The Value of Seeds
by John Meshna
Resident Knowitall and Founder of Dirt Works
Today’s economy has us all thinking of ways to save money. Unfortunately, one of the ways many of us cut back first is by buying lower grade (cheaper) food. This is unfortunate because there’s nothing more sacred than what we put in our bodies. The food we put into our bodies determines in many ways both subtle and overt health consequences. Some of the outcomes from poor eating habits can be as minor as frequent bouts with fatigue, short attention spans, and irritability. Far worse effects are major diseases and compromised immune systems. Many of these symptoms take a long time to show up so, at first we don’t notice any change and often it takes an extreme situation to make us aware that there’s anything wrong.
Fortunately, cutting back on good food doesn’t have to be your first choice when saving money. With a little planning and small amounts of money spent up front, you can eat even better food than you can buy in the supermarket and you don’t have to own a farm to grow it. Even if you live in a small apartment you can grow greens and herbs year round. read more
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Fresh Food from Small Spaces
The Square-Inch Gardener’s Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting
by R. J. Ruppenthal
In the coming years, our society will need to (re)turn to traditional methods of raising food, rediscovering techniques for sustainable food production that our ancestors practiced up until the last few generations. Family subsistence farming was the norm in Europe and the United States until the industrial revolution accelerated urbanization and mass agriculture. Not everyone was a farmer, but nearly every household had a vegetable patch and a dairy cow, chicken coop, or apple tree in the backyard. You can still see original fruit trees in many suburban areas around the country; most have been chopped down to make space for manicured lawns and concrete sidewalks, but a few of these old homestead trees remain. Some still bear fruit each year without anyone harvesting it, and I have even heard property owners complain about fruit trees because they drop so much “junk” on the ground. You could almost hide a fruit tree in plain sight these days because not many people recognize it as a food source. But not so long ago, our parents or grandparents depended on those trees for their fruit, using it for fresh eating and cooking, pressing it for juice and cider, and preserving it in the form of pies, sauce, and jam.
We will need to relearn basic food production skills in a hurry if we are to survive and thrive in this new world. It is tough to garden when you have no land, but city residents CAN learn to produce more food with less space, and that is why I wrote this book. I believe that humankind’s survival depends upon our successful adaptation to a more sustainable economy and way of life; sustainability is not possible when we madly poison our farmland with pesticides and chemical fertilizers, scoop up natural resources at a voracious pace until they are gone, and finance every whim with a spiraling pool of debt. Some of us need to start relearning what is real. I believe this book will help you learn some food-raising skills on a small scale, and reap the personal rewards for yourself and your family. read more
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In his book, The Green Collar Economy, acclaimed activist and political advisor Van Jones delivers a real solution that both rescues our economy and saves the environment. The economy is built on and powered almost exclusively by oil, natural gas, and coal, all fast-diminishing nonrenewable resources. As supplies disappear, the price of energy climbs and nearly everything becomes more expensive. With costs and unemployment soaring, the economy stalls. Not only that, when we burn these fuels, the greenhouse gases they create overheat the atmosphere. As the headlines make clear, total climate chaos looms over us. The bottom line: we cannot continue with business as usual. We cannot drill and burn our way out of these dual dilemmas.
Instead, Van Jones illustrates how we can invent and invest our way out of the pollution-based grey economy and into the healthy new green economy. Built by a broad coalition deeply rooted in the lives and struggles of ordinary people, this path has the practical benefit of both cutting energy prices and generating enough work to pull the U.S. economy out of its present death spiral.
Rachel Carson’s 1963 landmark book Silent Spring was the pivotal ecological examination of the last century. Now, rising above the impenetrable debate over the environment and the economy, Van Jones’s The Green Collar Economy delivers a timely and essential call to action for this new century.
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Organic Transitions: Beyond the Gloom & Doom of Economic Depression, Climate Change, & Peak Oil
By Ronnie Cummins
Organic Consumers Association, October 14, 2008
OCA is happy to announce a new grassroots-powered campaign called Organic Transitions, inspired in part by the UK's fast-growing Transition Towns movement. Organic Transitions is designed to mobilize organic consumers and local communities to start planning and implementing “transition” strategies so as to survive and thrive in the turbulent times ahead, with organic food and farming providing the healthy cornerstone for a new, more localized and sustainable green economy. read more
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