I got into gardening mindset this weekend. It looks like the arugula I planted a month ago has bolted, despite being on the north side of my house. I moved its pot into the shade.
With the help of my friend the chef, I discovered that the previous owner had at least oregano, rosemary, chives, and peppermint planted, and they're coming back. I added cilantro, and basil to the herbs.
When I bought the house late last summer, there were summer squash vined taking over the patio. There seem to be three large, shallow basins planned for those kinds of plants. So I planted a pumpkin vine, a watermelon vine, and one zucchini. I put two tomato plants in containers. I put a leaf lettuce variety in a planter box in the shade.
I had moments of near panic yesterday... I really don't know what I'm doing. I've read a lot, one of my roommates has done a lot of gardening herself, but I think ultimately it has to come down to trying something. I alternate between being frustrated that I don't have more dirt and overwhelmed by the planters I do have, so I think this is a good starting place.
Back in March, I was exploring the idea of renting a community garden plot for the summer. I'm anxious about that because I'm the type of person who lives to watch big projects get off the ground. I am not a good maintainer. Also, given that I don't know what I'm doing, I figure starting small and asking lots of questions is a good place to start. 400 square feet did not seem like starting small to me.
So, I'm starting with the patio and will be volunteering at farms over the summer to satisfy my desire to have more of a hand in producing my own food.
So, on the 14th I did go to the work day at the learning farm for Compass Montessori School in Golden. They have a lot of information about what the school and the farm are about on their website, so I don't really want to get into that. I do want to talk about why I went and what I observed.
The big picture of why I went is that it makes sense to me that if we are going to address global warming, reduce our dependence on petroleum, reduce our carbon footprints, and fight obesity to boot, we need to go back to serious gardening. I mean Victory Garden-type gardening. I think that global warming has the kind of potential impact that deserves a WWII response from the US. However, I'm a wimp. I've never done much gardening and don't trust myself to have the stamina to keep at it. So, I went to practice, to see, and to build up my endurance.
We spent about 4 hours working. The first part of the time I worked on raking and seeding a new pasture for the goats and llamas.
The second part of the time I worked on a fence for keeping the llamas out of the high school area.
The day started off in the low 50's and ended up in the mid 60's which made it a darn fine day for labor. I got a little sunburned and I was pretty tired at the end of the day but not totally beaten up.
A few things I observed. First, I have a long way to go before being physically able to do a day's work on the farm. Let alone week after week. That being said, it seems to be easier in a way. Not that there isn't as much to know as there is in my industry (cable). And not that there aren't deadlines and all that. But it was really delightful to be able to pause at my rake, feel the breeze, and look off into the distance. It was so much more refreshing than a coffee break. Still, let's not get all romantical.
Second, the woman who is running the farm seems to have found something that works for her in a deeply satisfying way. She speaks with care and affection for the teens that come work with her and for all the plants and animals growing there. She has a sense of that physically-grounded at-home-ness you see in people who are building their own homes.
Third, guessing based on the amount of self-expression in the halls at the school, the kids are getting a world-class education in the power of making choices and following through on them. It seems like these kids have the wherewithal to stand up in the world and be known. Which is my way of contrasting them with people who go out into the world as young adults and then as adults who look to their sports team, their car brand, their favorite talking head, their church for their sense of self instead of it arising from some place deep inside.
I have been working on this post, but also procrastinating for a week. We have the May issue of Mother Jones on the table at the house and Barbara Kingsolver has a beautiful, rambling essay about locally grown food in it. I have been hoping it would be up before I posted this, but it isn't yet. Check there in a week or two. I especially like the call to know your farmer. Not as an exhibit, but as someone who is your partner... every bit as much as your doctor or dentist. We have an obligation to those men and women to not just shop around for the lowest price, but to understand that what we're willing to pay for our food is connected to what we're willing to invest in keeping the Earth green and working for all.
April 14th is StepItUp, a national day of action for climate change. I will be at a teaching farm in Golden, helping get things ready for planting. I figure this is a great way to begin to understand what sustainable farming really looks like.
I plan to send photos. ;-)
I felt tempted to pull out the old skills and do a standard book review post about The Omnivore's Dilemma
but I really can't. I mean I could talk about the cleverness of his devices and the solidness of the writing and the way he makes facts accessible through personal stories... but that would be faking an objectivity I don't really feel. This book frightened and inspired me. And I only got through the first section.
The Omnivore's dilemma is an extension of the organism's basic problem -- "What can I eat?" At this point in our evolution, humans are omnivores. We've figured out that we can eat pretty much everything. Not only that, we've figured out how to get other humans to bring our favorite foods to us. So, given that, are there things which are better for us to eat? And how do we measure better? This is the dilemma.
Up until the 1950's, hunger was a major problem even in the US. The Great Depression was only partly an economic slowdown after the collapse of Wall Street. It was also a drought that threatened famine. As a nation, we did what starving animals do. We became obsessed with food quantity... perhaps at the expense of quality.
Three technologies were developed for increasing food production: irrigation techniques, pesticides, and fertilizers. Introducing these elements to farming became known as The Green Revolution, increasing food production wherever they went.
Pollan argues that corn is the engine of this food production. He makes the case that corn is more efficient than other grains at turning energy inputs into stored energy. Because of this efficiency, we can produce more calories of corn than we can actually consume. So corn has increasingly elbowed its way into our food system by replacing other calorie sources. For example, corn syrup sweeteners instead of cane or beet sugar. Corn-fed cattle instead of grass-fed cattle. Bit-by-bit corn has become the staple food of the US.
The problem with this model is that corn cannot maintain itself year after year in the same land. The traditional method of growing corn was to rotate or co-plant it with crops like squash and beans. But squash and beans aren't as efficient and aren't consumed at the same levels. The Green Revolution allows us to skip the rotation by feeding the corn through fertilizer.
The problem with this is that corn produces fewer usable calories than the fertilizer contains. Fertilizers are a petroleum product. So in other words, our diet is in direct competition with our cars. And the ethanol-as-renewable-resource meme looks to compound the problem again: use petroleum to make fertilizer, grow corn with the fertilizer, use the corn to power cars or to eat...
Fortunately, Pollan ends the section on corn on a positive note. He tells us of a visit to Polyface farm, an intensive agriculture farm where after the corn is cut down, the chickens are turned loose to finish up the grain and eat bugs. Then grass is allowed to grow, thriving in the chicken litter. Then cows are grazed on the grass, aerating the soil and providing fertilizer. Then the corn is grown again. This high-care, high intensity agriculture seems to produce far more calories per acre than the corn-based industrial agriculture we have now... but it is incredibly labor intensive.
This leads me to suspect that when we get serious about global warming, we will have to return, in some way, to being a nation of farmers and ranchers.
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The story of Pollan's visit to Polyface is also included in Best Food Writing 2006
, along with an excerpt from Julie and Julia
, and a thoughtful article from Bill McKibbin written for Gourmet. Which is to say, I think the book is worth it for just those three pieces, but it's stuffed full (no pun intended) of good reading.
Welcome
NotSoBigLiving is the story of a woman inspired by Sarah Susanka, Bill McKibben, Airstreams, Tumbleweed houses, Mennonites, Jimmy Carter, hippies, survivalists, Anasazi, Pema Chodron and Joko Beck, Scott Peck, Buckminster Fuller, and Al Gore to see what she can do to reduce her carbon footprint in her mid-80's suburban townhome. Strategies include roommates, alternative travel, organic eating, planting a victory garden, mindfulness, and a belly full of laughter.
