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.

   

    

Labels:

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 14, 2022 at 8:43 AM

    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.

In praise of the simple pumpkin. It has a lot of potential other than pies.

As I write this the temperature is climbing.  We have a window or two open, knowing that soon enough we will be shutting up the house for the next three months or so we can protect ourselves and our cats against the onslaught of winter.   Our wood stove burned overnight to take the chill out of the air and I found myself buying new boots and gloves and driving home with the windows down. This is the nature of autumn in Western Pennsylvania and as I sip on my pumpkin flavored coffee, I cannot help but praise the fruit of the season, and yes it is a fruit, the simple pumpkin. A few things are still growing in our garden, the last of the herbs and tomatoes...a stray pepper or two that needs to be picked.  Yet I find myself interested in growing pumpkins next year after realizing their potential and that they are high in nutritional value.   It's easy to forget in our modern world just how easy we have it as compared to our great grandparents and their grandparents....
1 comment
Read more

Dopamine fix and my take on AI.

When I sat down at the computer recently to type all of this out,  I let out frustrated sigh.    I had plans to release a completely different blog post long before this date but over the last two weeks or so I've done everything I could do but actually work on the yard, or write, or just do anything that was constructive. When you are moving towards a dream or an idea or...well anything really, you can't break the chain.  Even if it's just 10 minutes a day working, that is constructive.    I have an addiction.  It's not to drugs or alcohol and in a way that would be a bit more excusable.   I have an addiction to dopamine .    Dopamine simply is a chemical in your brain that makes you feel good, and it in turn unleashes other "pleasure" chemicals in your brain.  In my case it a program called Second Life,  (SL) which honestly, I used to be on all the time in the early 2000's.  It's hard to explain but the term multius...
1 comment
Read more

Rain and tears and those damned deer. Gardening can be painful.

“ None of us understand what we're doing, but we do beautiful things anyway.” ― Allen Ginsberg   The weatherman stated that we have not had any significant rainfall in over two weeks.  Nor did he see any relief in site. We are not in drought conditions yet, we are just unusually dry.  Interestingly enough, Pennsylvania should be getting warmer and wetter in the future if the climate models hold true.  If we narrow that down even more to my home town , the picture becomes even more interesting.   Solar Punk Pittsburgh For now though, I was worried about my garden.   It is not that big, I basically have a variety of containers around where I am maintaining lettuce, leeks, tomato's, peppers, strawberries, grapes, sunchokes (which I was really interested in growing) and a few other things.     Every garden needs to be watered and I played around with the idea of a r ain water collection systems before, we even had a simple one i...
2 comments
Read more