comrade simba

I’m pretty much at the end of my winter funk – In the garden now every day getting ready for the first of March when the onions and radishes go in. Still working on getting the greenhouse project going – its spot has been a debris zone for years and clearing it out is a project in itself.

Nothing much going on – thought I’d toss out a quick post just to get something on the airwaves. There is a great post on Club Orlov that fleshes out the reasons why we can’t live business as usual, and gives the alternative actions that should be taken if we want to keep breathing the air outside of a camp someplace.

http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/02/social-collapse-best-practices.html

Cruise the seed catalogs and you get a cup of peanuts in the shell for like 3 bucks, so you wind up spending just stupid amounts of money for the yield. It’s cheaper to buy off the shelf PB, but that pesky salmonella factor looms so something’s gotta give. In 30 seconds of surfing I found a 5 pound sack of shelled and raw Georgia Runner peanuts for 8 bucks online and another 8 bucks shipping. I wet down a dishcloth, added 10 peanuts, kept damp and 6 days later over half of them are ready for dirt. Ho ho! Cheap Bastard wins again!

Cheap store bought red, black, and white beans all grow just fine. So do $1.69 a pound black eyed peas. I’m tempted to thaw out a sack of Bird’s Eye frozen peas just to see if they grow. Feed store milo and whole corn grew critter feed last year. I have a feeling this post is rehashing stuff I’ve already said – I suppose I’m running low on enthusiasm for anything but getting something into the ground. Somebody was heading towards a discussion of composting methods to eliminate weed seeds and all I could do was mutter “chuck it in the heap”. The names and glories of exotic heirloom varieties are escaping me – I just wanna know drought tolerance and overwintering vigor. Call it “Fred Kale”. Whatever. Zzzzzzz.

I’d rather have somebody to plant with. It’s lonely in the fields in a world of square foot gardeners.

I got a comment on the last post  -

“I don’t know if there’s much point to sub urban types digging up the backyard or front yard if things go as far south as some predict. You have one thing the sub urban types don’t have – water.”

I think if I was still living in town I’d dig up the front yard and plant radishes, spinach, lettuce – anything that grows lower than the nuisance lawn height ordinances – just to make a statement, especially if there was a homeowner’s association involved. That’s my mean streak talking but I think throwing every square foot of growing space into food production could make a difference in the grand scheme of things.

First, the obvious. What you grow you don’t have to buy, and when a stupid head of cabbage clocks in at over a buck a head at the store even a crappy first year scratched up lawn is going to save real money. I know a lot of people don’t buy fresh vegetables just because they cost too damn much. 50 cent tomato. Two dollar stalk of celery.  80 cents for a bell pepper.  Even a lousy onion is close to 50 cents in many places. Good thing vitamin supplements are cheap – well, they used to be anyway. Garden math has changed, every hour in the garden is worth more than what you could buy working for minimum wage.

I’m going to gloss over the mental and physical health benefits of gardening – leave that for the peace and love blogs. I’m coming from a harder core angle here.

Kill the corporations. Grow some potatoes, slice them thin with a food processor thing. Fry them in oil and make your own potato chips. Say goodbye to the chip isle. You can get by raising a few meat rabbits almost anywhere – growing kale and other rabbit food can put a dent in the big meat business. If you have a long growing season a peanut patch might save you from salmonella poisoning. A good sized strawberry patch is a coffin nail in Smucker’s Inc., or whatever generic food conglomeration distributed your usual brand of jam. None of this may seem like much, but if 10% of people produced a lot of their food that 10% reduction in corporate sales may put them out of business – or at least screw the shareholders who are the one’s driving the profit scheme when it’s all said and done.

The snip from the comment about water supposes collapse comes before the gardens could go in. My question is how much longer could collapse be staved off if a huge number of people dug up the yard? A year? Two years? Imagine if 30 million people planted two fruit trees a year every year, and a bunch of berry bushes right now.  What I don’t get are people who won’t head for the hills right now, believing that a number of years will pass between now and “doom”, but won’t do any long term planning like planting a fruit tree or taking the time to build up some garden beds. The population has just seized up – you digging up the yard may shake them out of their stupor.

Once a significant number of sub division residents dig up the yard water catchment won’t seem so weird. You know somebody is going to push the envelope and run some chickens. The non gardening neighbors will appreciate the windfall of six people fighting over who gets to mow that yard this week for the grass clippings. In three or four years the typical Amityville Horror suburban cul de sac could look like hipies took over.  And those stupid neighborhood watch signs get replaced by real patrols manned by the nutcase survivalist wannabes who feel safe enough to get off the websites and walk around with their previously hidden away firearms. Protecting the vegetable patches from pilferers. Maybe in a decade little kids can run naked in the streets when the weather’s nice. The old ladies can have their quilting bees. the old men can tend the goats, daddy can work the earth with the boys, mama teaches the girls girl stuff and at the monthly neighborhood block dance/ swap meet they can all say “Collapse? What collapse?”

Oops… forgot to take my reality pill this morning. Fuck it – just dig up the yard ‘cuz you’re soon going to be unemployed. Some tomatoes handy to throw at the sheriff would be nice when he comes to foreclose on you…