Jan 30 2009
Get Gardening!
Forty-eight days till spring…the vernal equinox. Just shy of seven short weeks to get your seeds in hot little paw and ready to launch into the garden that will put food on your and your family’s table this coming year. Have you gone through the seed and nursery catalogue links here yet? Have you made up your seed order wish list, or even gotten an order for seeds sent off? Marked out your garden area? Know what amendments you need to work in before planting this year? Have you given any thought to rain catchment systems or water storage in general? Saving and storing water may well be even more important this year than others. Several news articles have come out recently talking about drought during the coming growing season in some of the traditional “breadbaskets” that feed us.
- Worst Drought Ever Expected After Mild January
- Nevada a Natural Disaster Area Due to Drought
- Argentinian Farmers Face Ruin As Drought Kills Cattle, Crops
If you’re in the States, you can look at the water levels for your state on the Natural Resources Conservation Service National Water & Climate Center .
Remember, every tomato or carrot you grow yourself is one less that you have to hope has been trucked in from somewhere, perhaps very far away—and hope you have the money in your pocket to buy. I personally won’t even speculate on what vegetable prices will do this coming year if the California drought is what they seem to think it is. Anything you can grow yourself will be a help…even a window box of lettuces. Lettuce isn’t really something you can put by at the end of the season, but think about how much you eat of it in the summer when it’s just too hot to cook anything. It was a dollar a head and up this past year, and that was before this economic crisis had deepened…and before this drought concern. A sixty-nine cent package of lettuce seed could easily grow into an awful lot of money that doesn’t come out of your budget!
If you can manage to get a tomato plant in somewhere, even just one, there’s another appreciable savings. Although really any tomato can be canned, if you choose a Roma or paste type you could put by some spaghetti sauce or chili sauce, too even if it’s only a half a dozen jars. Remember, if you plant your own corn this spring, you won’t have to go out and buy bundles of cornstalks for Halloween, either! There is still not a cob of corn out there that can compare in taste to corn that is three minutes off the corn stalk before being plunged into boiling water, then slathered with butter and salt. And if you can run them through a chipper or sturdy leaf shredder right after harvest, they are helpful in the chicken coop or the goat pen, too—or just use them to build up your compost pile.
