Suburban Tomato

I’m going through a bit of flower phase.  I currently have 5 vases of flowers in various rooms of my house.  In fact there are probably more flowers in my house than in my garden at the moment, but there are still some things worth noticing outside.

For me Spring flowers are the flowers of my edible plants in my kitchen garden.  There are a few exceptions, my favourite garden flowers – Cosmos, and the things that my children begged me to buy.

But most of the flowers in my garden at this time of the year are the ones that hint of fruit to come.

Most impressive are the passionfruit flowers, although this particular vine has steadfastly refused to follow these with fruit since I planted it a few years ago.  Personally I doubt the ‘self fertilising’ claim on the plants label and will purchase another plant to test this theory.

There are the less flamboyant but no less exciting flowers of the potato that tell me that there is (or should be) some under soil action happening and that I can start harvesting new potatoes pretty soon.

But my favourite flowers at Springtime are those of my bean plants.  Not only are the flowers pretty but their arrival means I can start watching beans grow and grow.

I like having a blog, aside from its many other advantages having a blog means you get to ask people questions.  Technical questions, how to questions, scientific questions, morality questions and mundane questions.  I’ve come to the realisation that I haven’t utilised this particular advantage to its full potential, but I will starting from now.

Today’s question is of the mundane variety although at a stretch you could assign a hint of morality to it.  But first some background.

I try and grow much of my own broccoli.  During our winter it grows really well but if you grow it in Melbourne outside of late Autumn, winter and early Spring it has the tendency to become something of a bug (aphids and green caterpillars mainly) infested mess.

So during those months I usually buy it.  Often at the Farmer’s Market and sometimes at the supermarket.

At the our local farmer’s market there are both conventional and organic farmers.  I buy at both but usually get broccoli from the conventional one.  Unfortunately the best conventional veg grower retired recently and no longer comes to the market so I bought some from one of the organic sellers.

I quite often eat broccoli with oyster and chilli sauce for my lunch.  I fancied it yesterday and got out the broccoli. As I was chopping the broccoli I came a cross a caterpillar, and then another one, then I noticed that a number of the florets had clearly visible aphid damage.  Basically it was all a bit of a mess.

Which brings me to the question.  Is it acceptable for an organic veg seller to sell produce with insect damage?  Or indeed with live insects present?  And if yes at what point would you draw the line?