How community gardens are a growth industry

Scotland may be rainy but it helps things to grow and Fiona finds people across the country, young and old, are digging gardening

There is a lot of rain about this week. Of course. This is Scotland... For me, though, it does not really matter. For I have seen precious little of the great outdoors. These past few days have been spent head down in a TV edit suite. Putting together a halfhour film about vegetables.

It is the rise of the radish. Yes, kale is king – and lettuce is loved!

Whisper it to the supermarkets, but growing your own is big. And it is becoming bigger.

All around the country folk are hoeing and sowing. They are feeding and weeding. And now, they are harvesting.

Our film includes a school where eight-year-olds pull carrots and are to be found shovelling freshly picked peas into small mouths.

Growing fruit and veg should be on the curriculum because it is right that we know where our food comes from.

And whilst they might not eat a stem of broccoli bought from a shop, if you have tended a tomato, or cared for a cauli, you will at the very least be curious to know what it tastes like.

Whilst the young put their hands in the soil, other, older gardeners are busy taking over small plots in town centres – with permission, of course.

There is no land grab in Scotland. Well, not yet...

In places like Peebles they are growing salad stuff at the back of the old courthouse. In times past, this was where the prisoners used to parade for an hour a day.

What those unhappy souls would have given to sink their teeth into a crisp celery stem or a crunchy cucumber!

It is a transformation. What was the exercise yard is now filled with cloches and compost heaps – because offering your land to a gardening group can be a win-win situation.

An unsightly patch of ground is transformed and the landowner helps him or herself to the produce.

Anyhow, the film has come together. It is a fun watch and has inspired me to go for more veggie meals, which is an unhappy detail for the meat-eatingchief to digest and is certainly not good news for the MacNaughties.

For when it comes to leftovers, a leaf of lettuce has precious little appeal. Not when compared to a tasty bit of burger.

An unwanted onion cannot possibly rival a scrap of steak. Nor can a spoon of chopped cabbage compete with a crumb of chicken.

If you have tended a tomato, or cared for a cauli, you will, at the very least, be curious to know what it tastes like

The doggies will not find this halfhour film at all interesting. That said, both the Norfolk and the Spaniel do love a raw carrot.

And they must recognise the colour. Because when I start to chop and peel, there they are. Looking up expectantly. Waiting at my feet.

It is a low-calorie snack and is good for their teeth but do remember to give dogs bite-sized pieces, in case they choke. Who knows, perhaps a carrot a day will keep the vet away...

Picture: Getty Images. More and more people are growing their own vegetables, Fiona says.