paid work and having a career. This blog isn't about championing one type of motherhood over another. This blog is about life as a long-term stay-at-home mum (who does the odd bit of home tuition to make some extra money). If you google 'stay-at-home-mum' and 'extended career break' you find that almost everything about being a stay-at-home parent is written with with the express aim of getting you back to work, and that those whose voices apparently matter seem to define an extended career break as anything over about one year. Staying at home beyond the end of your maternity leave, as I have done, is a relatively rare thing, an unexpected thing - nobody gives you careers advice about that at school. I told my husband recently that I felt as though I was part of a subversive counter-culture. "Well, you are," he replied. I've long felt the pressure that those in my position feel: that to be considered successful and a good role model to my children I should be working outside the home, at least on a part time basis. I should be productive in a quantifiable way, and that means earning money. I've struggled with feelings of guilt and failure - was four years at university a waste of time and money? Am I failing myself and other women by not being in the workplace? Lately, though, I've stopped listening to those nagging inner voices, and decided to go fully counter-cultural. Yes, I will tell my children that they can choose to do anything they want to when they grow up, but they will know that staying at home with their kids is as valid as any career.
"Pah!" I hear some cry. "You have no idea how privileged you are to be able to stay at home! You affluent, middle class person with your lofty ideals!" Oh, I know I'm privileged to be able to do what I love. I know that many parents have no choice but to be out there, working as many hours as they can in a job they hate to make ends meet. But if you take that into account, it's a privilege for anyone to be doing a job that they love, isn't it? And as for affluent: it's true that my husband has a good job, but we've had to make a lot of sacrifices along the way for things to work financially. The vast majority of these sacrifices, however, are material - and are only really important to a materialistic society like ours here in the UK. If you discount all of this, there is very little that we lose out on, and a huge amount to be gained: time, mostly, and I'd rather have that.
Like I said, this blog is about being a long-term stay-at-home-mum. I want to share ideas, encouragement and things that I'm doing (I warn you now, I'm an insufferable makey/bakey/gardeny person). I want to generate discussion and get people thinking. I can't help it: I used to be a teacher. I'm not planning on getting all ranty too often, so I hope you'll come back and see what I'm up to.
"Pah!" I hear some cry. "You have no idea how privileged you are to be able to stay at home! You affluent, middle class person with your lofty ideals!" Oh, I know I'm privileged to be able to do what I love. I know that many parents have no choice but to be out there, working as many hours as they can in a job they hate to make ends meet. But if you take that into account, it's a privilege for anyone to be doing a job that they love, isn't it? And as for affluent: it's true that my husband has a good job, but we've had to make a lot of sacrifices along the way for things to work financially. The vast majority of these sacrifices, however, are material - and are only really important to a materialistic society like ours here in the UK. If you discount all of this, there is very little that we lose out on, and a huge amount to be gained: time, mostly, and I'd rather have that.
Like I said, this blog is about being a long-term stay-at-home-mum. I want to share ideas, encouragement and things that I'm doing (I warn you now, I'm an insufferable makey/bakey/gardeny person). I want to generate discussion and get people thinking. I can't help it: I used to be a teacher. I'm not planning on getting all ranty too often, so I hope you'll come back and see what I'm up to.
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