The story of what actually can be grown at their summer cottage, and why the vegetables grown on their beds, nitrates and pesticides can be much higher than in the Chinese tomato from the supermarket nearby.
A friend of mine, a wealthy and extremely well-known, boasted recently of its success in the field of healthy life. He once went to the first harvest, every day sends his driver on the spontaneous markets. Serious, big-bellied man for the third month riding a black Audi in the radishes, green onions, berries. Anyone Woe from wit, and to whom the problem of money…
I’m a gardener. Real. Live in the village, growing everything from green beans to okra. And now I’ll tell you why sometimes it’s safer on food to save money.
For clarity I will give an example of another of his friend. He is not as wealthy and absolutely nobody, to his great happiness, is unknown. Last year this was my second acquaintance is not clear how, for almost nothing, produced in Kursk, whether in the Kurgan region a whole wagon of Chinese greenhouse tomatoes.
Before the cargo left the town of K., he agreed with the network store these tomatoes to sell. And not to tempt fate and at least in part to comply with the law… he went to his neighbor, the notorious woman, and asked her a few pounds of tomatoes, which is the Chinese passed the formal, he thought, checking.
And it turned out that my grandmother’s tomatoes nitrate was more than 1 g/kg, that is 6.5 times above the allowable standards. Were there other interesting substances: mercury, traces of powerful antifungal drugs and insecticides, and nitrites — tomato is a long time lying on the windowsill. The party that implementation, of course, took. All 20 tons. But the sediment remained.
The third story. Final. Two years ago I decided to enrich themselves through the sale of surplus crop. Specifically berries. I still went to the city, so eve took the trouble to collect a few pounds of gooseberries and currants of different. Came modestly up from the berry shop around on our margins. Next traded grandmother: who berry, who cucumbers and greens, and who chanterelles. Whether from boredom or excitement, but I’m slowly beginning berries have: gooseberries, a handful of will take, the white currant.
Suddenly the old lady to the right, distracted from the cucumbers, sympathetically advised: “would You, girl, haven’t even eaten here. The host will see!“
The very old lady was selling “by owner”. Cucumbers it when I drove “Gazelle”. Granny with chanterelles mushrooms was getting from the huge box with the name of the Chinese factory. Only grandma and bunches of greens — set of salting — was present, and the other sold industrial products. And decided that I, too “by owner”. Or “base”.
What should we learn from these three stories? Lesson one: not all that country that they sell on the corner. Lesson two: not everything is useful, that grew up in the country. And lesson three: the same, Yes, sometimes it is better not to drive your Audi and go for a tomato to the nearest supermarket — it’ll be healthier.
With the first lesson more or less clear: our people believe that it is better their cucumbers, tomatoes nothing. All I want is fragrant vegetables from the garden, potatoes from the field, berries from the Bush. It is not surprising that such a demand is a massive offer. You have to understand that grown in the country format products to trade profitable.
In a high yielding year for an hour in the Bush, you can collect a maximum of half a kilogram of berries. To sell half a kilogram, it is necessary to stand in the market at least one hour. Plus the road plus the cost of cultivation (Bush also require attention). It turns out, an hour of labor a person earns not more than 100 rubles.
In the presence of berry or Apple selling their surplus pays off only if the collection deal with children or the elderly, that is people, other earnings not having. Because the working man, if he wants to make it more profitable to take a part time job or just go for a couple of hours to unload the goods in the nearest store and you’ll pay more.
And if the berries primarily grow themselves, the vegetables you want to plant, water, weed, protect from diseases, insects. When manually, that is, harmless treatment, the yield will be small and will require frequent presence in the garden.
The family of three people to provide themselves with berries and fruit need in the country to live. And at the time of the harvest season at full swing harvesting: freezing of berries, vegetables, pounding jam, cooking compotes, dried fruits, berries, mushrooms. At this time, not what trading is to pick berries for sale once. To leave the country, by the way, not because the planting of this scale attract night thieves.
Now imagine that on the train or in traffic jams to get to Moscow or St. Petersburg with the giving of the berries and return, often need a full day.
The person who really is able to grow such huge yields, just can’t find time to get away.
Remember first: sell the surplus only retirees or families with lots of children and sell only herbs, berries or apples. It may well be the first country radishes or dill. All the rest — hardly. So if you see at metro bucket of tomatoes, you know: either they neudachnye, or grown with the brutal cultivation techniques, because manually such crops grow is impossible. And to drive them into town cost: pays off again with only pensioners who are not monetized travel benefits.
Remember second, hands is not surplus to grow. This means that those in the country selling vegetables might be unsafe. The probability of insecurity is large. To harvest tomatoes, designed for a family of three, overgrown grass, a greenhouse is necessary to weed completely at least twice per season. And it is better three times. It’s a few days work of one man.
Same with weeding peppers, cucumbers, vegetables. Weed parsley, carrots need more and harder is lugovskoye culture, they don’t hatch out of the ground and grow slowly and have time to overgrown weeds.
I must say that the vast majority of truckers do not know anything about the biological products, organic agriculture, permaculture. I live in the countryside, we have several village families and dozens of vacationers. One of those who keeps a vegetable garden, no one versed in farming practices. Grandparents splash in the garden all that gets him by the arm. And not always out of greed. They do it out of ignorance.
Shelves shopping shops the surrounding villages are full of harsh and cheap pesticides. Once or twice we have sold out of various herbicides with glyphosate, insecticides based on cypermethrin. After processing these preparations vegetables and berries you can’t eat 20-40 days, but our people themselves eat them, and children are almost on the same day.
“Yes, what will be then? The whole garden one little vial“. Planting sprayed as soon as there you could make at least one caterpillar.
So, dear bezdushnyi comrades, maybe sometimes it really is better to save up and buy tomatoes in the supermarket? There they are taken at least at par help.
