Asparagus

Artichoke

Cardoon

Salad Burnet

Good King Henry

Hardy Yam

Sweet potato

Jerusalem artichoke

Yacon

Oca

Daylily

Tiger Lily

Brodiaea 

Here are a couple pics of the main garden these days:

I was reading this article on global food shortages as the price of the food wheat and rice have gone up 80-120% in the last year.

I've been thinking a lot about something that someone (Jay) said while commenting on my blog earlier last week.  I had been talking about my several new ventures growing food and other trees on our property up here in Washington.  Jay mentioned how important it would be to consider food for the coming future, due to food shortages that are coming up.  I hadn't really thought about this before, much.  I mean, I know I wanted to grow some food for added security for myself and my family - but I hadn't really considered anything imminent, like food shortages, providing impetus and value to this practice.

Crabbing season has started again; much to my great joy.  Tonight I ate three crabs, mostly all by myself - although some of the choicest pieces went to Kelsie, who actually enjoyed the meat a lot; which is a lot more than she expected to.

Yeah, so tonight I was sitting here thinking about going off into the wilderness.  I know, having a community IS something that I want – but I’d also like to know, for future reference, if I have the survival ability that most nine year olds in past cultures once had; this would be something valuable to me, because whatever else happened I could always go back to this if whatever I was trying didn’t work out.

Its weird, thinking about the things that you think now and how they got to be that way.  I mean even in your own head, the road to getting here is long and takes many twists and turns.  There are switchbacks, whose purpose you don’t understand at all until after traveling them for so long, never seeing any real gains you break the ridgetop and see the valley below you and realize what they were for, and what it really was worth to you.

Produce has been losing vitamins and minerals over the past half-century

Deborah K. Rich, Special to The Chronicle

Saturday, March 25, 2006

The fruits and vegetables that our parents ate when they were growing up were more nutritious than the ones we'll serve our children tonight. On average, the produce we grow in the United States has lower levels of several vitamins and minerals today than it did 50 to 60 years ago. By growing or buying and eating organic produce, however, we can make up much of the difference. Organically grown fruits and vegetables are proving to have higher levels of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals than their conventionally grown counterparts.

I got a call yesterday from Heifer International a charity that I have given to in the past.  They're great, and they make giving especially fun because you give money in proportion to a particular animal that you would like to provide for someone poor in another country.  You can "purchase" a heifer, or a flock of ducks or a pig, whatever you like or can think of they probably offer with prices concomitant to the size of the animal in question.  

EAT PEOPLE.

 

If you really want to solve the problems of a starving nation – take one half of the starving people and feed them to the other half.  This solves two problems at once, by creating a wealth of food for a starving people while halving consumption of the people overall without incurring national debts.  Surely this isn’t a sustainable lifestyle – well, I guess to a point it could be, but I doubt anyone would eat their young for very long without getting fed up.  But, if you did this every time you had a famine, not only would it prevent famines: it would keep people from having children in the future (to avoid having to lose them) and have long-lasting consequences in terms of population that would be beneficial to both the people and their environment.