Planting Time, Sunny Day, & Soup!

Well, for tomatoes, anyway. I have two varieties that I bought, and then today got some grape tomatoes and squeezed out some of the seeds to try to grow them as well. The other tomatoes are Roma and Amish Paste, for canning mostly. But I like grape tomatoes for snacking and salads. They travel much better if you're making a lunch for eating elsewhere, since you don't have to cut them up, so they don't slosh their innards all over the lettuce all morning and make them soggy :P

I also found some old squash seeds that I'm going to try, to see if any of them will still germinate.

Oh, and one of the lemon seeds sprouted and my little tree now has a number of tiny leaves. It is quite sweet and sturdy-looking, and growing very erect right now.

Most of the other seeds need to wait until the snow is gone, so we can find and turn the soil. It'll probably be at least a month before we can safely sow outdoors.

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We went for a walk this morning, over to Stop & Shop. We picked up a few things, including seeds for shelling peas. Beautiful day, snow is melting everywhere, and several robins are checking out the neighborhood. I was quite tired when we got back, as some of the things we bought were heavy, but very glad to have been able to get out and about! Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny, so another walk tomorrow.

It may snow this weekend, but if we don't get too much and it warms up again, possibly we can go bike riding next week. I'm rather out of practice, but would like to go over to Mt. Tom, and eventually even to Northampton. A friend of ours, Eli, bikes everywhere for as much of the year as he can. It may not be as 'fast' as a car, but you have more time to see the world around you, and you don't have to worry about the price of gasoline either.

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I made split pea soup Tuesday, and it was pretty good. We had the rest of it today, and it is still good, the spicing is maybe a little smoother now, having aged a couple of days.

I had peas, carrots, onions, garlic, and ham in it. Also pepper, tarragon, and a little ginger. I did not put in any bouillon cubes or whatever, and it really didn't need it.

My next soup attempt will probably be lentils, although potato soup is also a possibility.

Relocalization

Found this article by Sharon Astyk (known for writing about peak oil & sustainability issues) on women and peak oil:
http://www.relocalize.net/node/5386

And of course then I had to check out the site it was on, Relocalize.net. Hmm, will have to look more to decide if I'll be checking things on that site much... only so many hours in the day. But they do have listings of groups that are pursuing relocalizing, etc., and there is one in Greenfield, which is not too far away from Holyoke.

Relocalizing is about getting more of your goods locally, instead of being dependent on faraway places for everything -- especially things that are critical to survival. Getting more things locally, making more things yourself or trading with others who make things, helps the local economy and saves fuel (less pollution), among other things. It's also generally a healthier lifestyle, since if more of your food is locally grown it will be fresher and have more nutrients still than food that's traveled from across the country or the other side of the world.

Sometimes you may have to choose between organic or locally grown, as you may not be able to have both -- organic is great of course, but if I can't get it locally I may opt for non-organic so I can save some fuel being spent on my account. Also, at least in some states it costs extra to be certified organic and some smaller farmers can't afford that certification. So find out more about the farmers in your area, and how they grow their food -- chances are you'll find a number of them who aren't using tons of pesticides, etc. (those cost money too). My father-in-law has a little truck garden behind the house, and as far as I know he doesn't spray his veggies. Although he used to dust the potatoes when he grew them, because of pests that eat them. So, they may not be organic, but if we're visiting the farm and they have some extra veggies, I surely don't turn them down! And same goes at our house -- no pesticides, and usually no chem fertilizers. I got a little MiracleGro for free from a friend this year, and will have to think about that. I expect I'll give it to someone who likes using that sort of thing.

I'm only one person, and not likely to be speaking at peak oil or sustainability conferences, but I do like the idea of being more independent, and I'm happy to help/encourage any other people who want to do that too, at whatever scale they're up for. Even if it's just a few lettuce and a tomato plant, those'll be some of the freshest, tastiest salads ever. Or in Eli's case, I believe he's going to grow onions, because they're low maintenance and he likes them -- works for me!

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Some choices are harder to make than others, of course -- like buying clothing that's been shipped from far away or buying cloth that's been shipped from far away. For me the plus to making my own is that I can choose fabrics that are better quality than most of what is sold ready-made in stores, for what I can afford to spend on clothing. So, if I make more of my own clothing, of good fabrics, then I don't have to buy clothing as often, which cuts down on the amount of fuel being used. Plus, since I'm not a "trendy" person, I kind of like being able to stick it to the fashionistas. ellid knows all about making one's own clothing, as she's made a number of lovely things for home and office wear. Of course, not everyone knows how to sew -- which is why trading skills is a good thing :)

The shipment of linen arrived this week. A huge amount from fabrics-store.com and a smaller one from fabric.com -- my first time ordering from the latter. I'm pretty happy with all the colors and quality, and I'll probably order a little more from fabric.com at some point, as their lightweight linen is a nice tight and fine weave. We could probably still use a few more pieces of wool next fall, but for those I think I may wait until I see freya46 again, because she carries some really yummy wools. In general though it looks like I can slow down a lot on buying fabric after this, as it'll take a few years to get through what I've ordered (hey, I have other things to do with my life). And, I am getting better at weaving, so some of our fabric for future clothing will hopefully be supplied by me :)

The No Impact Man

A family living in Manhattan is doing a year long effort to have as little impact on the environment as possible. The husband/father is writing about the effort and learning process. They are currently four months into the year.

There's an article about it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/garden/22impact.html?_r=1

His blog is here:
http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/

Not sure I could do all that they're doing, certainly not as quickly. And I wouldn't be able to get to most SCA events either. Although I've thought about that from time to time.... what it would be like to have to get to Pennsic on foot, horseback, or horse-drawn wagon...

An interesting read, and I plan on checking out the blog, as I expect there's some useful bit of information there.