In an article under the general heading Country Life, one of the Spectator's contributors, Leanda de Lisle, examines attitudes to organic food. Quoting from the magazine Health Which?, she tells us that the Consumers' Association believes that people who buy organic food for health reasons "are probably right to do so". Then Leanda de Lisle argues on with "It is absurd to bang on about the mythical properties of premium-priced produce when they would definitely improve their health by eating more ordinary fruit and vegetables. You can buy more of it for your money. Her heading is: "Follow your prejudices". There is quite another side. Food choice is a very personal matter, a vital matter. On the same day there arrives Organic Matters, the journal of the Irish Organic Farmers and Growers Association, levelheaded and measured in tone. Dick Warner, our old friend, starts a series which will surely lead many of us through the learning process in organic gardening, which he began some 20 years ago on a two-acre patch round his house in Kildare.
He was curious rather than knowledgable or messianic about this organic business, but soon found some very practical benefits. His ground was on a mound of esker gravel, very stony, very free-draining. He had to go down 100 feet to get water to supply his home. So he reasoned that any weedkillers or nitrogen-rich artificial fertilisers spread on the land would leach quickly down to his well, to be pumped up into his taps. "This concentrated my mind." He was offered "an almost endless supply of old farmyard manure". He just had to come and get it. There had to be a compromise. "I decided I was going to adopt an organic approach but not to be a purist." Peat used in a garden? Mushroom compost may contain some chemicals. In Kildare, he says he was in one of the coldest parts of Ireland. Sowing seeds in the month suggested on the packet was a recipe for disaster. He had his ups and downs but "Eventually I had some successes too; and I discovered the best reason of all for producing organic food. It tasted infinitely better than anything I had ever eaten before."
Tom Doorley, food and wine writer and an organic grower, pays a lively, suitable tribute to Darina Allen: "the most determined, informed and passionate voice in Ireland when it comes to how we eat." And John Seymour tells us how to catch trout and other fish by tickling them: Organic Farm Centre, Harbour Road, Kilbeggan, Westmeath 0506-32563. Y