Skip to main content

A brief and happy interlude - The garden begins with seeds and dogwood trees

     This is really the first days that feel like a spring day.  The sun is warming the air to a nice mid 60 to low 70 degrees (19 - 22 C) and a variety of songbirds are filling the skies.  I'm on my way to the Mercer County conservation district to pick up some flower and grass seed, and maybe depending on what they have left, a tree or two.


   I already have plans to plant two dogwoods, they are some of my favorite flowering trees and in this case, the berries will also be edible to wildlife and humans.   The flowers and grasses that I'm on the way to pick up are all native to this area of Pennsylvania and  I'm hoping that more than a few may be edible.  I'm also ready to start a small container garden and that is happening this coming weekend.

    My hope is to plant some more trees and shrubs that are edible over time, turning my yard into a garden of sorts. If I'm going to do my small part to fight climate change, I better make sure that what I plant can combat climate change but also supply food and/or medicine.  While I am far from being a survivalist, I do like the concept of leaving food and medicine for those that will need it in an increasingly scary future.  


    I'm not sure if I want to call it a legacy, but I think it's just a small step that I can do. 

    Plus a little variety in my diet and Sue's can only be a good thing.  I see no reason to buy dandelion leaves from the local grocer for $4.50 a pound.    

    The term "foodscaping" is new to me, but certainly seems like something worth pursuing.  I can' t change the world, I can't change who and I am overnight.   The time for grand measures is certainly in the past, but I can do what I can, with what I have.

    I can work, in my own small way, for a better future.   That's why I've decided to keep up this blog, no matter how many readers I may have.   

    If I can bring a tidbit of knowledge to someone, or pass on some information I glean...then it's worth it.  

    If, in some future time, someone is nourished by what I've left then that's even better.  None of this will happen over night nor do I intended for it to ever be as insane as what the video suggests, but you take baby steps.   

    I'm on that path and the first baby step in my thousand mile journey begins now.

   

    

Comments

  1. A kind and generous person, leaves a legacy. Not knowing whose life it will touch. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

What all the cool kids are reading.

On Marches, Strikes and being a keyboard warrior.

 This is not the America I grew up in.    It occurs to me that those days are long gone, and that I am probably looking back on those days with rose colored glasses as well.   However there was a time in America when, if two parties disagreed, they could hammer out some sort of compromise.   Where opposing viewpoints were respected.   Where, if a heated argument did break out the chance of violence was very low. I miss that America.    Recently I was threatened with physical violence for something that I posted online.   I ignored the comment, I didn't bother to respond to it.  Not because I feared the person - I've no idea who they were, etc. - but because I am a pacifist.  To respond to violence with more violence makes little sense to me.  Plus, it's been my experience that such people are paper tigers.   The anger that is felt however, by both the right and the left is very real.  I can no...

Maybe it's time I got serious about solar

  When my wife and I bought this house nearly 6 years ago, we made some upgrades.   We put on a metal roof, replacing the original shingles, replaced the floor in the kitchen, both bathrooms and the downstairs den.  We ended up upgrading the pellet stove (twice!) and added some insulation; one of the jobs I want to do in the coming year is to insulate the garage, mostly to keep the freezers we have in the garage from becoming damaged. It's only in various home improvement shows that the work to improve your home is done all at once and somehow in 1 hour.  For most of us its an ongoing never ending project. One of the important improvements that I've been wanting to make but have kept putting off for various reasons has been solar panels.  Now, I'm thinking that it may be time to least do something. The main reason we have been putting off this improvement was cost and how long it would actually take us to pay off the panels.   I'm 60 years old now...

Honoring the past - Thinking more about "invasive" plant species.

 Recently I've been giving some thought to invasive species.  I had received both positive and negative feedback on the blog post concerning kudzu and recently I came across a very well hidden, and very small, wild cherry tree while doing some yard work.  Since it's against the house it would have to be removed since the root systems could damage my foundation.   A buddy of mine at work was asking if I was going to transfer it, his logic being that it was a fruiting tree that would not only attract a variety of pollinator's but that the deer would eat the bark and cherries, keeping them away from the garden (which Sue and I swore we were not going to do this year).  It occurred to me that I was going to have to do a slightly better job of identification, since black cherries are native to America , where as other types of cherries are not.  Being able to make a precise identification would be helpful.   I used to be able to identify all these tre...