I want you to grow your groceries. Could you grow enough food to feed your family if you needed? Could we, as communities, sustain ourselves - even temporarily - if there was some major disruption like a cyber attack, supply chain failure, hyper inflation, economic fall-out, or - God forbid - war? Though I'm a fan of salads & tasty treats like sugar snaps, if you're hungry, those just won't cut it. It comes down to calories and protein. If you were gardening to keep your family alive, what would you grow? This isn't about fear-mongering; it's about preparedness & keeping enough life-skills passing around in our networks so that, "if & when" we need them, those skills can be cultivated & shared . Even within a generally stable society, there are "minor" crises at the level of region, city, neighborhood, & family all the time that don't feel all that minor to the folks involved. If you had to, could you grow enough energ
With this Arctic blast headed our way, I wanted to share a quick note with a couple resources. Growing Year 'Round - video What To Do When It Freezes (pdf) The main takeaways are: Most cool season crops should be fine; they'll freeze, thaw, and keep growing. It's the warm season crops growing out of season you have to worry about like... tomatoes, peppers... Make sure your soil is good and moist before the freeze; this prevents dehydration burn turn off your irrigation Friday evening so it doesn't run early morning Sat/Sunday when your plants are still frozen because "flash thawing" will hurt even the freeze-tolerant crops In parting, here are a few cool season crops that are more tender than the rest and may benefit from extra care (see What To Do When It Freezes) beyond watering the soil cilantro, parsley, celery, dill, fennel, nasturtium. Stay warm out there! As needed & helpful, our team looks forward to future opportunities to support you