PeakOil is You
Born into unsustainability
Re: Born into unsustainability
by Ludi » Sun 18 Apr 2010, 19:09:08
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Repent', 'M')os6507 has it exactly right. How do you get people back to the land? I plant a garden each year. Other than pumpkins, the only other things I seem to be able to grow are weeds. I would starve as a farmer. (although dandylion leaves are edible- I could potentially farm weeds??)
Dandelions are not only edible, they are one of the most nutritious vegetables one can grow, though they don't contain many calories. There are many edible and nutritious "weeds." The difficulty may be in providing sufficient calories.
- Ludi
Re: Born into unsustainability
by efarmer » Sun 18 Apr 2010, 19:16:16
Find an old retired couple or person with a big yard and
ask them if you can garden if you share produce with
them. Ask them how they like their pumpkins cooked
and if they like dandelion wine just in case you strike out
again.
If you fail your first year, you will have an old person
with very little to do except razz your ass and give
you all sorts of hints for the next year.
Community is the key to what you can't afford to buy
and what someone else can't do anymore coming to
a common solution.
Remember to make the old folks laugh, step on a rake
and pop yourself in the kisser so they spit out their false
teeth while they watch you from the porch. This will buy
you some more learning curve time.
Good luck, and don't name your pumpkins, you don't
want to be emotionally attached when it comes time
to butcher them.
ask them if you can garden if you share produce with
them. Ask them how they like their pumpkins cooked
and if they like dandelion wine just in case you strike out
again.
If you fail your first year, you will have an old person
with very little to do except razz your ass and give
you all sorts of hints for the next year.
Community is the key to what you can't afford to buy
and what someone else can't do anymore coming to
a common solution.
Remember to make the old folks laugh, step on a rake
and pop yourself in the kisser so they spit out their false
teeth while they watch you from the porch. This will buy
you some more learning curve time.
Good luck, and don't name your pumpkins, you don't
want to be emotionally attached when it comes time
to butcher them.
-
efarmer - Intermediate Crude
- Posts: 2003
- Joined: Fri 17 Mar 2006, 04:00:00
Re: Born into unsustainability
by Ludi » Sun 18 Apr 2010, 19:23:47
For what it's worth, I can't "farm" for crap, myself, though I own a chunk of land (20 acres, bought for cash 14 years ago). It's not farmland, it's overgrazed rangeland. I mostly fail at trying to grow actual crops of vegetables. But I am learning there are plants and weeds I can grow by letting them grow themselves. And chickens can mostly raise themselves if given sufficient protection from predators. In my region of Central Texas we have a gross overabundance of deer, both native and exotic, which we could eat if my husband could learn to shoot them (I don't use guns because I'm a crazy person). So those raise themselves also. We might need to learn how to eat a different diet if we want to try to live a different way. But history gives many examples of people who would rather die than change their diet.
- Ludi
Re: Born into unsustainability
by davep » Mon 19 Apr 2010, 03:23:59
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', 'T')here's plenty of room on the huge tracts of land currently used for industrial agriculture.
A bit of tender loving care by people looking after their 10 acres (or far less for market gardeners) will produce at least as much as we do now. It's the transition including the need for soil building, proper biodiversity, water management and attitude shifting that worry me. It can be done, but we all need to help show the way forward.
A bit of tender loving care by people looking after their 10 acres (or far less for market gardeners) will produce at least as much as we do now. It's the transition including the need for soil building, proper biodiversity, water management and attitude shifting that worry me. It can be done, but we all need to help show the way forward.
So some benevolent dictator is going to subdivide the planet into even parcels of subsistence land for every household in the world to do their food forestry and their intensive biodynamic kitchen gardens? So Bill Gates is limited to only 10 acres and some guy who mailed the keys in on his McMansion and is living in a tent city gets 10 acres--free and clear. Um, yeah. Keep dreaming.
No, it's up to us to ensure it happens. But do carry on pontificating from behind your keyboard.
What we think, we become.
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davep - Senior Moderator
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- Joined: Wed 21 Jun 2006, 03:00:00
- Location: Europe
Re: Born into unsustainability
by mos6507 » Mon 19 Apr 2010, 11:07:03
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', '
')No, it's up to us to ensure it happens.
')No, it's up to us to ensure it happens.
Thanks. It makes perfect sense now. You know, big changes like that need a road-map and I'm glad you spelled it all out for us.
Seriously, anybody can cook up a utopia but if you can't map out how to get from point A to point B it's as good as useless.
I think Holmgren came up with the best term. The downslope is likely to be "civilization triage". Top-down solutions like moving everybody (forcefully) into the city or spreading them out into the country, displacing the existing land owners in the process, isn't going to happen. What you'll see is everyone have to fend for themselves. If you want land, you're going to have to pay market value for it. If you want a brownstone downtown, you're going to have to pay for it. That means some people, perhaps most people, who don't have the money or are too anchored where they are, are going to be at a key disadvantage going forward, dependent on the system as it breaks down.
- mos6507
