The Oil Drum | DrumBeat: October 15, 2008

320 comments on DrumBeat: October 15, 2008

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WNC Observer on October 15, 2008 - 9:27am

Sharon: I would very strongly advise communities everywhere to copy what my town has done. At our community garden, half of the plots are dedicated to food bank production. Students from a local college provide most of the volunteer labor to plant and tend them. This is not a full solution, but a very good first step.

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jewishfarmer on October 15, 2008 - 9:36am

I've actually never been to a community garden that didn't have a substantial portion of its plots devoted to local food banks, as well as plots in which low income households were enabled to grow their own. I agree with you that this helps, but we also need more community gardens, more gardens in general, better agricultural policies (right now, regional food banks are dependent on industrial agriculture and offer them tacit support, for fear that people will go hungry - setting agricultural activists and anti-poverty activists against each other on the subject of things like the farm bill, which is disastrous - we need not only more food for the poor, but better food policy so that there are fewer poor), more food and housing security (there is no incentive to plant gardens and fruit trees in houses you will be evicted from shortly) and a host of other major shifts. I know you know this, but it is worth re-articulating.

Food has got to get on the front burner, ahead of most other things. Because there are plenty of good mitigation strategies out there for transportation and a host of other things. But the only answer to the coming food crisis is radical transformation.

Sharon

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NeverLNG on October 15, 2008 - 10:23am

You are absolutely right in my opinion. There is a problem, however, and that is that many of the people in need of food do not have the slightest idea of what to do with fresh produce.

Two generations of super-market food, agri-business, advertising, packaging, pre-prepared freezer food and a food stamp program that promotes all this (instead of the old commodities programs) -- plus, I imagine, growing homelessness which deprives people of cooking facilities has set the stage for a real disaster in the "developed" world.

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jewishfarmer on October 15, 2008 - 10:31am

NeverLNG, I agree with you. This is one of the reasons I argue that cooking the food may be more important than growing it - that is, we manifestly have a nation in which people go hungry because they can't cook cheap basic staples. Shifting diets radically and rapidly is going to be a huge social project - and it has to be undertaken, because hunger is already here and rising *FAST*.

Think about what icelanders will have to do if they are to eat the food they can produce locally, and perhaps what basics they can import. Cooking is one of those small things I mentioned in comments yesterday - and it is huge. The hand that stirs the pot, shapes the world.

Sharon

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souperman2 on October 15, 2008 - 12:28pm

"This is one of the reasons I argue that cooking the food may be more important than growing it..."

Great point and this is where I am now putting my focus as it also addresses processing and preserving, a HUGE issue.

I am putting together a cook book of sorts called "The adventures of SOUPERMAN - or How to cook anything."

I encourage making intense soups, stews, sauces then put them up.

I can't tell you how many people have told me they never liked eggplant until they had my Ratatouille.

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justJohn on October 15, 2008 - 7:28pm

Hey Souperman,
Maybe you could put up a few web pages to sample? I love soup, but have to confess that it doesn't usually turn out when I start from scratch.

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Leanan on October 15, 2008 - 10:36am

The CSA farm in my area has programs to teach people how to cook the vegetables they grow.

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what the curtains on October 15, 2008 - 5:56pm

Yeah, it's kind of a lifestyle change, learning to plan meals ahead of time. I didn't have a clue when I picked up my first CSA box. Fortunately my Grandpa, who grew up in the depression, was able to help me out. I think a local depression era recipe book would be an excellent find.

While "traveling" we got a lot of boxes of mac n cheese from food banks. We had a little propane burner and we ate off frisbees in the park, then threw the frisbees. Those were good times. The other day I picked up a pre-packaged donation bag at the supermarket and guess what was in it, mac n cheese.

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anagama on October 15, 2008 - 6:32pm

Akin to cooking and perhaps more important, is preservation. I mentioned a garden I grew this year in an earlier post -- since that post I've had additional harvest but I also purchased a nice rear-tine tiller off Craigslist for $350 so my net for this year is -$172.51, or +$621.89 if I depreciate my hard goods over 5 years at a simple rate of 20%/year.

These figures are a little misleading however, in that they represent what I produced rather than what I consumed. I planted too much summer-squash/zucchini ("soft squash" hereafter), and although I love this kind of veggie, the 55.454 kg was too much for me to deal with. I ate a pound a day for a month -- but gave away the lion's share. In the absence of significant cold storage, I just couldn't manage this volume.

In contrast, winter squash (65.978 kg), requires nothing but an unheated room (no canning, drying, freezing, or refrigerating) and as such, represents a much better investment despite its lower per unit value, e.g., the value of my soft squash was $140.15 while the value of the winter squash, despite greater production, was only $109.02.

Let me get a point here. Aside from losing knowledge about how to cook, knowing what to grow is also very important and I made some mistakes in my garden. Certain vegetables preserve well and produce a lot of food: winter squash for instance, but are rather cheap (lower profit). Other veggies such as snow peas have a high value (my 6107 g were worth $80.48), but are impossible to preserve in a low energy fashion (freezing is the only option and I'm not interested in that).

I think one of the factors working against effective local farming, is that the price of those vegetables which can be stored without resorting to massive energy usage (cold storage), are also the cheapest in the market. In my garden, about 1/6 of the space was devoted to winter squash, and 1/30th devoted to snow peas. I'll enjoy the winter squash for a few months now while the snow peas were a transient (but delightful) experience. Still, the snow peas were really good "money" makers.

It seems to me that in order to succeed in our current market situation, that a market garden would need to focus on high value produce -- most of which is hard to store without high energy usage. A different way to think about this, is that with our current pricing structure for vegetables, a market garden designed to provide luxury items might work, but one growing staples is likely to be a poor investment. Sadly, it is the production of staples that would make a real difference.

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Leanan on October 15, 2008 - 6:46pm

Maybe that explains why no one in praetzel's community garden wants to grow vegetables that can be stored.

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JudithN on October 15, 2008 - 8:16pm

I think most vegetables that are poor keepers, summer squash included, are fine candidates for dehydration. A car parked in the summer sun is a very effective solar dehydrator, IME.

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kcrsnova on October 15, 2008 - 8:41pm

All the squashes, especially zucchini, make fantastic marmalade (basically ad lemon, pectin, and sugar along with whatever seasonings like cinnamon that you like). It keeps forever if you do your canning right, and makes for good unusual gifts.

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anagama on October 15, 2008 - 11:49pm

I've been dehydrating lots of veggies, and I tried dried zucchini -- it wasn't very good in dry form (sweet in an odd way) and I didn't like it rehydrated. There are some things that are really hard to preserve well.

As for marmalade --- what would I do with 100 lbs of it? I think a better idea is to cut way back on the number of soft squash plants for next year.

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Don in Maine on October 16, 2008 - 12:41am

Grate the extra zucs, and freeze if you have space.. makes a great soup or stew thickener.

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WNC Observer on October 15, 2008 - 8:53pm

When I plan my garden for the next year (as I am starting to do today, as it happens), the first thing I do is to list all the crops that I know I can grow, plus maybe a few experiments, and my expected yields per square foot for each. Getting good yield data is difficult, but there are several cooperative extension websites online that have some data; with experience you can substitute your own data.

Next, I try to figure out how much of each crop we can use for the year. I break this down between what we will be consuming fresh per week on average for however many weeks we can stretch the season (and season extension is a VERY important issue - see Coleman's Four Season Harvest for ideas), and how much we will be consuming from storage each week on average for the rest of the year. I also make notes on my storage strategy for each crop. From the fresh and stored figures I determine the total amount that I need to grow for the year. Dividing by the yield per square foot determines how much garden space I need for each crop - as a first approximation, anyway. It gets more complicated for that for some crops. For example, for some vegetables like lettuce you should be able to grow two crops in the same space in succession, which halves the amount of space needed. For some crops you need to allow extra in case of poor germination, losses to pests or drought, etc. If you grow some crops in containers (as I do), then you need to come up with some sort of square footage figure for the containers.

Some of us don't have enough space to grow 100% of what we need. Thus, if you add up your required square footage and it is way more than what you have, then you are going to have to cut back and prioritize. As a general rule, my first priority is to cover as much as possible of my fresh vegetable needs in season, if the vegetables are not too difficult to grow and I'll be growing enough of them to make it worth my while. As for storage, things that are easy to store, or that will be difficult or expensive to get during the winter, are my next priorities. The relative dollar values of the crops are a consideration as well.

Once you have identified what you are going to grow and how many square feet to devote to each crop, then you can proceed to actually plan out your garden.

This is a lot of complicated work, but is the only way I know to avoid the "feast or famine" syndrome that is so typical amongst so many gardeners.

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Doom and Gloom Dad on October 15, 2008 - 9:39pm

'the "feast or famine" syndrome'
I have found that the only way to have enough is to go for more than enough. Being a gardener rather than a farmer I feel free to give away or barter (informally) with the surplus.
"The price of good food is too high to buy it and too low to sell it." Store that comment with your other economic paradoxes.
Plant zucchinis in the shade, only thing I know that keeps them down to reasonable production levels.

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Leanan on October 15, 2008 - 10:17pm

That is in fact how horticultural societies (societies that don't grow crops like grain, that can be stored) do it. They share any surplus with friends and family, and trust that friends and family will share with them.

When you cannot store food, you bank your neighbors' good will instead.

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praetzel on October 15, 2008 - 12:02pm

To give an idea. In the community garden which my wife and I run:
2/3 of the people are transient - often Chinese grandparents who are visiting for most of a year to help their kids with new babies. Language problems are a real issue. How can you enforce garden rules when you can't communicate?
Just to be different, other community gardens in town have waiting lists.
Theft is an issue. At least yearly we have people who stop by and just start picking things. After all it's a "community" garden and that means that you can help yourself right?
A small fraction is always well meaning, but never ending talkers, who plant very little and are forever asking for advice about everything.
Another fraction is always taking whatever they can - using the walkways, stretching their garden every way possible.
We've tried to set odd plots and unused space for the Food Bank - but people who are assigned to weed and water it do nothing. Trying to deal with the Food Bank is another issue. Fresh Food!?? What's that? You try to drop it off, but the place is close; they're only open wierd hours or don't know how to handle food that isn't in a cardboard box. It makes us wonder if it's ever used.

Many couples new to the country come and plant gardens - bringing varieties (and pests) which we've never seen. Very few gardeners are WASP's as it were. This is also true of big parks in town - English is a rarely heard language on weekends when the rich white folk escape to where ever it is they go with their kids.
Rarely do people in our garden plant crops that can be stored. This year the Chinese went beserk with the tallest sunflowers I've ever seen. Now we've got stocks from hell that don't compost ....
Of course we can't have composters (pile or box) because they get stuffed full quickly of weeds and plastic bags of dog droppings and refuse.
I'm the only one who planted potatoes and carrots and few planted onions and only 3 plots planted corn. The coons got the corn (my "indian" corn was attacked last and I was forced to pick it before maturity). Rutabaga doesn't seem to mind the hard soil and loved our Square Food Garden.

The soil is clay crap and we're bringing in (at personal expense) a 22 yd truck of mushroom compost. My spidey senses are tingling - I'm going to have to distribute it and work it into the soil in all garden plots. People will buy bags of weed seed infested "black earth" bags, but trying to get a group (transient) to pay for a truckload of compost is nigh on impossible for us. For the curious that compost is around $5/ton and delivery is about 2/3 of the cost (22yds is around 20 tons). It's dirt cheap compared to any other compost or soil ammendments.

My expectation is that these gardens will be pillaged if times get tough. There is nobody there watching over them.

I expect that food growing will move closer to home ASAP when things get worse - taking over the front yard, sidewalks ... Seed saving will become the issue. I'm working on that with potatoes this year as spring supplies go in just a few days.

If I was buying another house I'd buy backing onto a park and extend the garden into the park (I've seen that many times - and the city will do nothing about it - even if they fence off the garden) or onto power lines (we have a CSA which has about 2 acres under cultivation - all in the powerline right of way).

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doug fir on October 15, 2008 - 12:37pm

Thanks for your post from the frontlines.

Your problems seem to mirror those of society.

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WNC Observer on October 15, 2008 - 2:29pm

Sorry to hear of your bad experiences. This points out that you can't just plop down a community garden anywhere and automatically expect success. We have a much better setup in my town.

-First, it is a small town and not a city. US cities come with horrible social pathologies these days, and living in them presents one with constant challenges & difficulties in so many different ways. I really don't have a good answer for that. Life is just a lot easier in small towns; we have our problems, but like our towns they are smaller in scale and thus more manageable.

- We actually have a couple of people "in charge" that are there on an almost daily basis, and there are frequently college kids working on the plots during the week. We are also located in an out-of-the-way location that most people have to go to some trouble to get to, so we don't really have the problem of people just happening by and deciding to help themselves.

- Our relationship with the food bank is formalized, not haphazard. Actually, we don't deliver food to them. Rather, their clients are given vouchers which entitles them to come to the community garden and to harvest from the plots dedicated to the food bank. There is usually some supervision there when this is going on. I would like to think there is a little bit of dignity built in there when they have to make the minimal effort of at least picking the produce, rather than having it just handed to them.

- We've got some pretty extensive composting operations. There have been some problems with the wrong stuff dumped into them, but proper signage is keeping that pretty much under control. We are fortunate in being located immediately adjacent to our local riding stables, so we get all the free horse manure that we want. The gardens are located on flood plain parkland, so the soil is pretty good. Being located next to a river (smallish, we're very close to the headwaters), we've also rigged up a pump and distribution system, and have a number of storage tanks located around the site. Thus, we also have free irrigation water.

It really is an ideal setup. I wish everyone had access to such a good arrangement.

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