What good is a lawn when you can have home-grown vegetables, free-range eggs, and a freezer full of organic pork, writes Michael Kelly
We are exceptionally lucky to have as our nearest neighbours a young couple who are further down the road towards self-sufficiency than we are. Their success acts as a kind of motivator for us when we slack off, which we invariably do.
Some weeks back they asked us to mind their hens for a few days while they were away. This was fun because their hens are an unusual breed called Brahma that make our Rhode Island Reds look sort of dowdy by comparison.
They have two hens and an impressive, multi-coloured cockerel. All three have heavily feathered legs right down to the claw, so it looks like they are wearing leg warmers. The cockerel is called Charlie - he's a macho sort but is somewhat let down by his vaguely pathetic crowing, which starts well but then tapers off to a death-rattle-type croak. I smile to myself each morning when I hear that noise in the distance.
Anyway, as a thank-you for minding Charlie and his lady-friends, our neighbours called over during the week with a bag of organic meat that came from animals they had reared themselves - chicken, beef steaks and some pork chops. It was the nicest present you could possibly get.
I've always felt that a good next step for us would be to keep pigs and chickens for the table. Pork and chicken are meats we have all but stopped eating over the years due to concerns over the impact that intensive farming has had on those creatures' lives, and the resulting impact on the quality of their meat.
When our neighbours called over with their gift, we got talking about keeping pigs and they told me they recently got two weaners. The person they got them from could spare two more for me, if I wanted them, they said. I've been nervous about making the leap into porcine husbandry. There's a world of difference between providing for low-maintenance laying hens and signing up to the job of keeping (and eventually slaughtering) pigs.
This new development has forced us in to making a decision, and also prompted a debate about the purpose of gardens. In the middle of the last century, domestic gardens were typically seen as functional, rather than recreational. They were a place where you grew vegetables and fruit, and perhaps kept the odd animal destined for the table. As recently as the early 1980s, almost 40 per cent of gardeners grew vegetables in their gardens. It is estimated that figure is now as low as 10 per cent.
These days, gardens are considered to be an extra room, to be decorated and filled with furniture and used for al fresco dining. You have only to go to your local garden centre to confirm that this is the case. Have a look at how much of it is given over to selling plants, shrubs and trees. Then look at how much of it is concerned with selling garden furniture, decking, patio heaters, barbecues, or dare I say it, hot-tubs. Around this time of year our local garden centre clears out most of its plants and trees and becomes a Christmas shop.
Our garden is surrounded by a farm and I always assumed that if I was going to get pigs I would ask the farmer if he would rent me a small plot of land for the purpose. But then the other evening I was watching an episode of the old BBC show, The Good Life, starring Felicity Kendal and Richard Briers. At one stage in this episode it showed how their garden was cordoned off into allotments for fruit and vegetables, chickens, two pigs (Pinky and Perky) and a goat called Geraldine.
That got me asking some questions. Why was I contemplating renting land to keep a couple of pigs, when we have almost an acre ourselves, most of which is lawn? Why couldn't we just find a corner of the garden and fence it off? Why are we so obsessed with lawns anyway?
All the lawn does is suck up time, effort and resources. It gives nothing back, apart from looking pretty for a few days after it has been cut. Even on those days, I can't help thinking it's only a day or two away from needing to be cut again. In the summer months I clock up hundreds of miles on a ride-on mower. The average lawn-mower, I've read recently, produces as much pollution in one hour as 40 cars.
Our hens gave us a good lesson in prioritising food quality ahead of tidiness in the garden. Hens scratch around all day every day, and four hens can make a serious mess of paths and beds. And they pooh everywhere, too. We could fence them in and our garden would be a tidier place, but the quality of eggs would suffer so that makes it a no-no.
If we were really serious about our garden, from an aesthetic point of view, we could tear down the hedgerow that surrounds it and put up a fence. Or a wall. But in doing so we would be depriving many species of insects, birds and mammals of their habitat. We would also have missed out on 10 pots of blackberry jam and two litres of sloe gin which, damn it, I must wait another three months before drinking.
The area of our garden given over to fruit and vegetable production may not be pretty, but it gives back far more than we put in. We got countless meals from our tunnel this year - every one a delight. Pigs will undoubtedly make a terrible mess in whatever patch of ground we give them. They probably won't smell great either. But the satisfaction of returning the garden to its original purpose - food production - will make up for that.
I found a website which suggested that a post-harvest vegetable patch would make an excellent spot for pigs. They will snaffle up any remaining or rotting produce, fertilise the area with their rich manure, and work up the ground so that minerals in the subsoil are mingled with the topsoil. So we might put them there. Either way, in return for sacrificing 150 sq m of our precious, dumb lawn we will get a freezer full of organic pork and a well rotivated and manured veggie patch ready for spring. Now that's payback.
• Jane Powers' gardens column returns next week