Grow Vegetables Like George Monbiot

George Monbiot is a very controversial British writer about politics and the environment; whenever we write about him on TreeHugger the usual response of commenters is to call him "Moonbat," which apparently he doesn't mind. He was one of the first to suggest that "flying is dying"-that "if we want to stop the planet from cooking, we will simply have to stop travelling at the kind of speeds that planes permit." His book Heat was not well received in America-he was thought far too extreme, making statements like biofuels may "accelerate rather than ameliorate climate change" and carbon offsets are like "pushing your food around your plate to give the impression you've eaten it," all of which have been proven to be essentially accurate in the three years since the book was written. Every week he cements his reputation by writing incendiary articles in The Guardian.

So it was with great surprise to find that his latest missive is all about...vegetable gardening. He writes about why he loves it:

I do most of my gardening at night. I lie in bed walking, in my imagination, around my vegetable beds, working out what I could do better. I love this strategising. It takes my mind off the bigger issues and allows me to see-when otherwise I feel powerless-that there is something I can change.

He then suggests "a few techniques which will make vegetable growing easier and more productive," all very British, but some might be useful in America if we can translate them into English:

1. Get yourself a digging hoe (in this country they are sold under the Spanish name, azada). Everywhere else people use gravity to break the soil, bringing a hoe down onto the ground. In Britain we work against it, lifting the soil from below with a fork or spade, which doubles the work and knackers your back. A good azada will dig out brambles with a single stroke and break up compacted soil very quickly.

2. If your plot is full of small perennial weeds, such as couch grass or marestail, don't try digging them out. Cover it with damp-proof membrane for 12 or 18 months. (Don't use carpet, which contains toxic flame retardants). Otherwise you'll engage nature in a battle you cannot win. More at ::Monbiot.com

Difficulty level: Moderate