(Extract from ‘The Self Provisioner’)

I was six or seven years old when I begged my dad to let me have a corner of his garden. I’d borrowed a book on organic vegetable gardening from the public library which I’d poured over for hours. Eventually he gave me my own triangle of dirt at the back of the garage. It was my very own plot to grow and tend. I’d spend hours digging it over, raking it flat, and dreaming about all the plants I would grow.

Years later, living in rural Uganda, I ended up with a much larger plot – three or four acres. I had a full time gardener and together, we turned it from a rain washed wasteland into a fertile garden of beans, corn, cabbage, and peanuts in a few short months. Soon after, I had enough food growing to sustain my needs and that of my house staff.

More recently, I’ve picked up where I left off with my gardening. A new house and more land allowed me to realise my dreams of growing as much of my own food as possible.

This was where I came across the idea of self provisioning for the first time. Monty Don’s book ‘Down to Earth’ includes the assertion that self sufficiency – where you rely totally on the land for your needs – is an unrealistic pipe dream.

Work With but Don’t Force Nature

It’s early on a spring morning and I’m looking down in dismay at my frosted potato vines. Thinking I could steal a march on my neighbours and have the first new potatoes of the season, I neglected one consideration – the Scottish weather.

Of course, the plants were scorched and brown. Did they recover? Eventually – but any advantage I might have had was lost. If I’d held my patience and waited a few more weeks, I would still have had shining white potatoes – and no cold scorching.

This is one of the themes through Don’s book – don’t fight against nature. Mainly because she will always win. Instead work with nature and the seasons.

Monty says, “In the traditional world view, the ‘good’ gardener is the one who triumphs over nature…This is nonsense on every level. You need nature more than she needs you. It is not an equal relationship. Serve her well and she will look after you. Abuse her and everyone loses.

Don’t plant too early (or too late) and don’t try and push natural zones for plants – they won’t thank you for it and will perform accordingly.”

Ditch Self Sufficiency for Self Provision

Ever since watching ‘The Good Life’ – a show about a couple who try to live off the land in the London suburbs – I thought the idea of self sufficiency was cool. The idea of being self reliant on the land – your own land – for all your needs is exciting, attractive. That’s true freedom, isn’t it? 

There is a big community around the world of people who want to become self sufficient – not relying on outside help for their basic needs. And while admirable, for most of us, it’s either unattainable or impractical. You might see heavily doctored images on the internet that make it look achievable but for most of us, it’s not. 

Instead, the idea that you can self provide as much food and produce from your garden as possible without dedicating your life to the process is attractive.

That’s definitely where I want to aim with my own gardening ambitions. Sure, the internet has some great inspiration and self sufficient books are cool too but, with the space and time I have at the moment, I’m more keen to grow great tasting veg that the whole family will enjoy.

Self provision allows you to do that while still providing for a significant proportion of your food needs, a vision of a more sustainable future that we can all be a part of.

Neil M. White lives in Perthshire with his wife and three children. He has worked in horticulture as a landscape gardener and in a tree nursery.

Passionate about growing fruit and veg, Neil’s latest book on gardening, ‘The Self Provisioner’, was published in April 2020.