Vegetable gardening is 'in vogue'.All hail eco friend. Hail to thee everything green. Promoted not just in gardening magazines and TV programmes but in weekend papers and chefs throwing in a handful of fresh locally grown produce it is no wonder vegetable seed sales have been reported as overtaking flower seeds this year.

In the 'good old days' when vegetable gardens and allotments were commonplace they were a necessity and part of a lifestyle. No longer so. Changes in lifestlye, time constraints amonst other factors have seen supermarket shelves groaning with  vegetables from all over the world.

Don't get me wrong I'm not a pessimist by nature and I love my vegetable garden but I'm just wallowing in a bout of cynicism. Reality check:- vegetable gardens and allotments have skipped a generation or two (knowledge gap). Yes it is to be encouraged but large gardens and allotments in some cases have realised their potential as housing developments. As of new housing, in our area at least, you are lucky to geta square of turf and a fence they are so close together. I also think we live in what I would say a sterile environment so how does the potential vegetable gardener cope with slugs, picking caterpillars off their greens or a few greenfly ending up in the salad bowl. Not to mention carrot fly, clubroot, and pigeons eating the pea shoots the minute their through the ground.

We can be innovative in our approach encouraging the client who would like fresh home grown produce to consider containers or mixed borders. Plan for all year round interest, experiment with companion planting, encourage benificiaries in the garden and all this without worrying about storage space or mice when overwintering and researching other methods such as freezing, bottling, pickling. ( that can come later once we've whetted their appetites).

There will be plenty people out there who like me still do these things but did they ever not do them?  To finish on a slightly humourous but concerning note, I was working with a group of students decorating small carrot cakes that they had baked to sell for charity. They were putting small fondant carrots on the top when one student asked what the green bit was - our supermarkets don't sell carrots with their leaves on. I rest my case!!!