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Five Subscribers

As I was checking a new post, I happened to notice that this blog has five subscribers. Five is a nice number, in the same family as three or seven for me. Numbers I’ve always felt an affinity for.

I’m amazed that there are bloggers and YouTubers and others out there with five hundred or five thousand or five million viewers. It just blows my mind. How does anyone even get there?

But right now, I don’t care about the answer to that question. Five subscribers is huge to me. It’s a group of people; an audience. I feel an obligation to provide quality and substance. Five. A number of readers I can feel. Five pairs of eyes. Five minds. Connected through this blog and (presumably) an interest in the topic.

As a kid, starting when I was maybe 12 years old, I loved to sit in my room at night and listen to the radio. (King Biscuit Flour Hour; Dr. Demento — for those seeking historic context.) Sometimes I’d be reading at the same time; more often drawing or writing.

On summer nights especially, the whole night felt alive. I felt this connection between the DJ, the other listeners, whoever they were and however many — thousands? millions? — and myself. Though I didn’t think of it consciously, looking back I realize I always felt somehow that we formed a living pulsing net, stretched across the USA (though it was FM radio and that’d be impossible).

My room, by the way, was pure 1976 tween/teen girl. Posters of gymnasts: Olga Korbut! Nadia Comaneci! Artwork and magazine clippings tacked to the cork bulletin board on my closet door. Blacklight fuzzy velvet poster of a puma crouched on a tree limb. And of course an Elton John poster. My favorite album was Captain Fantastic. In case you were curious!

On summer nights especially for some reason, the ceiling of my room seemed like an artificial barrier, visual only. My mind was fully merged with the sky and stars and wind and the music on the radio. Radio is magic like that; I still feel that way.

And now here we are in the age of blogging, videoing, TED-talking. People who were once just folks like you and me, suddenly attract audiences of thousands or millions in a flash. A thousand likes; a million views; “It went viral”!

And yet, for me, having five subscribers to this blog is huge. Huge! Maybe someday it’ll be 10. 20. Maybe even a hundred or a thousand or more, who knows. But right now I don’t care about that; I am simply humbled and thrilled and amazed to have FIVE readers who actually care enough to subscribe. Anonymous, known in number only, we are nonetheless all connected. By our similarities, sure, but also by our differences. Like the radio listeners on some summer night 40 years ago, when the world was younger and the possibilities seemed to widen out forever.

Though I get discouraged by things sometimes, and I’m sure you do too, in my heart I still feel that the possibilities widen out forever. And that the world can be as young as we make it. I’m here for you guys. My five subscribers. Literally, I’m here for you! Thank you and God/dess bless you on our journey.

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Blistering Desert, and Forest Refuge

Day after day, blistering heat, no rain in sight. Watering the plants I’ve scrounged at curbside (or the plants that kind friends have brought me) involves hauling 20 to 40 gallons of well water to various corners of the yard, watering can by watering can full. I’m about done in. If you’re curious what I look like in my own mind right now, picture the “American Gothic” woman but a bit squidgy around the middle, and with no pitchfork-wielding husband standing by her side. #Fried #Hardscrabble

At this point I’ve just gotta say, All right, plants, I’ve done my best with you. If it’s not your time it’s not your time. Other plants will grow, other shrubs will be left at curbside for me to scrounge. I might still do the water-hauling thing, at least it’ll burn a few calories, be good for my core. #MidlifeMoment

I just spent the day doing errands along one of our main thoroughfares, watching landscapers weed-whack the expensive turfgrass under the expensive palm trees (that replaced the old oak trees that had been growing there). The fumes and noise were overwhelming as I bicycled past.

The expensive palm trees are held up by braces. What a costly, high-maintenance operation. Why do we humans do this? Why do we cut down old trees and understory that were self-maintaining, and replace it with resource-consuming high-maintenance stuff? It’s not even particularly pretty; it’s very sterile-looking like the landscape in one of those Sim City games.

Just my brief experience of homeownership so far, struggling to get a few plants to grow so I can have some vertical green around me and not be forced by the lawn-gestapo to maintain a vast expanse of flat shaved thin green desert, would be enough to make me a raving lunatic forest-fanatic if I were not already.

And now for your viewing pleasure, various forested lots I espied while “killing time” before an appointment. (BTW I try to never actually kill time. That’d be such a waste of a nonrenewable resource!) I love the residential lots. These people have escaped the treadmill of lawn maintenance, and created deep green sanctuary for themselves, and for wildlife.

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Edibles in My Garden Right Now

Edibles growing right now in my garden include sweet potato (the greens are delicious and they grow year round in my area), papaya (baby-baby trees, even the ones that manage to get past the seedling stage are 1-2 years from bearing fruit), lemongrass, amaranth (wild plant scooped up from a commercial site where it would’ve been mowed down), little tiny pumpkin sprout, plumeria tree (gorgeous tree, and the flowers are fragrant and edible), prickly pear cactus (not pictured). And pineapple (grows from the cut-off top of a grocery-store pineapple). Pineapple requires patience, taking about 18 months to bear fruit.

Not much in the way of cultivated edibles but it’s a start. I’m learning to be more patient and humble, and appreciate every little win.

Meanwhile, nature continues to furnish an endless supply of nutritious plants that some silly humans insist on referring to as “weeds.” By the way, amaranth, one of those considered a “weed,” is one of my top favorite vegetables — wild or cultivar. And when it goes to seed, it’s a grain too!

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Guest Spot on Sustainable Living Radio Show

This past Monday, September 10, I was privileged to be a guest on the Sustainable Living WMNF radio program, which is hosted with grace and skill by Jon Butts and Tanja Vidovic. I’ve been on this high-quality radio program before with fellow Florida permaculture designers, but this time I was on to talk about my book.

Synchronistically, the segments before me were 1) Tanja talking about her recent incident of being “trespassed” from her local park for (peacefully) objecting to application of toxic weed-killer; and 2) an interview with Joseph Romm, author of the book Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know.

I say “synchronistically” because both of these segments underscore very strongly the importance of reducing the human footprint, which is the core message of my book.

1) The human compulsion to label certain plants “invasive species,” and eradicate “weeds,” is ironic given that we humans are the most invasive species of all. If we would just rein ourselves in, and not insist on exercising total control over so much space on this planet, it would go a long way toward solving our problems. This is a key point of my book. Personally, I think our parks, and the planet as a whole, would be better with far more forest and far less human-maintained turf-grass.

2) Another key point of my book is that climate change (and pollution) are hard to wrap one’s brain around if we focus only on the planetary scale, and on trying to mandate behavior change on the part of corporations and government. But if we focus on our own daily actions (which, added up over the course of our lives, and multiplied by the millions and billions of other people doing those same actions each day, most assuredly add up), we will naturally influence corporations and the government through the power of demand (or removal of demand).
On “my” segment of the show, I was interviewed along with fellow guest Anni Ellis, of Anni Ellis Garden Design Inc. With a background of fine art and interior design, and drawing on feng shui and minimalist concepts, Anni creates outdoor spaces that entice people outdoors to enjoy their gardens in ways they never had before.

This is also something I emphasize in my book: Many of us humans have become so removed from nature that we are afraid of it. It’s a vicious cycle: The more afraid we get, the more removed; the more removed we get, the more afraid. Outdoor spaces that are comfortable and attractive to their intended users entice people outdoors and help break that cycle of disconnectedness with nature. Which makes people and the planet happier and healthier.

If you didn’t catch the show with me on it, don’t worry. All of WMNF’s shows are available on their show page on WMNF.org for at least a week after they air; through the WMNF app, and many are on Mixcloud. These shows are also available by podcast. Visit WMNF’s home page and podcast page to tune in.

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Food-growing Secrets of a Brown-thumbed Gardener

Do you get online and compare yourself to the rockstars of your world? (However you define “your world,” be it a profession or a sport or what have you.) And end up feeling discouraged?

Well, one category where I fall into that comparison-itis is gardening, particularly food gardening. Unfortunately, despite having a great desire to have abundant homegrown fresh food, I not only tend to be lazy and impatient, but also, seem to have been born as one of those “people who kill plants.”

When I hear of someone who’s growing all their own food, including fruit trees and other higher-gradient stuff, and making a whole homecooked meal from their garden (and maybe even raising the trees to produce the wood that they then make into charcoal for their grill — that was a fictitious example to inject humor into my case of “Martha-Stewart-itis of food gardening”, but I’m sure such people are out there doing that!), sometimes I just want to cry and give up.

But I have no wish to give up! So I persist in my efforts to learn and grow from where I’m at right now. Though my successes have been modest at best, I have expanded my repertoire and ended up producing some delicious nutritious food, even when my “yard” was just a couple of pots, or a piece of ground no bigger than a table.

Here are a few tips I’ve picked up so far over my years of food-gardening. If I can do it you can too! (By the way, my plant-killing ratio over the years has dropped from pretty much 100% to only about 50%, a rate that can be compensated for by persistence!)

• Learn your local edible “weeds” and wild plants. First and foremost on my list of gardening tips, find the food that you don’t actually have to garden because it grows for free! It’s shocking how much of what we consider “weeds” is edible, nutritious, and tasty. And it grows lush and stout with no artificial irrigation or other human intervention! If you’re willing to have a yard that changes with the seasons, you can have fresh wild greens for many months of the year or even year-round in some places. No yard? No problem — forage! Even in urban areas a huge amount of fresh food is growing. Go on a “weed walk” or workshop with a local expert; also consult the guides published by your local native plant society.

• Container gardening. No yard? No problem! I was amazed at how much can fit into a container garden. I had four kinds of delicious greens growing in a pot at my home in an RV park where I lived in Austin, Texas. At the moment I have about a hundred tiny papaya tree seedlings sprouted in two pots.

• Make friends with your local nursery. Buy seeds from them, but also, look into their selection of veggie seedlings. Starts from a nursery were a goddess-send to me when I was first getting started, and I still rely on them quite a bit. Baby plants from your local nursery are more likely to be locally started and cultivated than starts you purchase from a big-box store, which may have been trucked in from thousands of miles away (and therefore, in addition to being weakened by long-distance transport, will not be as well-adapted to local conditions). Also, your local nursery offers “homegrown” expertise and customer service. NOTE: If you’re going to pick your local grower’s brains, be sure and buy from them too! Don’t ask them a bunch of questions and then use that expert info to buy from a big-box store.

• Get on the internet! Local gardening groups; Google; YouTube. You might be surprised — even many of my skilled gardener friends are not too proud to google for details on (for example) how to plant a mango seed!

• Use your local ag university; county ag extension office. UF-IFAS here in Florida produces a wealth of information including the spectacularly useful graphics shown in this picture; there’s probably something similar in your area. Your tax dollars are helping to pay for it; make use of it!

• Love Thy Neighbor! Connect with your neighbors who garden. Oftentimes they will have surplus seedlings they’re trying to give away. (And they might have produce they want to share rather than have it go bad.) Accept their offers to share the bounty (which might include their expertise — gardeners tend to be generous that way).

• Talk to strangers! As they say, a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet. See a fruit tree in someone’s front yard? Knock on the door and ask if you can pick some. I saw an orange tree growing in a yard, knocked on the door. When the guy told me sure but warned me that the fruit was bitter, I informed him I wanted to make marmalade, and I offered to drop off a jar for him when I had made some (which I did, subsequently). It’s not growing food per se but it is growing community … which can lead to growing food.

• Work on a farm! Back when I was living in Austin, I was fortunate to have several small organic farms within bicycling distance of my urban home. I worked as a volunteer for a couple of summers on one of those farms. In exchange for my labor-hours, I got knowledge, experience, and all the fresh peak-of-season produce I could take home.

• Meet those “Martha Stewarts”! Those food-growing superhumans, those horticultural Martha Stewarts whose Facebook posts make me want to cry and give up … turns out they tend to be extremely generous and eager to share tips and knowledge. They love growing food, they care about the environment, and they WANT everyone to be able to do the same. Connect with them on social media or in your neighborhood.

• Get out of the way! One concept I really had to wrap my brain around, was that after all, plants WANT to grow. Sometimes all they need is for me to get out of their way. I believe that excess worry can create bad vibes. Sometimes when I come back from a trip out of town, my garden looks better than when I left! A nice reminder to “let go and let God/dess.”

• The more the merrier! Community gardens are a great way to get started. If there’s one near you, get involved as a volunteer/helper for others even if you prefer to have your own garden at your own home. In some places, Master Gardeners volunteer huge amounts of their time and expertise to shepherd users through every step of the process. Take advantage of this pool of expertise, as well as the shared tools and the morale-boosting face-to-face company.

• Don’t fight nature. Don’t try to garden in the hardest season, whatever that is for your area. Here in Florida where I live, summer is the hard season. Or if you have to garden in the hard season, at least don’t beat yourself up or think it’s reflective of you if your efforts don’t bear much “fruit” (or veggies). This took me a long time to learn! I finally realized I was trying to garden during the hottest time in Florida, when even some experienced gardeners and farmers give it a rest.

• Sprout it out! Bean sprouts are easy to grow. Many kinds of beans will sprout in a jar. I’ve had the most luck with mung beans and lentils, both purchased from my local Asian market (though ones from the regular supermarket have worked also). Simply get a large mason jar, pour some dried beans in. Don’t fill it too full; less than a quarter full is good. Add water and let the beans soak overnight or for 8 hours. Drain off the excess water. From then on, rinse the sprouts once or twice a day. You’ll have nutritious sprouts for days! Sprouts are tasty, nutritious, cheap food you can grow even if you live in a high-rise apartment with no windows or balconies. I’ve even taken them, in the jar, on business trips as travel food.

And last but far from least,

• BE PERSISTENT. I cannot overstate the importance of persistence in gardening. Despite my congenital brown thumb I have managed to grow a considerable amount of greens, potatoes, and even some fruit trees at some of the places where I’ve lived — and until recently I’ve almost always been a renter. I’ve found that greens are easiest, but maybe that’s just because they are what I want most to be able to grow. Collard greens, mustard greens, arugula, cabbage, callalloo spinach are among those I’ve grown so far. Your mileage may vary as far as what you find easiest to grow. But regardless, keep at it! In the words of Winston Churchill: “Never, never, never give up.”

Recommended Resources:
• Infographics on “What to Plant for Each Month.” This website is for Florida, but you might have one for your state too. This page is part of the Gardening Solutions website. Gardening Solutions is a program of the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS). I am bowled over at the free public resources that exist. There is support on many levels for food-growing.

• NextDoor.com site for neighbors to build community. Once you type in your zipcode, you’ll be able to join your local neighborhood. I have met many many more of my neighbors in person via connecting on NextDoor! Neighbors in my area mainly use the site to share information about neighborhood meetings, crime & safety, and local business. Recently I have started posting to solicit interest in exchanging seedlings and garden expertise. I’ve met some wonderful likeminded folks this way, as well as received many plants and given many seedlings away too! (Yes, this PERSISTENT brown-thumbed gardener has reached the point where she too has baby plants and seeds to give away! As I said before, if I can you can too.)

• Nice article in Mother Earth News, on the distinction between hybrid, heirloom, and open-pollinated seeds.

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Interview on “Shades of Green” Radio Show

Check out my most recent interview, by the excellent green radio show “Shades of Green.” I’m really pleased with how it turned out! This may be the most succinct overview I’ve managed to provide so far of my book and the Riot for Austerity. Thank you to John Hoffner and the other hosts for their journalistic and editing skills that produced this 20-minute segment. I tend to ramble and digress, so I’m sure it was no mean feat!

“Shades of Green” is based in Austin TX, and has been on the air since 2007. (Fun fact: I was privileged to be one of the original co-hosts, with John Hoffner and Ken McKenzie-Grant.) The current hosts are John Hoffner, Stacy Guidry, Reed Sternberg, and Amy Stansbury. You can find out more about these excellent journalists and eco-activists on the show’s website.

In case you have trouble with the uploaded mp4 I provided above, here’s a link to the podcast on Shades of Green’s website.

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Fall Shopping!

(Since I grew up in places where leaves change color, September still means “Fall” to me.)

Today’s finds:
– Enough additional stainless-steel ware to host a decent-sized party.
– Close-toed shoes for winter and for traveling inland. (My Minnetonka suede moccasins, purchased new in 2006, finally wore out for real; now that I live on the Atlantic coast of Florida these gently used Hush Puppies — made in USA, same as my old Minnetonkas — for $2 will do!)

All items came from Halifax Health Hospice thrift store, total $9.85 (silverware items were $.25 each). I’ve always been a fan of non-matching silverware, because then, unlike with a “proper matching set,” it doesn’t stand out if pieces are missing or different! And it fits my urban-rustic-bohemian aesthetic.

Riot for Austerity notes: Thrift-store purchases, being donated items, don’t add to one’s consumer-goods total under “Riot for Austerity” rules. According to statistics used in the Riot for Austerity, the U.S. average for consumer purchases comes to $10,000 per year per person. The Riot calls for us to reduce our footprint by 90% of the U.S. average; accordingly, the Riot target for purchases of consumer goods is $1,000 per year.

Since I mainly buy thrift (when I buy stuff rather than make it or scrounge it), and donated items do not count in the Riot total, I almost always come well under the $1,000 target without even trying. This year is an exception because I needed to get a new roof on my house. The Riot rules say to count necessary home improvements at 50% of the total ticket amount. Since the total I paid for my new roof was $7,000, I have to count $3,600 of that. So far, my Riot consumer total for the year is still under $4,000, or less than 40 percent of the U.S. average in the “consumer purchases” category.