These sun scarce months give us time to dream and plan next year’s gardens. Do you have even a pocket of land you’d like to convert to growing food? To help you turn small spaces into food gardens, here is a shortlist of books I highly recommend.
For most of my gardening life, I’ve merrily gone along browsing instore seed racks and pouring over seed catalogs to plan my food growing. I never gave seed supply a second thought. But … what if one day there weren’t enough seeds to go around?
Food security. What can we do to make sure we’re not completely dependent on business systems to provide our food? Growing some our own vegetables brings us a little closer to the goal. Saving seeds is the next step to additional self-sufficiency.
Do you want to maximize your garden space and grow even more fresh food? Do you want to grow varieties you can’t find as bedding plants? Start seeds indoors to get the most out of your vegetable garden and the local growing season.
This is not a guide to planning disaster preparation. That would take a book and I’m no expert. Rather this is a reminder to myself to take a few steps in the right direction, and an opportunity to share with you a few things I’ve learned recently.
Horse chestnuts to wash the laundry? Last year was an experiment. This year I’m committed. They are free, local, leave no scent, and unexpectedly, the colours and whites come out bright. Highly recommended.
Posts to my blog have been scarce during the summer of 2021. I found my concerns over the drought, heat wave, forest fires and pandemic sapped a lot of my creative energy. And the abundant harvest demanded so much of my time. Ironic?
Are seed shortages a concern again in 2021? Maybe I should sort my inventory and place my vegetable garden order early this year. So here I am searching for seeds in mid-January.
Did you know you can make laundry soap from horse chestnuts? They contain saponins just like soapberries. Free, all-natural, easily available laundry soap is on the ground waiting for you.
