5 Therapies More Effective Than Retail Therapy

Note to self.

Retail Therapy Patient: "Hey, I bought something!" 

Minimalist: "And?" 

Patient: "And now I'm happy." 

Minimalist: "Are you really?"

Patient: "Actually, I'm not feeling as happy as I was when I first bought it." 

Minimalist: "That is because that kind of happiness is temporary at best." 

Patient: "Oh, now I am sad and I have buyer's remorse." 

A while later - "I bought something else, and now I'm happy again. Oh, hold on..."

Minimalist: "Argh. I can help you with that."

Retail Therapy is the act of buying something to make one feel better. It does actually work... for a very brief moment in time. 

The effect quickly wears off, while the credit card balance tends to linger. Buyer's remorse soon sets in. The cycle repeats.

If you are feeling down, here are 5 therapies more effective than buying stuff you don't want or need just to feel better from the initial rush.

Nature Therapy - go for a walk in the park or some other natural area. Sit quietly. Breathe. If you can't do that, look out a window with a view, or look at pictures of nature. They all have lasting benefits for mood improvement.

Conversation Therapy - meet with a good friend and talk about your feelings.

Exercise Therapy - a 30 minute workout does wonders for your state of mind. It does not have to cost anything, and you will be improving your health at the same time. Can be combined with any, or all of the other forms of therapy mentioned here.

Meditation Therapy - sit quietly, and clear your mind for 20 minutes. 

Garden Therapy - gardening is good for every aspect of a person. After a session you not only feel better, but will also have healthy food to eat, which will further improve your mood.

Repeat as necessary. Lasting mood improvement guaranteed, and you don't have to buy anything. No buyer's remorse, no debt.

Happy New Calendar

Our corn (one of the 3 sisters) did well this year.

Winter solstice is my celestial New Years. January 1st is the time we go to an unblemished, fresh calendar. Both events are full of promise, hope, and excitement. 

On the one hand, the deepest dark days are over, and the sun begins to return. On the other, we get 12 new pictures to hang on the wall. Either way, it is a good opportunity to reflect on the year gone by, and plan for how we are going to improve in the year ahead.

It is nice to be able to say that 2018 represents the best garden year we have ever had. We grew more food, and varieties of food, than ever before. Because of that, we also preserved more of our own food than any year previous. We refrigerated, froze, dried, pickled and canned to our stomach's content.

This year our cooking has reached new levels of nutrition, flavour, and self-sufficiency. We experimented with a Three Sisters portion of our garden, consisting of corn, pole beans, and winter squash, which is supposed to be a winning combination. We agree.

What a joy it is to prepare and eat food you have carefully nurtured yourself. It is also immensely satisfying to wean ourselves from the carbon-intensive industrial food system, and all the plastic packaging that comes with it. And food isn't getting any cheaper. 

Projections are for a 3.5% increase in food prices this year, due to expected increases in the cost of fruits and vegetables, which is mostly what we buy there. Have you notice how things you don't need, like 1000 inch TVs, are getting cheaper, while things you do need, like food, are going up in price?

It will help to be able to grow and collect as much food as we can ourselves, and we look forward to another successful garden season this year. 

Another highlight of 2018 was celebrating our 10th year of the Not Buying Anything blog. It has been inspiring to hear from people around the world sharing how they are living the changes they would like to see in the world. 

Nothing gives hope quite like hearing from people who are living more sustainable, and enjoyable, lives right now. For me, there is no stronger evidence that it can be done, and it can be great. 

We are looking forward to further advances in simple living in 2019, whatever they are, and wherever they happen to happily occur. Living better with less is the new American Dream. Except this time it is real.



Note: Today is Public Domain Day, the first such occurrence in about 20 years (in the US), due to legislation passed then to extend to Disney Corp an extension on their copyright for Mickey Mouse. It also prevented tens of thousands of published works from moving into the public domain as they should have.

Until today.

"At the stroke of midnight, such beloved classics as Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and “Yes! We Have No Bananas” will become the common property of the people, to be quoted at length or in full anywhere when the copyright expires on work produced in 1923. 

Then, works from 1924 will expire in 2020, 1925 in 2021, and so on and so forth."

Read more here.

The Beet Abides

Fresh out of the fridge, and abiding already.

It is always wise to invest in things that abide, rather than fleeting trinkets and entertainments. But what abides?

I know of a bunch of things that don't abide, and that would be pretty much anything proposed by our throw-away, planned obsolescence, live-for-today, corporate, profit-driven ethos.

Then there are some of the solid things that do abide, including: Nature, the Earth, Hope, and Love.

And my beets. My beets abide.

Couple of weeks later and still going.

In October I pulled the remaining beets from our garden. In the beginning of November I took some out of the fridge to cook. Some of the tops still had small, green leaves hanging in there, despite the days and days of refrigerated winter they had endured.

I chose two and put them in water and set them in the kitchen window. I swear they started growing instantly. 

Since then, we have been watching the beet tops continue to unfold. Even after all they have been through, they have abibdden.

Several weeks later it is cold and snowy outside, and still the beets hang in there.

Will humanity be something that abides? Are we as good as the lowly beet? Will we carry on, despite the injustices we have perpetrated in the name of fulfilling fleeting desires and distractions? 

Or will we wilt and waste away?

We need to be like the beet, and keep on growing, despite being ripped from the soil of normality, enduring a perpetually cooling economy, all the while being cooked in a mess of global warming. 

We have to be the green shoots, the thriving, growing centres of creation where the magic happens.

Not only is it a wise time to invest in things that abide, now it is more important than ever to be something that abides. 

Like The Beet. The Beet abides. 

Be the beet.

Want To Reduce Your Dependence On A Sick System? Grow A Garden

Beet relish on left, pickled beets in rest of rows. 

A vegetable garden can be so prolific that the abundance is overwhelming this time of year. The past few weeks we have been eating, freezing, canning, dehydrating, and storing as fast as we can.

How we go from the abundance of nature to the scarcity that our economic system is based on, takes heaps of harmful thinking, mixed with equal parts of lies and evil manipulations.

A quick trip to the garden yields enough beets, beet greens, and kale for days of wholesome cooking and eating.

In a consumer society, if something is free, it is treated with suspicion. Many would rather pay for things because that feels normal. But money is anything but normal, or natural. Where is it? What is it? And can it hug you back?

Everything in nature is provided for free. Our system, where we know the price of everything and the value of nothing, must monetize everything. 

But how can the store sell limp and listless kale from thousands of kilometres away, when I have more of it growing than I can eat, process, or give away?

Want to reduce dependence on a sick system? Grow a vegetable garden
- the ultimate, and most enjoyable, form of resistance.

Nothing explodes the myth of scarcity more than growing even a small garden. A vegetable garden resists all such fake ideas, and shows us the way, which is abundance freely given. 

Along these lines, in response to my earlier post on garlic self-sufficiency, Karen commented:

"This is excellent. I'm keen to try to grow my own garlic so this post is very inspiring. I love being less reliant on The System. 

I think regardless of whatever "little" steps we take to do this kind of thing equates to so much more collectively. 

Independence and any degree of self sufficiently is love in action for Mother Earth. 

Would love to hear what other NBAers are doing to remove themselves from complete dependence. "

In closing, I have two questions. 

1) What do you do to reduce your dependence on our sick system?

and,

2) Can I give you some kale? 

"If I sowed, planted or dealt in seeds; whatever I did had first in view the destruction of infamous tyrants.”  

- William Cobbett

Pickled Beets And The Cosmic Confirmation

Harvest Moon rising over the Acadian forest from our window.

We have been canning pickled beets over the past couple of days for the first time. We finished our latest round of canning just in time to watch the Harvest Moon rise over the Acadian forest in our back yard.

It felt like some sort of cosmic confirmation as we continue to bring in our harvest and process the bounty.

While the potatoes we have harvested have all been small so far, our garden produced several contenders in the "Mother Of All Beets" category. It took only 3 of the behemoths to fill twelve 500 ml canning jars.

And we have about 15 more MOABs in the garden waiting to be eaten/processed. 

With all the beets still in our garden, this is just the beginning.

Pickled beets for all. It has been cosmically confirmed as the right thing to do.

Pickled Beets Recipe


Wash beets well, remove beet greens leaving 1" stem and root.

In large pot, cover with water and boil until tender. Drain, saving 1  1/2 cups liquid.

Remove skins under cold water, slice or if small leave whole.

Pack beets in sterilized bottles to 3/4 inch and add brine (see below) to about 1/2 inch from the top. Cover with lid, put ring on until finger tight. 

Process for 30 minutes in boiling water canner.

Brine

1   1/2  cups vinegar
1   1/2 cups beet cooking water
1   1/2 cups brown sugar
1   tsp salt

Bring to boil and simmer 5 minutes.

The Mother Of All Potatoes

First potato from this year's potato patch - not quite The Mother Of All Potatoes, but still sacred.

When I pulled the first potato out of this year's pioneering potato patch, I was not disappointed. I know that every potato is sacred, partially because of what a class of neophyte gardening gurus taught me when I was a public school teacher.

In my last year of teaching, I pioneered a school garden with my grade four students. Everyone loved it - we were out of the cage, in the fresh air, planting and harvesting not only vegetables, but also magic.

We planted in the spring, and watched our 10 X 10 patch start growing. When summer came, volunteer students and their parents cared for the garden over the holidays. 

In the fall I returned to work. Before I went into my classroom, I hurried to the garden to see how it fared. Did it grow? Would it be vandalized, or raided? 

Boom! There it was, in all its glory. Sunflowers as high as the roof of the school. Potatoes, carrots, squash, beans and peas all bearing fruit. Everywhere green growing life, overflowing on all sides.

The students returned to class. Everyone was excited about the garden, and we looked forward to throwing a Harvest Lunch for the green thumbs and their parents. 

We went outside on a crisp day, and engaged in the day we had all been waiting for - the harvest. There was a celebratory festival feeling as the 28 tillers of the soil amazed at how rich our little plot became over the past few weeks. 

Soon everyone was investigating, digging, probing and picking. All of a sudden, a shout went up.

"The Mother Of All Potatoes", exclaimed a student after digging up a tremendous tuber.

A crowd gathered around to witness this wonderful event - a potato coming from the ground, not a grocery store display. How alive we all felt at that moment, surrounded by the bountiful gifts of nature that we helped nurture into being.

The Potato Pooba raised the spud to the heavens and repeated loudly, "The Mother of all Potatoes".

The Spud Whisperer began marching around the playground with the sacred potato held high. We all joined in behind, creating a long line of chanting, dancing, rejoicing harvesters. 

To children a garden is a magical place of beauty and bounty. From what I gather from my years of teaching young people, they pretty much see life like that. 

Every potato is sacred, from The Mother Of All, right down to the palm sized ones. That is what those little gardeners taught me that day, a lesson I will never forget.

The harvest lunch with the parents was a success. Excess produce was shared amongst the families. 

Corn-u-hope-ia, Corn-u-copia, Corn-u-nope-ia

This year's corn harvest has begun.

The first time Linda and I grew corn was when we lived in a housing cooperative in the middle of Edmonton, Alberta, the northernmost city in North America with a metro population of at least one million. It got cold there in the winter, but summers were warm enough to grow a nice crop.

We planted our mini-field of corn on the perimeter of our community garden. We were filled with corn-u-hope-ia. 

There was no fence, and people walking by could witness our plant's progress as we nurtured our first field to fruition. I wouldn't have minded if people wandered over from the sidewalk and picked cobs to take home for supper.

After a pleasant summer, our corn was ready to harvest. The following day was to be our celebration of filling our horn of plenty. We were looking forward to a cornfest with our neighbours, and sharing our sweet cobs far and wide. 

As it turned out, we did share our corn. All of it. Every single cob. Its just that we have no idea of who we shared it with, because the harvest was a clandestine event which occurred in the dark of night that evening.

When we went to harvest the next day, we found a garden of empty stalks. We never tasted as much as a kernel. We went from corn-u-copia to corn-u-nope-ia, and it took us by surprise.

"No way! This can't be happening." 

"We are so angry." 

"Maybe we can look for it, or offer a reward for the safe return of our unshucked cobs." 

"How sad." 

We progressed through the first 4 stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, and depression) quickly as we stood there viewing the corny crime scene. Before long we entered into the last stage, and accepted our new cornless reality. 

A bit after that we were laughing about the whole affair. It was so outrageous - every single cob was gone. They did an excellent job of harvesting.

We hoped that whoever helped themselves to our patch enjoyed the corn, as well as the love we put into each and every kernel over the course of the growing season.

As it happened, we did not grow corn again until now. This year we have a small section of stalks bearing a nice selection of cobs. 

The kernels have passed the watery stage, and are showing a milky juice. Time for harvest. 

Finally, about twenty years after our initial efforts, we can actually eat fresh corn that we have grown in our own garden. It's back to a corn-u-copia. 

The stripped stalks we will leave until the pole beans are done, later in the fall. 

Let the cornfest begin.

Nature Is Perfection

Nature is perfection. 

Everything unfolds as it should. 

Nothing is wasted. 

Flowers blossom. Bees come and go. 

The sun rises. The sun sets. 

The Earth breathes.

It all happens here and now. 

Garlic Harvest

Freshly harvested naturally grown purple striped garlic laying in our garden.

This weekend we celebrated our garlic harvest after gently lifting 29 purplish heads out of their soily home where they have been growing since last December 1st. 

At that time I planted 30 purple stripe bulbs (one failed to launch) on a beautiful fall day. Harvesting was like unwrapping a present. 

Now the presents are hanging in our garage for a 2 or 3 week curing. Then we will brush off soil and trim the stem and roots in preparation for storage. 

We still have a couple of heads of last year's crop, so for the first time we are self-sufficient in the garlic department. Meeting even a small goal like this feels great. I don't like being dependent on any system.

Garlic curing in the garage.

Something that helped stretch our supply out was trimming the scapes from our crop a few weeks ago. It is the first time we have trimmed them off, thinking we might get larger heads. This year's harvest was better than last year.

Trimming allowed us to try eating scapes for the first time, and we found that they are delicious. Next year we will trim them a bit earlier because older scapes become too fibrous to eat.

Growing garlic is the way to go. Your own garlic tastes better than imported, and it is nice to reduce your garlic footprint by 10,000 kilometres. And if the garlic boats ever stop coming, your stash will go on uninterrupted.

I love my garlic, and I love my garden. Better food - smaller footprint. Don't have to drive to the grocery store. 

Best of all, being in the garden is therapeutic for me, because when I am in the garden, all I think about is the garden. The peace of mind I cultivate might be the best harvest of all.

Garden Mystery

It's a jungle in there. A sweet smelling, edible jungle.

Our garden has grown well this year, due to a Spring application of a couple tractor loads of manure. I imagine the heat this summer didn't hurt, either. 

This is our third season since we started our new raised bed from scratch, and the soil is building up nicely. I take the loads of worms as a good sign that things are happening, and this space is being transformed into an organic food factory.

So what is the mystery?

One of our neighbours brought over a potted vegetable they didn't want any more. Fortunately, we are plant rescuers, and no plant is turned away. We welcomed the new addition to our garden. 

Thing is, we have no idea what it is. The neighbour called it "lettuce", but we have never seen lettuce like it.

Are there any gardeners out there that can help us identify our new mystery vegetable?

Here it is. 

Do you know what this plant is?

Whoever identifies this veggie successfully, will be invited over to our house to share a salad with us, as part of a harvest feast.

I went for a bike ride in the forest this evening. I felt a change in the air. We have also been noticing that the hummingbirds are thinning out, and the fierce competitions at the feeder have faded.

Fall is approaching. 

Happy harvest.

Garden Mojo: Beans, Corn, and Squash

Only if every silk is pollinated will the cob have a full compliment of kernels.

This year we are growing corn for the first time in a long while. I am glad we did because I have discovered some new garden mojo. 

While working in the garden, and as the corn grew taller, I tuned into the magical music of wind rustled corn leaves. It is a sound both soothing, and invigorating, like falling rain, or ocean waves pounding on a sandy beach.

I have never stood in the middle of a corn field on a windy day, but I imagine that it must sound like a million pairs of hands clapping. Corn leaves in a symphony of rustling, applauding the forces of nature that allow it to create life in a uniquely beautiful form.

Pole beans starting up the corn stalks.

I discovered recently that each golden silky hair that emerges out of the cob's tip is connected to an individual kernel inside. Any silk that does not get fertilized by pollen falling from the male parts above, will result in a underdeveloped or missing kernel. 

I guess that makes sense from a scientific perspective, but it seems like more garden mojo to me.

This year we teamed our rustling corn patch with winter squash and pole beans. These are the plants of Three Sisters fame, developed by various North American native groups over thousands of years.

Native Americans know garden mojo, and have long considered the Three Sisters to be sacred. For a good reason - corn, beans and squash make for magical gardening, and nutrition.

"The three crops benefit from each other. The maize provides a structure for the beans to climb, eliminating the need for poles. The beans provide the nitrogen to the soil that the other plants use, and the squash spreads along the ground, blocking the sunlight, helping prevent the establishment of weeds. 

The squash leaves also act as a "living mulch", creating a microclimate to retain moisture in the soil, and the prickly hairs of the vine deter pests. 

Corn, beans, and squash contain complex carbohydrates, essential fatty acids and all eight essential amino acids, allowing most Native American tribes to thrive on a plant-based diet."

- from Wikipedia 

"Rustle, rustle, rustle." 

That is the sound of garden mojo at work.

Hello Bliends, I Have Been In The Garden

Screen time? No. Garden time? You betcha.

American writer Jonathan Franzen has a respectful attitude towards those that enjoy his words. "The reader", he says, "is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator. That might explain the popularity blogs - they are places where friends meet.

I have not been posting on our blog as much as usual lately, and Linda and I are finding that we are missing our blog friends (bliends? blonds?). We hope you are all well, and are thriving in joyous simplicity.

Soon pole beans, sunflowers, and marigolds will be growing right in front of my kitchen window.
Hummingbirds like to perch at the top of the tripod. They help me do dishes.

But not to worry, it has been for a good cause - we have been in our garden. After a week of blood, sweat and tears (or more accurately, black flies, mosquitoes and ticks), it is all planted. 

I have itchy welts all over my body to remind me of all the hard work, just in case I forget about my achy muscles. Is that oversharing? 

However, it was all worth it, and it sure feels good to have fully planted garden. 

Now is a time of eager anticipation as all the work shifts to the seeds tucked into the moist, warm, rich soil that they will call home for the next few months. Or longer. Our kale will provide us with crazy amounts of vitamin K for the next two seasons.

I know it looks like a grave, but the only things buried here are potatoes.

This year we expanded our planting space a bit by incorporating things that we already have. So a pile of well-rotted compost mixed with garden soil, with the addition of some rocks picked from our property, became a bed for table potatoes that grew eyes. 

In true frugal fashion, we ate the rest of the potatoes after we cut and planted the eyes. It felt like abundance and true wealth to have potatoes in the ground, and on our plates.  

We also planted herbs in two containers that were left here by the previous renters. I placed them next to the potatoes.

Happy as chives in a bucket.

And then there are the tin buckets that I found in an old residential waste pile in the margin of the forest behind our house. The chives are doing well in their new/old home, and are close to busting out in flowery fashion.

So there it is, friends. Stay tuned for garden updates, because the real magic is about to happen. How is your gardening going?

I planted this garlic on December 1st last year. It is the only green in the garden, but that will soon change.

Our 2018 garden:

- lettuce
- radish
- green onions
- beets
- carrots 
- garlic
- corn
- acorn and butternut squash
- peas
- bush beans
- kale
- potatoes
- pole beans
- herbs: summer savoury, cilantro, sweet basil
- flowers: sunflower, marigold

More Signs Of Spring

There are many deer in our area. In the Spring they emerge from the cover of the forest to eat fresh,
green grass in the fields.

Spring comes slowly to the east coast in the Maritimes. But Summer and Fall fade equally as slowly on the other side, so it is a trade-off. None-the-less, the increasing signs of spring are an indication that seasonal changes are indeed taking place.

One of my favourite signs of Spring in our rural location is when the white-tail deer venture out of the protection of the forest to eat the new green grass of the field behind our home. 

At dawn on most days through April and May, there can be as many as 10 deer grazing peacefully. They stay there munching away in the morning mist until the sun cracks above the horizon, when they fade back into the forest once again. 

This gentle sight is something I love to wake up to this time of year. Add in Robins singing, and other migratory birds showing up, and it starts to look pretty promising. Soon we will not have to heat our home, and we can start to shed our winter wardrobe.

Garlic sprouting - a sure sign of spring. Let the gardening begin.

Another sure sign of the warming trend taking place is occurring in our garden. About a week ago I pulled the mulch back from two 4 ft. rows of garlic, and to my delight, there were several spiky shoots poking up. 

Now after a few double digit warm days, more are popping up, and greening up, every day.

We officially started our garden of 2018 waaay back on December 1, 2017, when I planted out about 25 pudgy purple cloves in our raised bed. The garlic I planted was from our crop last year. 

We haven't bought garlic grown on the other side of the planet for a long time, and that feels great. It really is one of the easiest things to grow, and it stores beautifully in our pantry.

We won't plant the rest of the garden for another week or two. Before then I will enhance our soil with compost, and get it ready for everything else we will grow this year. 

Last year was our earliest garden ever, having planted a week BEFORE May Long Weekend, the traditional Canadian planting time. It is possible that this year's garden may be even earlier, if things continue to progress as they have been. 

I am glad that the deer don't raid our garden. Neither do the ground hogs, which are out of their burrows now, sunning themselves and looking for mates. However, anything that hangs out of the raised bed, like our squash last year, will be enjoyed by the neighbourhood mice and voles.

Or they haven't raided us yet. We will see during another season of being grounded in this place, while growing our own food. 

I hope Spring (or Fall) in your area is progressing nicely for you. 

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” 

- Margaret Atwood

Back Yard Bliss

It won't be long before these trees are leafed out in their spring attire.

After several nor'easters blew through, we ended up with just enough snow to get out the snowshoes. It wasn't the deep powder of early winter, but the wet, heavy snow provided solid footing for a couple of extended hikes in the back yard woods. As usual, it was blissful.

I didn't see any ticks (one reason I like snowshoeing so much), but did see lots of other signs of life. The only creature I actually saw was an owl, which is always a thrill. Owls are very elusive, and no doubt they have seen me far more often than I have seen them.

 It is good to know owls, and all kinds of other creatures live in the forests surrounding our home. They are evidence that the ecosystem retains the ability to support them, despite human intervention such as farming, industrial logging, trapping and mining.

First stop - squirrel cafe. These small rodents like to perch while they eat their seeds. The evidence of their snacking is hard to miss.

Next is the porcupine dining area. Early this winter while out for a hike I came across a porcupine holed up in a tree. It was snuggled down in its woody bedroom, quills laid back, hardly moving.

Then this week, I saw its kitchen. Or its pantry. Bark is the food of choice for porcupines, most notably the growing layer underneath, which is called cambium. It is rich in nutrients, unlike the tough outer bark.

The spruce forest provides cover from nor'easters for all kinds of furry friends, such as rabbits, hares, squirrels, mink, fisher, fox, coyote, bobcat and more. They all prefer to hide from humans, which is an intelligent survival strategy.

A secure water source, such as Acacia Brook (which is at the bottom of the valley our home is on), means that wildlife of all kinds can live here. I am still waiting to see a river otter.

There are lots of things for owls to eat in this forest. Barred owls can hear the squeak of a mouse from 46 m (150 ft) away, and can detect them under the snow. All owls have the ability to fly silently, due to their special feathers.

Snowshoe tracks, and what left that squiggly track? Mouse? Vole? Large worm?

And finally, the blissful track hunter himself saying, "Peace" to all. I wasn't sure if I should post this, but reasoned that, hey, I'm part of nature, too.

It's the wild life for me.

Goodbye winter, hello spring. There is rain in the forecast, so the snow will not last long. Soon it will be time to pull back the mulch and check to see how the garlic is making out.

Plant Seeds

I am looking at seeds we have saved from our garden. Left to right - marigold, radish, summer savoury, and cilantro.

Whether you are planting seeds in the garden, or planting seeds of change in your life and community, prepare yourself for a bountiful harvest. Be a loving caretaker, and success is assured. It is the way in a creative universe that delights in both life, and change.

“Plant your tiny seeds and keep watering them every day. Soon, they’ll grow.” 

- Israelmore Ayivor

“Seeds have the power to preserve species, to enhance cultural as well as genetic diversity, to counter economic monopoly and to check the advance of conformity on all its many fronts.” 

- Michael Pollan

“Every morning has a unique story. There are always some seeds of possibilities waiting to sprout.” 

- Amit Ray

"Plant seeds of kindness, love and peace 

And your harvest will be abundant living.” 

- Sanjo Jendayi

And remember, today's ashes are tomorrow's fertilizer.

Increasing Food Security

Winter squash keeps for many weeks in a cool, dry place, like my pantry. We harvested these in October.

A study done in 2010 showed that only about 13% of food dollars Nova Scotians spend end up in the pockets of local producers. The average distance traveled for an item of food here is almost 4000km. Communities suffer social, economic and environmental damage from the externalities of this global food distribution system.

Perhaps the most dangerous aspect is how fragile this system is in the event of natural disasters, spikes in energy prices, or climate change. What exactly is the plan if the industrial food distribution system were ever to shut down?

How many of us would be prepared for such an event, even if only temporary?

One can be better prepared with a good set of food production and preservation skills. And since it is more effective to work together in mutual support, it is important for local communities to be more food secure for the benefit of all.

That means supporting local farmers and producers over those thousands of kilometres away. I have nothing against distant farmers, but resilience is greatest in areas with strong local food production and consumption patterns.

Linda and I are a long way from being food self-sufficient, and like most of our neighbours, we rely  on imported foods for part of our diet. If we ever had to fend for ourselves, we might not be the first to die, but longer term survival would be a challenge.

Because of that possible precarious predicament (that makes my stomach growl), we are always changing our eating habits to try to align with a less damaging, more resilient diet. That means fewer bananas (4500 food kilometres), and more squash from our garden (4 meters). Fewer oranges (6300 km), and more garden kale (4 meters).

We bake our squash, then enjoy the stored summer sun in smoothies, soup, and on its own.
The larger seeds are excellent baked. We like ours natural, without oil or salt.

There is always more that can be done. The following are a few suggestions as to what you can do to increase food security in your house and community.

- Grow a garden.

- Support your local farmers’ market.

- Choose local produce when it’s in season at your usual shopping places. Try maintaining a seasonal diet year round, like we used to before fossil fuels and advertising created a desire to have every food available all the time (and damn the consequences).

- Learn and share food preservation techniques, like canning, drying, freezing, pickling, and fermenting. Many community kitchens offer low cost classes.

- Avoid buying produce that has been flown in. Hothouse tomatoes, cherries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, tomatoes, bell peppers, and asparagus are most frequently shipped by air.

- Encourage businesses and governments to adopt policies favouring locally grown, organic, and sustainably harvested foods that are minimally processed.


That all sounds like a good excuse for a larger garden in 2018, as well as a healthy dose of activism. Not to mention a whole lot of invigorating, life-affirming work in the soil and the kitchen.

As much as possible, food security should start at home, then be supplemented by foods that are as local as possible. Foods eaten will be fresher and more nutritious, and will help reduce the harmful effects of inefficient systems of food trade and distribution.