Leap Day Thoughts

On my way to work this morning, I was entertained by radio reports of the history of Leap Year. It got me thinking: where was I four years ago? Where were you? Where will we be four years hence in 2016?

I can honestly say my life hasn’t changed much on the surface: same job, same home with same overcrowded canine population, same wonderful husband... But, inside, I am so much a different person than I was then, it can hardly be adequately described.

A few months earlier than that Leap Day of 2008, I had seen the movie The End of Suburbia at a public showing at the Old Gregg School. That night I wrote in my journal that my life would never be the same, and it sure hasn’t been. Introduced for the first time to a cast of characters (and for some ‘character’ is a very apt word) including James Howard Kunstler, the late Matthew Simmons, Colin Campbell, Julian Darley, and Richard Heinberg, I had my eyes opened to a number of conundrums swirling beneath the surface of everyday life: peak oil, population overshoot, climate change, the mass extinctions under way, global economics, big ag and big pharma determining our food choices.

Well. It was a lot to take in. Still is. And I chose the term ‘conundrum’ purposely. One of the things I learned from the Post Carbon group who showed End of Suburbia and a whole list of enlightening documentaries since then, is that you can’t call most of these things ‘problems,’ because problems have, at least theoretically, solutions. Conundrums, on the other hand, are problems with no answers, no solutions, no way to satisfactorily deal with their effects.

2008 is now famous for the violent drop in the stock market, for the steep increase in the price of oil, and for the bailouts of big banks. But, you may say, the world didn’t end, right? Suburbia hasn’t ended. The DOW is almost back to its all-time high. And every day we’re told that more oil has been found and, next thing we know, the U.S. will be an oil exporter!

I would argue that for many people, the world did end. Their world anyway. People lost their jobs, their houses, their health care and then their health. Whole communities, whole cities crumbled. I have been very lucky. We here in Penns Valley have been for the most part. But I don’t think those conundrums have gone away, and that’s why I’m involved with the Learning Garden. In fact, that’s why there is a Learning Garden.

In 2009, three men from our Post Carbon group, market gardeners and/or farmers, founded the Learning Garden to help our community see how to wean themselves from the mass-produced foods shipped in from all over the world, and thereby become more self-sufficient and Penns Valley more resilient.

In the process they created a community of gardeners and foodies and locavores. And I am grateful to each and every one of you for your support, your ideas, your sharing. The Learning Garden continues to grow, in every sense of the word.

I have a good idea where I’ll be on Leap Day 2016: happily living in Penns Valley, gardening and probably caring for way too many dogs. What state the world will be in is another question. Let’s just make sure that, then as now, we all still

Buy it Locally Grown

     or Raise Our Own!

Julie

Thoughts on Late Winter

I looked out the window at first light this morning to a virtual white-out. The winds have been howling off and on since last evening, and we have snow I didn’t know we were to get this far south. Gotta love late winter/early spring! One day it’s flowers and light jackets, the next a warm fire and filling the suet feeder.

The good news is it means I still have plenty of time to prune the fruit trees. But seed starting! I’m probably already late with onion seeds. Fortunately, I always order onion seedlings, that one step beyond even onion sets. But I know in my mind that there could come a day when that is not an option…for me due to job loss or other money woes or for everyone if one of the many problems the world faces escalates to the doom and gloom scenarios scattered across the web.

So that’s why a good portion of my volunteer hours are spent with the Learning Garden. I am slowly but surely learning how to start with seeds of varying sizes in little paper packs (or, with a little more education, carefully saved from the previous year), nurturing them through their tender sprout-hood, and figuring out how to keep them alive in a myriad of conditions once they land in my garden. Then I must carve out the time each day in summer and fall to harvest and preserve (often while still planting and always while still weeding), whether learning how to cure squash and root crops before storage or dry, can, pickle, or ferment. Just this year I learned how to properly cure garlic (warm but in the shade) and for the first time since I’ve been growing my own garlic didn’t lose the majority of the hardneck variety before I could use it. 

Finding fast and easy recipes that use only ingredients available locally and at the same time is another task. I find I don’t have a lot of time to cook in the summer (and by that I mean “prepare food,” if not actually cooking a thing). So a box of time-tested recipes that I can throw together with what I have on hand is a definite must. I hope to add those here as I make them.

These things and many more come from a community such as the Learning Garden and the Millheim Market provide. The more experienced gardeners share their knowledge. Recipes get talked about and passed around. Even weeding becomes a culinary experience as I learn what plants I can forage can be added to my menu.

If this sounds like fun to you…if it even sounds less like fun but definitely like something you should be doing…plan on joining us this year. An evening a week can be oh so inspiring and enlightening as you learn to 

Buy Locally Grown

     Or Raise Your Own!

Julie

We Have Plans that Need YOU

2012 Learning Garden Plans

     

  Expand the Garden

>  Orchard up the hill (Soliciting donations to buy trees: $30 each)

>  Herb Garden below current beds

>  Permaculture/Forest Garden areas: Host a Permaculture Blitz

    Sales (if vendors still are OK with our selling)

> Colorful/unusual varieties to avoid direct competition

>  Medicinal tinctures

>  Jennifer Tucker’s Garden-inspired art

    Finish hoop house

    Finish the rainwater collection/drip irrigation project: By May

    Garden Walkthrough every Saturday at 11:00, including “Incorporating weeds in your diet”

    Garden Talks (order to be determined)

>  Sheet Mulching to Start a New Garden Bed Demo (Fall)

>  Attracting Pollinators (sell seedlings of oregano)

>  Trellising Tomatoes (Leslie Zuck)

>  Bees (setting up our hives, if permitted, and building top bar hives)

>  Installing the drip irrigation system

    New Sign, with roofed signboard

    Continue donations to Food Bank, but with recipes

Welcome to the Beginning of the 2012 Learning Garden Season

Well, here’s a little taste of winter finally. Not enough snow to be a problem, but with the soon-to-follow cold weather, a return to more normal conditions for this time of year.

That was one thing I heard a number of people talk about at the PASA Conference last week: the downside to the warm winter. While no one was nostalgic for the ice storm or foot of snow that hampered travel to and from the Conference the last couple of years, people who live close to the land think of the effects more broadly. Climate change and all its conundrums, a possible increase in insects that are usually winter-killed, and whether the apple trees have gotten enough cold were all topics I heard being discussed. (About the apple trees, Michael Phillips, author of The Holistic Orchard, said he thought they had.)

Personally, I worry about turtles. Box (and other) turtles hibernate, and when the weather is too warm, they burn more calories without being able to actually move or get food, so they can starve to death over the winter. The worst combination for them is, I believe, a warm winter followed by a late spring. So I have yet another reason to hope for an early, warm spring this year.

Speaking of the PASA Conference, which is, to the uninitiated, the Pennsylvania Association of Sustainable Agriculture Conference and perhaps the most inspiring, energizing, and downright enjoyable 2-4 days of the winter, perhaps the whole year, upcoming blogs will share some of what I learned this year, for the Learning Garden was never far from my mind as I sat in workshops and lectures.

In fact, although I titled this blog entry the Beginning of 2012 Garden Season, I must confess the season began a few months ago for me, around about the time I received my first seed catalog. Exciting plans have been percolating through my mind and those of the rest of the organizing committee, and we’ve even already had a few meetings.

Speaking of the meetings, if anyone who is reading this blog is interested in being more involved, yet who isn’t currently receiving emails about planning, just shoot me an email and I’ll get you on the right list.

We are planning a very busy and very exciting year at the Learning Garden. Following is some of what is being planned:

ü  Finishing the rain water collection/drip irrigation system

ü  Expanding the garden to include a dedicated herb garden, an orchard, and bee hives as well as some permaculture designs

ü  A whole new list of Garden Talks that will include how to start a new garden bed through sheet mulching, trellising tomatoes, and attracting pollinators

ü  Weekly ongoing programs on Saturdays during Market hours that will include incorporating weeds in your diet and how to do daily inspections of your plants to forestall insect and disease

I really expect this to be a fantastically fun year, and I hope you’ll all join us as we

Buy it locally grown

    or Raise your own!