Did our time to shine turn to Banana Bread?

During the Covid-19 lockdown one of the many perplexing phenomenons was the over googling for Banana bread recipes. Banana bread became the most widely searched recipe online…armed with this meta data and fragrant scent, off ran every test kitchen recipe writer and lifestyle editor to build content and tags around banana bread to engage with potential “customers”. Banana bread become a tasty honey pot for eyes and web site clicks.

Did we, the horticulture industry fall into banana bread thinking?  With a curious direction and emphasis, it seems that everyone jumped into a canoe called grow your own and paddled in the same direction completing the voyage with an instructional video.

Undoubtably the “home grown and make yourself a vegetable garden” is a huge and potentially profitable category for most retail garden centres. Sharing our knowledge and expertise and owning this intel’ space is crucial. 

Delivering that message is equally weighted – producing an info video is a great idea , if it’s a good an engaging video. Entertaining that is, out of the gate, good audio, image and presenter style and message.

The joy of making banana bread lies in the almost instant gratification of reward. Buoyed from your iPad you can jive away in your kitchen mixing and beating and in a couple of hours, you’re kicking back with a warm slice of something pretty delicious. Satisfying on many levels, share a slice with your loved ones, photograph it and post it on your social. It’s an uplifting rewarding experience.

I tremble with worry for all the people that rushed out and bought 16 punnets of Kale, are they feeling the same pleasure, as baking a loaf of banana bread? On the recipe scale, to grow Kale is about a 6 hat level of expertise and despite the happy arm-waving of us “experts” insisting what we do and know is "easy and simple". Which it is not, that’s a topic for another day. I'm confident that most of the Kale planted in autumn, was converted to cabbage moths. One thing for sure, we have turned the banana bread seekers into Kale recipe hunters and hopefully not despondent first time vege growers.

Have we missed an enormous opportunity with this extraordinary interest in our product and industry? Did we fail to professionally engage with an audience desperate for our knowledge and mentorship? How to grow vegetables was our honey pot to connect, not disappoint. And we as an industry are so much more than folk that know how to grow a zucchini.

We are life, we are colour, we make homes for birds, we feed bees, we seed the clouds with rain, we hold that rain in the earth. We bring joy, perfume, romance, emotion and memory. We create oxygen, sink carbon, cool the planet, we can heal the earth, and calm mental stress. Our world is made beautiful and liveable by our product.
We are much more than a punnet of vegetable seedlings. 

Let’s grab this opportunity we’ve been given and shake it. Let’s lead and not follow, open our eyes, and sell, and talk about our beautiful life changing and affirming product, to the people who really are desperate for us to help and guide them.