Dwindling world food supply- GROW YOUR OWN

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/business/13wheat.html?_r=2&ref=business&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

http://www.theindependent.com/stories/02242008/new_grain24.shtml

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/17/europe/food.php

Most of us regular working folk do not have the influence to to change the trend toward global food crisis. The best we can do for the rest of the world is to give to organizations that help local farmers to be more productive, or help food insecure people in poor nations to become more self sufficient (ideally through permaculture innovations), and to buy American grown FOOD. Do not encourage the government in its attempt to grow our own oil and import our food!!!! Buy the most locally grown food you can. Eating lettuce from your backyard instead of lettuce shipped from California. Eat rice grown in California instead of rice from India. Don’t price the people of India out of their own rice by buying rice imported from India! Don’t turn California rice farms into housing developments by buying Indian rice! Washingtonians, eat apples not bananas! When you eat local (I mean that in the very broad sense described previously, not in the 100-mile sense), you support American farmers feeding Americans, and you also support farmers in poorer countries feeding people in their countries.

Oh, here is another article about eating insects- the UN is researching it! Another way for humans to live sustainably with sustainable forests!

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=25662&Cr=insects&Cr1=food

Steven Cobert read my blog!

Steven Cobert must have read my blog. Tonight on the Cobert Report, his guest was David Gracer, expert on bug cuisine. Gracer encourages us to eat bugs to save the planet!

I feel spring coming....

Potting soil lining storefronts
Veggie seeds on sale
A few hours of sunlight
No frost on my skin when I venture outside
I bought some pea seeds today will plant them on Friday! I can't wait

Anyone know how I can make sure the seeds I buy aren't genetically modified? I'm OK with hybrids, but I don't want to eat peas with pig DNA you know?

February Garden

Here in Western Washington, it's been raining nearly daily for five months and there's still no end in sight. And it's been cold, almost cold enough to snow, but usually the temperature hovers just above freezing and drops ice cold rain drops on those brave souls who venture out of their homes.

In February most of my gardening happens in my imagination (not unlike the rest of my life), on graph paper, and staring out the kitchen window. On graph paper, I plan out every square inch of garden space, marking where I will plant each vegetable and fruit. Of course, when the time comes to actually plant the garden, I will not use any of the maps I've been drawing out all winter. Once I get out to the garden in spring, I plant wherever I get the feeling something ought to be, which results in what appears to anyone else to be a mess, but to me it is a work of art. Looking out the kitchen window, I can almost feel the summer sun warming my shoulders as I meander around reaping the fruits of my labor, watching my three sons chasing each other through the clover.

I look forward to planting peas as soon as I have a sunny day. I planted them in mid-February last year, sure that I was making a foolish mistake, but unable to control my compulsion to plant during a sunny week. A few weeks after my boys and I planted them, we had snow and sub freezing temperatures for several days. Shockingly, nearly all the peas we planted sprouted and produced sweet pea pod treats by late March!

In the kitchen, I haven't been using anything fresh from the garden since I haven't wanted to be outside any longer than it takes me to take out the trash.

Introduction

This blog is about what I'm growing and what I'm eating, which are ideally one and the same.

I live in Western Washington with my husband and three young sons. I grew up with a passionate need for writing and an idyllic life I took for granted. The daughter of a farmer, I had 400 acres of field, forest and creek to roam with my two younger brothers. We raised cows for meat and raised fruits and vegetables in a large garden which was always finely tilled. I walked barefoot in the soft soil to feel its softness between my toes.

Stereotypically, I couldn't wait to leave the farm and the small town of my origins, to find excitement in the big city. I went to college for a few years and then got married. That spring, in a hanging basket on the patio of our tiny apartment, I grew a strawberry plant which produced two strawberries. It had cost me $10 for materials and the strawberry plant, but growing my own food felt so good. I found my self, stereotypically, missing the country life and my parents' vegetable garden.

After the birth of our first son, my husband and I moved to a home with a large garden area, my first real vegetable garden as an adult. All spring and summer I spent in that garden, carrying my son in a sling. I became obsessed with self sufficiency for a time. We now live in another home, with an even bigger garden area, and two more little boys. We are by no means self-sufficient, but I love to grow as much as I can and find new ways to enjoy the flavors of the fresh foods that my garden produces.

From time to time, I will probably some things off topic that are on my mind.