Finding Security

Last weeks Earthquake and Tsunami felt so close to home, and saddened me immensely.
I'm praying for the survivors, that they find comfort, food, shelter and loving people surrounding them at all times.
I'm also assessing my families ability to withstand an earthquake of that size. Where we live, in Vancouver, we are prone to huge earthquakes, but since one hasn't happened in 300 yrs we are pitifully less prepared than Japan was.
And so I created an emergency kit, rather ad hoc, but this is what I put in it:

• Flashlight
• Batteries
• Wool Blanket (wool is warm even when wet)
• Radio
• 4 bottles of Water
• Candles
• Lighter
• a few cans of Tuna
• Photocopies of our Passports

This kit, which I am storing in our car, would not keep us alive past a few days if we had no one else. It is a handy collection of items to get us out of a jam, but not real security.
Real Security lies in the Community and the Skills you build.
And so, this spring I am promising myself and my family that I am going to focus on building both Community and Skills, and have fun doing it, because life is short, lets not make it shitty.

My Garden Journal

I've benefitted enormously from having kept a garden journal. I use a moleskin cahier with grid paper to make it easier to do garden bed plans. Try it out this season, you'll become hooked as it helps you learn what your garden can produce for you.
What to record in it is up to you. I use it to:

• Plan what type of crop I want to plant in each bed, according to its sun situation and what went into that bed last year (no similar crops, to prevent a pest issue)
• Record what Varieties of seed I am trying this year (I love exploring different types of heirloom seed) and I always have a running list of every type of seed I currently have
• Organize a Schedule of when each type of seed needs to be started, and post this somewhere to be seen everyday through the spring
• A Record of the actual Planting Dates and if you do starts, then the date of Starting AND the Transplant Date
• A Record of the Date of First Harvest for each variety, this is possibly the most helpful thing to know when trying to determine what seeds you want to plant out, because you can try to have a continuous harvest with this info.
• The Weight of the Harvest for each variety, this is fun for some varieties, but for others (like pumpkin) its tricky (we needed to borrow a bike scale) 
• Finally, I like to make a note in the fall about my general impression of each variety, would I plant it again, was it easy to save seed from, etc.

Last minute freeze

Well, Vancouver woke up to snow again today. Snow is pretty rare here, usually, and normally not so late into the winter. This snow most likely has damaged many overwintered plants, because they would have already come out of dormancy and started growing by now. I will be watching with curiosity, which ones come back to life and which ones falter.

Weather events like this weeks makes me begin to think about how I would feed myself, and my family, if we didn't have access to cheap imported foods. Our current diet is so conditioned by the fact that "its summer on the other side of the world," this morning for breakfast we had bananas from Ecuador, grapefruit from Florida, green tea from China, and pancake mix from who knows where. Other than some of our left over frozen garden pumpkin, the only strictly Canadian thing on the table was Maple syrup, and that still had to cross the continent to reach us on the West Coast. Myself and many people around the world have been thinking about these issues recently, and we benefit from a healthy local food movement because of it. But, it we actually had to put our food security system to the test, especially this time of year, I suspect that more than just our taste buds would suffer.

Historically, spring famines were a significant worry and incentive to try to put away enough in the fall, but weather and nature are unpredictable, and even with the best intentions some times families would starve. And this was in the times when these people knew how their food was made and where it came from.

The War on Lawn

As the winter winds down many lawns in Vancouver look like they've been dug under, as if they're all going to be turned into garden beds soon.

But, of course that is hopeful thinking and really its the birds, raccoons and squirrels tearing up the grass to eat the grub of the English Chafer beetle.

It is kind of too bad though, I'd much rather see winter veg growing here than this half effective chicken wire mulch. Oh well...

The 2011 Seed Trials

Remember, way back in the fall, when I put so much effort into saving and storing some seeds, well now I put them to the test, and see if I did it right, if they are still alive and will they grow?

To do this trial I used a recycled plastic asian pear container, that was too nice to just toss. It has eight compartments and a lid that snapped shut. I lined every compartment with moist tissue, and then labeled each compartment with the variety of seed that they are to hold, and added the seeds, 10 to a compartment for the smaller seeds, 5 to a compartment for the large ones. I sprayed them with more water and worked to keep them moist for the next two weeks.

After two weeks I check on them and count the number of sprouted seed to the number of unsprouted seeds to obtain my germination percentage.

Giant Sunflowers, that I saved from a flower in the park across the street from my house

4/5, or 80%

Quinoa, from what I could salvage from the crop in my backyard

10/10 or 100% (but I wouldn't bet on it in the field)

Chiapas Wild tomatoes, the first attempt to save tomato seeds

0/10 or 0% boo!

Basil, from my own pot in the backyard

0/10 or 0%, but Basil takes longer that two weeks to sprout, or Im hopeful still

Ardwyna Paste, that lovely paste tomato that lived through the terrible tomato year

8/10 or 80%, trying this one again

Zebra Green tomato, from a tomato I bought at a Farmers Market

0/10 or 0%, so much for free seed while enjoying a salad, may try it again

Black beans, from my garden

1/5 or 20%

Flax, from my garden, 

10/10 or 100% I loved how simple it was to grow, its gonna make a comeback this year too.

I'm a little sad that there were so many failures, but this is a skill that I think will take a few years to get right, I'm looking forward to seeing my results next year.

Winter Planning

I've been enjoying planning the garden for the summer, working with what is already planted, what I already have to plant, and what I absolutely need to try planting (peppers, this year.)

I buy predominantly from two different seed companies, WestCoast Seeds and SaltSpring Seeds and love reading a wide variety of gardening and agricultural books. Then I brainstorm and write down all my ideas into my garden journal, which helps me plan my planting schedule and also helps me determine what should go where. 

Birds on my balcony

From our Balcony we get to watch the activities of many urban critters, including squirrels who always seem to be mating, a family of raccoons that live in the cherry tree when it is fruiting, our neighbours cute and mischievous cats and of course the birds.

We see many different type of birds, chickadees, sparrows, woodpeckers, hawks, hummingbirds, crows, other littler black birds and a friend claimed to have even seen an owl. 

Because there are cats in the yard (whom I love) and because some species of songbird are being hunted practically to extinction by cats. I'm making an effort to provide food and shelter for the birds in a cat free environment, my balcony.

So far the best success has come from just leaving old bread ends out, the crows are quick to munch. Like this one in the photo, who was having breakfast at the same time as us. We have a suet cake on the front balcony and there was one day where a flock of chickadees were feeding off of it, but of course, the battery of the camera was dead. Oh well. 

I invite you to find a cat free place to hang a feeder, hopefully close to a window, if birds visit, you will find them delightful.