This is a guest post by Andrew Coates
August Bank Holiday approaches. Georgia, South Ossetia, and Gary Glitter fade. Time to cultivate our garden. Organically.
In the Guardian (16.8.08) Allan Shepard goes anti-slug and snail. On his plot he doesn’t “want to poison them, drown them or crush them.”. A man who gets up at 1 a.m. to remove 15 of the pests from his patch has backyard cred. Echt Organic. Me, I murder molluscs and grind down gastropods with a single swoop of the most chemically poisonous pellets money can buy. Typical old leftist polluting centraliser.
Food prices drive even the well-heeled, furtively, to Lidle and Aldi. But organic gardening is still on the up. A certain class of person beams, as if they’ve seen a magic talisman, at anything organically grown. By slug shooers like Shepard. It is easier to open a Wetherspoon’s in Mecca than to gainsay a believer in bio-food, and their baggage train of alternative and, especially, herbal ways to health.
The latest craze is to descend on the countryside to scavenge wild plants. Foraging, or food for free, as it is known, is now all the rage.
So for those who put Earth First, some traditional simples for the weekend. Water Dropwort: as ties name suggests ideal for those have had a ‘drop’ too many. Edible root served with carrots and Mung Beans. Henbane: natural cosmetic, prevents ‘chicken’ skin on body. Ingest as tea. Belladonna: the Renaissance Beautiful Lady. Serve berries with cranberry juice.
[Eds note: Warning, herbal concoctions should be consumed at your own risk.]