<![CDATA[Grist - Comment Feed for On the transformative potential of community-scale food production]]> Grist Comment Feed en Comment #1 by Russ http://www.grist.org/article/dispatches-from-the-fields-back-to-the-garden/ Wed, 10 Sep 2008 09:05:32 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/dispatches-from-the-fields-back-to-the-garden/1 community garden.....garden community

It's great to read about a place invigorated with bounteous gardens. I hope it is a growing trend.

I only wish there was any such consciousness around here where I live. Offhand I don't recall seeing a garden.

Energy Bulletin recently put up a beautiful story, full of transformative magic. It's called The Man Who Created Paradise, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to read an account of life and beauty and hope arising out of ground zero environmental devastation.

Lots of luck with that community garden, Stephanie. That's one of the most worthwhile and rewarding endeavors I can think of, toward holism and health and friendship and community self-reliance, all the things normally dragged through the mud.

If there can really be a path to a human Renaissance, this is certainly part of that path.    

]]> community garden.....garden community

It's great to read about a place invigorated with bounteous gardens. I hope it is a growing trend.

I only wish there was any such consciousness around here where I live. Offhand I don't recall seeing a garden.

Energy Bulletin recently put up a beautiful story, full of transformative magic. It's called The Man Who Created Paradise, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to read an account of life and beauty and hope arising out of ground zero environmental devastation.

Lots of luck with that community garden, Stephanie. That's one of the most worthwhile and rewarding endeavors I can think of, toward holism and health and friendship and community self-reliance, all the things normally dragged through the mud.

If there can really be a path to a human Renaissance, this is certainly part of that path.    

]]> Comment #2 by John former Marine http://www.grist.org/article/dispatches-from-the-fields-back-to-the-garden/ Wed, 10 Sep 2008 23:18:46 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/dispatches-from-the-fields-back-to-the-garden/2 Gardening in the desert....

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me to be gardening in Cortez for one reason...it's in high desert.  The McPhee reservoir was pretty low just a couple of years ago.  It's definitely not sustainable.  The population of the west is going to either have to reduce significantly if rainfall patterns change or people in Cortez are going to have to permanently give up wasteful water use...lawns and irrigated cow pastures/alfalfa fields.  On the other hand, having been through Cortez, I think that place that have fewer water resources to start with might be the places to implement conservation measures that could serve as an example to the rest of the country.  For example...Cortez is a great place to build a straw house, develop a rain barrel/cistern system, and use household graywater to water your vegetable garden.  The straw bale homes wouldn't work in Atlanta but it's starting to look like the historically wet southeast US has overextended itself as well with regards to water resources.  When everyone in the desert is using water efficiently, then those of us who have lots of water around might follow their lead.  As it is, ruining ecosystems and sucking down the Dolores River to grow a few tomatoes doesn't seem like an efficient use of resources to me.  Even though that part of the country is sparsly populated (except when the Californians are on vacation), it could get really hard to live there if you all start getting less rain for the next 500 years.  

Rather than tomatoes, I recommend people start planting more almond and peach trees.  Focus on drought-resistant, low-input permaculture.  The desert is not a good place to grow lettuce.

Il faut cultiver notre jardin.

]]> Gardening in the desert....

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me to be gardening in Cortez for one reason...it's in high desert.  The McPhee reservoir was pretty low just a couple of years ago.  It's definitely not sustainable.  The population of the west is going to either have to reduce significantly if rainfall patterns change or people in Cortez are going to have to permanently give up wasteful water use...lawns and irrigated cow pastures/alfalfa fields.  On the other hand, having been through Cortez, I think that place that have fewer water resources to start with might be the places to implement conservation measures that could serve as an example to the rest of the country.  For example...Cortez is a great place to build a straw house, develop a rain barrel/cistern system, and use household graywater to water your vegetable garden.  The straw bale homes wouldn't work in Atlanta but it's starting to look like the historically wet southeast US has overextended itself as well with regards to water resources.  When everyone in the desert is using water efficiently, then those of us who have lots of water around might follow their lead.  As it is, ruining ecosystems and sucking down the Dolores River to grow a few tomatoes doesn't seem like an efficient use of resources to me.  Even though that part of the country is sparsly populated (except when the Californians are on vacation), it could get really hard to live there if you all start getting less rain for the next 500 years.  

Rather than tomatoes, I recommend people start planting more almond and peach trees.  Focus on drought-resistant, low-input permaculture.  The desert is not a good place to grow lettuce.

Il faut cultiver notre jardin.

]]> Comment #3 by John former Marine http://www.grist.org/article/dispatches-from-the-fields-back-to-the-garden/ Wed, 10 Sep 2008 23:28:41 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/dispatches-from-the-fields-back-to-the-garden/3 free food in Cortez....

By the way, if you tie a string to a chicken drumstick and throw it in the McPhee reservoir, when you pull it out, you'll have half a dozen gigantic crawfish attached to it.  My father created his own "trap" system with a couple of old platic bread crates wired together with bait in them.  He'd go crawfishing a couple times a week at the reservoir (best results at night) and cook up load of Cajun waterbugs.  Now, a lot of people don't like the idea of eating a detritivore from a reservoir, but studies have shown crawfish to have much lower levels of heavy metals than the trout you've got out there in the Dolores.  It's a great source of nearly free food.

Also, by the way, if you save those crustacean shells, dry them out completely, pulverize them, mix them up with a bit of water and vinegar, and use it in your garden, it will make plants grow better.  Crustacean shells used in agriculture as a plant growth regulator (sprouting/germination enhancer, more vigorous plant growth, increased plant immune response) is called "chitosan".  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitosan

Il faut cultiver notre jardin.


]]> free food in Cortez....

By the way, if you tie a string to a chicken drumstick and throw it in the McPhee reservoir, when you pull it out, you'll have half a dozen gigantic crawfish attached to it.  My father created his own "trap" system with a couple of old platic bread crates wired together with bait in them.  He'd go crawfishing a couple times a week at the reservoir (best results at night) and cook up load of Cajun waterbugs.  Now, a lot of people don't like the idea of eating a detritivore from a reservoir, but studies have shown crawfish to have much lower levels of heavy metals than the trout you've got out there in the Dolores.  It's a great source of nearly free food.

Also, by the way, if you save those crustacean shells, dry them out completely, pulverize them, mix them up with a bit of water and vinegar, and use it in your garden, it will make plants grow better.  Crustacean shells used in agriculture as a plant growth regulator (sprouting/germination enhancer, more vigorous plant growth, increased plant immune response) is called "chitosan".  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitosan

Il faut cultiver notre jardin.


]]> Comment #4 by PermieWriter http://www.grist.org/article/dispatches-from-the-fields-back-to-the-garden/ Thu, 11 Sep 2008 06:22:23 -0700 http://www.grist.org/article/dispatches-from-the-fields-back-to-the-garden/4 Front yard gardens

Most of our garden is in the back, but we've gone to some pains to get food plants out front (which is mostly concrete, and, alas, we're renters and can't jackhammer it out). We have tomatoes in huge planters, woodruff, a Sun Sugar  and two potted loquat trees in the tiny strip between the driveway and the house, Maximillian sunflowers, a butterfly bush, plantain and two American elderberries in the sidewalk strip and a Concord grape crawling up the bannister. But the tomatoes are what really starts conversations. Too bad all these cool, overcast days have brought the fungus on.

Eat what you grow, grow what you eat

]]> Front yard gardens

Most of our garden is in the back, but we've gone to some pains to get food plants out front (which is mostly concrete, and, alas, we're renters and can't jackhammer it out). We have tomatoes in huge planters, woodruff, a Sun Sugar  and two potted loquat trees in the tiny strip between the driveway and the house, Maximillian sunflowers, a butterfly bush, plantain and two American elderberries in the sidewalk strip and a Concord grape crawling up the bannister. But the tomatoes are what really starts conversations. Too bad all these cool, overcast days have brought the fungus on.

Eat what you grow, grow what you eat

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