Dave Mollard's Change is Constant: Time to go back to growing more of what we eat

Tomatoes have always been expensive outside their prime growing season. Photo / Andrew Warner

OPINION:

"$20 for green tomatoes, $3.70 for a capsicum! What is the world coming to?" a friend exclaimed after a bank-balance-damaging sortie to Countdown.

Usually, I try to frame the current times in a positive light compared with the "good old days", but the kerfuffle over the price of tomatoes has caused me to reflect on the past and what we can learn from it.

The thing is, tomatoes and almost every other type of locally-grown produce have always been expensive outside their prime growing seasons. This year's price-bump is due to the global pandemic causing labour shortages, and Vlad's personal war in Ukraine has caused the price of fuel to skyrocket like the American-made artillery missiles that are killing his supply lines.

Back in the day, the only tomatoes we could buy in September were mixed with sugar in the can of Wattie's Tomato Sauce we all spread over our $1 scoop of chips.

We didn't complain about the cost of fresh tomatoes in early spring 40 years ago because you couldn't buy them until November. And come February, we will probably be buying them for less than a couple of bucks and it won't be a problem.

The deeper issue is that 40 years ago, most of our whānau grew their own tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers and 20 other varieties of produce that could only be grown either in season, or in the shoulder season in the backyard glasshouse for those with real green fingers!

It's wisdom many of us have lost, but with the uncertainty of the world we live in, it's a wisdom we need to rediscover. I have been on the grow-my-own-kai journey for about 18 months, and I'm loving picking fresh salad ingredients to share at my table and the tables in my neighbours' homes.

It's a journey with setbacks, as my bok choy goes to flower too early and my corn never ripens, but hopefully I learn from this and plan better. There is never a better time than now to go back to our roots and start growing more of what we eat.

• Dave Mollard is a Palmerston North community worker and social commentator.