The Food Security Garden

GHN — The ongoing drought in the United States will force food prices up. The drought is having wide ranging affects and the price society pays will be huge. Consider the issue of food security.
Food Security means that all people at all times have physical & economic access to adequate amounts of nutritious, safe, and culturally appropriate foods, which are produced in an environmentally sustainable and socially just manner, and that people are able to make informed decisions about their food choices.

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Growing your own food is the best form of food security you can get. It may be too late to start a garden this season, depending upon your location but think about nest year.

I believe that anyone who wants to, can garden. This is the classic, if there is a will there is a way scenario. But, too many people do not have backyards or have only a little space to grow anything. Size does matter but do not let that deter you, even a small space garden can be quite productive.

The first step is to get to know the space where you garden will be; in particular, how much natural sunlight does it get- none, all day or somewhere in-between? Once you know that you can start to develop a plant list selecting plants that thrive in the amount of sunlight that you have available.

Now how large is that space? Is there room for one container, or can you set up a small backyard market garden?
If you are growing some of your own food, it is time to take a look at what you are producing and ask yourself, rather than my current plant choices what could I grow that will be edible and increase my family’s food security?

How much space does your present garden occupy? Could it be bigger? Room to expand, then, do you have the time and means to take care of it, so no waste takes place?

When considering the space that is available, think up. Take a minute and look up instead of along the ground, vertical and not horizontal.

We grow beans on poles and peas why not expand that list. When you make the choice to grow vertical; your small space expands, growing up means growing more.

If you have no room to grow your own food security garden, yard sharing may be your answer. Find out if there is a yard sharing program in your community and join up.

Growing together helps all parties to enhance their food security and builds good neighbours. Community gardens are another possibility, look and ask around your neighborhood, are there a community garden you can join?

Now is the time to get gardening, or at the very least get planning; care for the earth and grow your own food security garden at the same time.

Permaculture: Living the Green Life

Bob Ewing - Economics, environment, and ethics, living green demands that all three operate in harmony. Education and energy are two other Es that are elemental to living sustainably on the earth. Living green means to live in a sustainable way and sustainability demands that we replace, repair or restore the natural resources we use too support us.

I will explore all the Es but let us begin with the one that forms the support for all the others, ethics.

Ethics, to live green or to tread lightly on the earth requires an ethical code that informs your decisions. All we do makes a difference and when we take an approach that considers how our actions will impact not only other people but all life we have taken a major step towards living a sustainable life.

I came to the study of permaculture, a term coined by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren from combining permanent agriculture and more recently to stand for permanent culture, through a search for a way to not only live in harmony with other beings but to do so in an ethical manner.

Permaculture is a design system and an ethically based one the three permaculture ethics: care for the earth, care for people and fair share. Are central to permaculture and they form the foundation for permaculture design.

Permaculture Ethics:

1.Care for the earth: Provision for all life systems to continue and multiply.
2.Care for people: Provision for people to access those resources necessary to their existence.
3.Fair Share: this ethic is also known as Setting Limits to Population and Consumption—By governing our own needs, we can set resources aside to further the above principles.

It is not essential to get a permaculture education to live a life based upon the ethics. It does require that you take responsibility for your life and be aware that what you do has an impact that goes far beyond your immediate circle. Respect the right of all beings to live and use no more than you need and you are off to a good start.

The four Rs, reduce, reuse, recycle and rethink are an important part of living a lifestyle that reduces your effect on the planet. Buy only what you need, reuse what you can, recycle rather than toss away and perhaps most important be conscious about what you do.

Often our habits are so ingrained that we act without thinking, so take some time now and then and rethink what your daily routines.

If you want to learn more about permaculture and go beyond the basics, then a permaculture course is a sound investment. There are a number of reasons why a permaculture course is valuable.

Permaculture design can assist you to reduce your ecological footprint while saving you money, time and energy. This illustrates a permaculture concept- taking one action and accomplishing three or more tasks.

However, if taking a course is not what you want to do at this time, you can still reduce your impact on our planet by applying the three ethics of permaculture to you daily life.

Ethics is where making a difference begins. When you have a code to live by it will guide you when you need to make basic life decisions and it is those fundamental choices that can heal or harm the earth.