There’s a cost to eating whatever we want, whenever we want it – our food has to travel further, often from different continents, or it’s grown locally in industrial heated greenhouses. Both of these options increase the greenhouse gas emissions generated to bring your food to your table.
It’s hard to justify eating our favourite fruit and vegetables fresh all year round. The alternatives are buying local and growing your own – which means eating seasonally.
How do I start eating seasonally if I’m not a good cook?
If you’re not used to cooking from scratch, there’s still plenty you can do to eat seasonally:
- Think about what vegetables you’re eating with your meal. For example, in winter and early spring, you could roast squash, carrots, parsnips or beetroot instead of summer vegetables that have been grown in heated industrial greenhouses or flown thousands of miles
- Check Riverford or Abel & Cole’s websites to see what fruit and vegetables they’re currently selling in their seasonal boxes (then buy the same items from the supermarket if that suits your budget better)
- Learn to cook some simple meals (using whatever you like) to build your confidence, and then move on to more challenging recipes with seasonal ingredients
- Alternatively, use fruit and vegetables that have been frozen in season (e.g. peas), preserved in oil (e.g. sun-dried tomatoes or peppers), or buy cans (e.g. pears, potatoes, or tomatoes)
How do I start eating seasonally if I’m a confident cook?
Eating seasonally can be a fun and interesting challenge for confident cooks.
- Think about what sorts of fruit and vegetables your grandparents or great-grandparents might have eaten at this time of year, and use that as a guide
- If you need to use a non-seasonal ingredient, buy it frozen, canned, dried or preserved
- Check Abel & Cole or Riverford for seasonal boxes, either to start you off or get you through the winter and spring when there isn’t much to be harvested. Both companies can supply your choice of familiar or unfamiliar fruit and vegetables, and also provide recipes showing you how to use them
- Search Pinterest for ideas and BBC Good Food for recipes featuring your main seasonal ingredient
- Experiment and create new meals by swapping out an ingredient in a favourite recipe and using a seasonal ingredient instead
How do I start eating seasonally if I want to grow my own food?
Eating seasonally is most rewarding if you grow some of your own food. The pride you get from finally eating vegetables you’ve grown from seed and tended through the summer heat is amazing!
- Remember you don’t have to do it all at once – if you want to start growing your own, it’s best to start with fruit and vegetables that you know you’ll eat, so your effort doesn’t go to waste. We started with tomatoes, peppers, squash and courgettes because we eat a lot of them and they can be grown without a greenhouse. You might be able to grow some salad items on a windowsill in winter too
- Join a local gardening club or Facebook group to get advice on when to plant and what’s going wrong with your plants
- To give yourself the best chance of success, find out:
– the best planting times in your country or zone
– the first and last frost dates for your area
– what type of soil you have
– which areas of your garden get full or partial sun, and what grows best in each area - Learn about companion planting and crop rotation to help your plants thrive
- Make the most of all the space in your garden. Consider pots, raised beds, vegetables planted amongst flowers, hanging baskets, vertical space (trellis, poles, fences), cold frames to extend the growing season, vines and fruit trees grown against warm house walls, a fruit cage or a greenhouse
- Get an allotment
- Arrange to tend someone else’s garden in exchange for giving them a share of the produce (try Lend and Tend (UK), AllotMe (UK) or Shared Earth (US))
- If you’re really going for it and want to be entirely self-sufficient, estimates for the amount of land needed range from 0.75 to 1.25 acres per person for a vegetarian diet. Check out this Grand Designs episode for the story of an inspirational couple who feed not just themselves and their family, but also support their catering business, on five acres of land in Somerset (season 22, episode 9)
- See our gardening page for more ideas
Image credit: photo by Sara Dubler on Unsplash