Why am I doubling my garden this year?
By michaelkaer
@michaelkaer (254)
Canada
February 6, 2007 11:26am CST
In my last post I told you I was doubling my garden this year. Now I want to tell you why. I am a member of many environmental groups and the green party. one of the groups deals with the consequences of Peak Oil. If you do not know what Peak Oil is, here is te short form. The planet has "X" amount of oil. At the point of 1/2 X you have used up all the cheap light crude, the stuff that is easy to get and easy to refine. We are at about that point now in history. The rest of the oil is going to be harder to get at, like the tar sands and cost alot more in energy to get the stuff out and it will cost more to refine. That will make all prices go up around the world which means worldwide inflation and a re-localisation of food and resources. In practical terms that means we will not have the oil to transport our food from the other side of the world and will have to get by on what we grow locally. That brings me back to my garden.
My girlfriend is a good gardener when it comes to flowers and such and she has a tiny little garden for veggies. I keep on asking her "Can you eat the flowers?" her reply is "Yes, some of them you can". She was being a smartypants. I decided that if she was not going to turn more of her land over to food than I would have to turn more of my land over to food. Last year we added a bunch of asperagus and one or two berry bushes survived. I am looking at mostly plants that are going to come up year after year. My last crop of potatoes where small, I think because there was too much shade in that area, so I am going to plant them in full sun this year. I grew monster sunflowers(over 18 feet tall) a couple of years ago so I need to replant some of those seeds to continue the line. I use worms to compost all my wasted pears and table scraps so I can add that soil to my new and old garden. You need to give something back in order to keep growing year after year.
This is getting long so I will end it with this question. What are you doing about peak oil and how are you going to feed yourself locally?
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