Free Food

Every spring I am rewarded for my laziness. While many gardeners and farmers clean up their gardens before the first frost, I become my usual slothful self and decide that I would rather spend what little energy I have left freezing and canning my garden's bounty and skip clean up all together.

It pays off in the spring.

But you have to be patient and pay attention.

All too often in the early spring, I would be in such a hurry to get the garden clean and tilled and ready to plant that I would miss all the food just waiting for me.  I would plow it under before it even showed itself.

Every fall, that lettuce that you didn't take the time to uproot....it goes to seed.
Those cucumbers that you neglected after you had enough pickles made and stored....they went to seed.
That spinach that bolted and became too bitter to eat....it went to seed
That somewhat rotten onion that you didn't want - it sprouted again and is now beautiful
The garlic that you didn't pull....it's back and bigger than last year.
The parsnip you forgot to dig up - they are sweeter than ever now and ready to eat.
And so is that carrot!

And not only that, but Mother Nature is the best almanac for when to plant things you will ever find.  In general, when seeds are naturally sprouting outside in the cold spring, it means those seeds can handle it, so if you want to start neat and tidy rows of food, you probably can - even though the almanac and the seed packets may say otherwise.

There are all kinds of wives tales about "what is the best time to plant _____?"  For corn it is when oak leaves are the size of a squirrel's ear.  I don't know how many people have actually even seen a squirrel's ear?  I tend to just wait for the random forgotten ear of corn to suddenly sprout into action.  Even after a long, sub-zero winter, it will happen.

This is, of course, provided you use seeds that haven't been genetically modified to only sprout once.  Heirloom quality seeds or organic seeds cost more, but they will more than pay you back in their ability to produce fantastic quality foods with minimal work (or in this case, no work), year after year .







So, while other enterprising gardeners are busy cleaning, tilling and planting, I am busy harvesting the fresh spinach and lettuce from the garden - the first crop of greens so long awaited in the many months of cold.

 What we don't immediately harvest and eat, I transplant into more recognizable and organized rows.  The transplanting slows it down a bit and extends the season for a few more weeks.

So many times while gardening I have marveled at man's belief that we know what we are doing and are "in charge" of growing food.  While it is true that we are the caretakers of the produce, Mother Nature already has the system down and knows the perfect timing and temperature for it all.

Keepers of the Bees

I attended the seasonal meeting of the Iowa Beekeepers meeting last night.  Once every three months, this group of like-minded people join together to discuss the issues relevant to the life of a bee.  This group is an agriculturally minded group - dedicated to crops that their tiny flying armies live off of and help to grow with their pollination. They are as much, or more, a fundamental part of the agriculture industry than even the corn and soybean growers associations, but much less widely known or recognized.  What is different about this group of  farmers is that you will never see an industrial agriculture company among its ranks - no Monsanto, no Cargill, no Roundup.  In fact, to even bring up those words leads to a certain amount of snarling, leers, and mumbled expletives from the members of this group because they know all too well the havoc that industrial agriculture wreaks upon the life of their hives.

These keepers are the touchstone of the agriculture industry. They see what is happening to the natural world around us because they deal with it directly in the lives of the bees that they safeguard and keep. They are the miners that hold onto the canary and warn the other miners when the canary dies and the mine is no longer safe. They are not razzle-dazzled by the agribusinesses with their fancy commercials and shiny, glossy magazine ads for chemicals and GMO seeds, because they see all too clearly the consequences of such things first hand.   It is one thing to be a farmer and grow a crop - relying blindly on the pollinators that you may see but often don't acknowledge as being the direct cause for the fruit and vegetables that grow on the vine, but when those pollinators disappear so do the apples, cherries, blackberries, blueberries, watermelons, pears, peaches, almonds, and countless other crops.  When I see people in general acting so blasé about the effects of corporate agriculture on the tiny keystone insects that make that agriculture even possible in the first place, it has me deeply worried.

But here is what worries me the most....the bee keepers are disappearing as well.

I enjoy going to these meetings, but they distress me.  The average age of these keepers is easily somewhere in the mid 70's.  I am, quite easily, the youngest person there. At last night's meeting there was a sympathy card being passed around for one of the members that had just passed away at the age of 84.  Another one of the keepers, Charlie, received the honor of being recognized for keeping bees for the last 50 years! He has been keeping them longer than I have been alive, and appeared to be willing an able to do it for at least another few years which is a good thing because I really don't know what is going to happen when these quiet, thoughtful, nature-loving people depart this world for the clover field in the sky.  That is not to say that bees can't survive on their own, because they can, but we are loosing the people that monitor them closely and are able to tell the rest of us when the pesticides and chemicals that we love to pour on our fields of monoculture crops have finally broken the back of the tiny winged atlas that holds up the agriculture world.  But, then again, they already have told us....and we fail to listen or to learn.

 Darwin's theories hold true for all biological systems....even man.  Those species that are not smart enough to adapt and learn, get wiped off the face of the earth.  It may take hundreds, if not thousands of years, but it happens none-the-less.  We humans think we have the corner market on survival, but I feel quite certain that the seeds of our own doom have already been sown and continue to prosper under the falsity of capitalism - making a dollar at the expense of everything else and spending less money on cheaply produced goods that we will simply discard and replace with more cheaply made goods. It is an unsustainable practice and yet one from which it is hard to wean.

I looked around the room last night and watched as this group of people shared and discussed things in such a civil manner - even the disagreements were cordial.  There were discussions of wood peckers eating into hives and squirrels damaging the boxes that contain the frames.  They analyzed the best ways to get rid of mites without chemicals - apple cider vinegar and powdered sugar were the clear favorites.  Quiet, soft spoken, accepting of the ebbs and flows that nature throws at a person, schooled in the process of trying something and then adapting it as necessary to fit your needs and knowing full well that next year it may need to be adapted again.  So much knowledge, patience and time was tucked into that one meeting room last night, and the thought of that wealth of information slowly dispersing one sympathy card at a time made my heart clench.

 I realize that I am something of  a throwback to an earlier age - I look around at my peers and I marvel at their concern for things like flat screen televisions and fancy cups of coffee.  I try to reconcile this generation of "wants and desires" with the generations before us of "hard work and survival" and think that, somewhere, there must be a sustainable mix of the two.  Is it that people just no longer care or is it just that they don't know?  And if they did know, would they care?  I understand the concern that our elders have for my own generation and then I look at the kids today....or rather I look at the tops of their heads as they are busy with their i-phones and texting their friends... and my concern only grows deeper.

Meeting over and coffee poured, this group began the social part of the night which is really more of an extension of the meeting itself, but this time with a cup of coffee in hand.  I made a few rounds asking pointed questions of the keepers that have seemed to have the most success and then headed out to the local store to buy some supplies for my two small, struggling hives of bees under the recommendation of my main mentor, Floyd.  It will be three months before the group convenes again and I left with a hope in my heart that at the next meeting there will be a few more people in their 30's and 40's and not a sympathy card in sight.

From One Mother To Another

I had a friend link this to me today.  Listening to this woman's story is so much like my own with Mara.  I can't help but post it here.  The word needs to be spread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rixyrCNVVGA&feature=player_embedded#at=1078

Please watch these 18 minutes of video....it just might save you from cancer and if not you, then maybe your child or grandchild.  And maybe....just maybe....it will change the way you shop for food and what you eat.