Is Food Sovereignty Possible in a Harsh Climate?
@sagescrub and the @homesteaderscoop are asking What are you doing to claim food sovereignty for yourself and your community, and why?. There have been lots of great entries for this challenge already and I know I can't compare to them, but it's as good an excuse as any to assess what we've done so far.
We live in the suburbs of Adelaide, in the driest state in the driest country. I'm going to be honest with you, if we had a crash, such as some are predicting, which ended up with a loss of town water, we would struggle to keep anything but the most drought resistant plants alive. So one of our biggest goals has been trying to expand our water collection capacity.
Currently we have a dedicated water tank for our own drinking water and even in our driest summers this has always managed to last until the next rain. So that's one box ticked. Aloe Vera is a great medicinal plant with a range of uses and will survive everything our weather can throw at it, so that's a good medicinal fallback. I have some other local natives, which I'm not the most fond of food wise, but having them as a backup makes sense. If you're hungry enough you won't be too worried about flavour.
Something I have been trying to learn more about is recognising edible natives and weeds. My biggest teacher in this regard has been Malcolm @ligayagardener. When I’m unsure on something, I run it by him. Having some knowledge of the medicinal and edible uses of the plants around you gives scope for foraging if you're uprooted or crops fail.
At the moment we have mains water and access to chicken feed. We are able to supply ourselves with eggs, most of our fruit and vegetables when in season and some meat. All our herbs come from the garden and excess is shared with neighbours. It's not much, but it is a way of reaching out to the community and making those connections. For such an introvert, I was actually quite surprised to realise that I now know more of the people on our street than some of our chattier neighbours.
Community is essential when things get hard so cultivating that is important for me. Most of my neighbours aren't particularly interested in growing their own food, but the fact that we are doing it has started a seed of thought within some of them. One couple have bought some planters, but have yet to get around to filing them with soil. Another would like to grow more, but is in a rental and doesn't want to put that effort in for somewhere that won't be hers. Unfortunately, our two immediate neighbours are ripping most of the plant life out of their gardens and only growing low maintenance things.
Food preservation is something I've not gone into as much as I'd like. It's mostly theory for me, but I have done a bit of canning and simple drying of herbs. I should really try my hand at some fermenting.
Seed collection is something I've been trying to do more of in recent years. It's been interesting, because I'm finding that some seeds don't always develop for me. I'm also not the best at starting things from seed. It's led me to sticking with plants which I can get to seed and come back easily from seed. I guess this would have been the way plants were selectively bred for tolerance to different climates.
Laying this out in writing I realise we have some big gaps if we wanted to become self sufficient in our food production. There is no way we could manage it in our situation without community. So maybe part of my preparation for a situation where food supply fails is educating myself in order to help educate my community.
Those tough plants my neighbour has planted everywhere in his garden look rather like yuccas to me and I recently discovered that they can be eaten with the right preparation. So maybe that's a starting point. Identifying them properly and learning how they are best eaten!
We are up against the odds here in SA, so I think rainwater tanks are a must for when there isn't much rain during summer.
Another concept which I find really interesting is what they talk about in this doco: https://www.backtoedenfilm.com/watchfreeorganicgardeningmovie.html
@mightpossibly put me on to it and I think it would really help. We don't want large bark chucks but rather finely mulched wood chips. The finer chips would suit veggies more, but larger chips would be better for fruit trees.
The trick is finding them, I know some councils offer a couple of trailer loads for free each year, provided your a member of that council.
I'm also thinking of getting in touch with some companies who cut down trees and see it I could buy some of their mulch for cheap.
I noticed you use large bark chips in that photo, but do you have any finer stuff around?
Also do you have a compost? I'm looking at getting one going today because I always have lots of fruit and veggie scraps. No fancy bins or anything like that for me, I will be doing something like this.
The back to Eden gardening is the no till method, isn't it? Unfortunately, we have a lot of curl grubs and the only way I can manage it is by digging the soil over after each harvest to get them all out. I saw something on a chap who gardened with mulch and was really eager to try it because he was managing with minimal watering in a dry climate. I don't think it was as dry as ours, though, because just a few days without water in the mid 20s and it was bone dry a foot down!
My front has shrubs and trees, so everything goes down mulch wise, from chunky to fine, if it's going to take a while to break down. On the back, where I do more veggies I tend to use straw mulch more, often from the rabbit cages. The aloe picture is quite old and we had new pine chips then. I've since topped up with mulch I've gotten that someone was getting rid of on gumtree. It's always worth a look for free mulch on there.
I do two types of compost. The chickens get all our left overs and any of the waste from the garden that isn't toxic to them. Everything else goes into the compost bin the previous owners left behind or the tumbling composter (which cost way too much) or goes down as mulch.
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Also I came across some interesting suggestions for curl worms here > https://www.dayliliesinaustralia.com.au/how-to-get-rid-of-white-curl-grubs/
Yeah the eden method is the no till, really makes sense when you look around adelaide at parklands and stuff like that. They put down mulch and they very rarely water the plants.
I will be doing the same with my front yard and putting mulch down, which should keep the water bill down.
I noticed on gumtree you can come across mulch from time to time, there was a guy around the corner with horse manure I wanted to grab but that was during the record breaking heat the other week so put it off for a few days. That was all it took as it was all gone, which surprised me as there was at least 20 trailer loads of it. Gotta be quick.
Tea Tree Gully council offer free mulch, but that's not my council :(
Will have to look and see if playford do the same with free mulch.
Was hoping to get my compost going today but after spending 2 hours in the garden this morning I was stuffed and just did the shopping, this heat is harsh to work in.
For those curl grubs I have never had to deal with them before. I had a quick read up on them but other than that really don't know much about them.
I usually tackle bugs with a mix of garlic, spring onions and shallots, peppers and jalepino plants. I plant them scattered throughout my veggie patches mixed in between the other veggies, and they deter the nasties quite well.
I think the only thing that might work on those curl worms plant wise is peppers, they will secrete hot stuff into the soil and hopefully deter those little buggers.
Have you looked into predatory nematodes at all, they are meant to feed on them. they have to be the predatory nematodes and not the parasitic type, which are harmful to plants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nematode
I wonder if they might also put drip watering systems in parklands under that mulch. I know they did when they were renovating Fremont park. Every little certainly helps though. Once trees get bigger then they can cope much longer without being watered.
Argh! Sorry you missed the manure. We usually go to someone in Kudla who has piles. I wonder if it's the same one. If so, they must have had a truck to take the amount he usually has! Ah well, keep looking occasionally and hopefully something will come up that you catch.
I don't like to put anything in the soil to fight the grubs as even natural products don't discriminate between good and bad bugs. The chickens love them, anyway, so I've taken to looking at them as another harvest. 😁 will have to get better at planning and try mixing those veggies.
I'd love to hear how you go with the no till method. Let's hope you stay grub free. I realise that the lack of organic matter in my soil probably won't help with retaining moisture either. We have a very clay soil.
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I have seen those council watering trucks going around many times, they used to come to the park at my old house every month and water the younger plants there. Some would probably use drip systems or sprinklers I think there has to be some kind of watering otherwise nothing would grow. It always amazes me if you dont water an area it will go desert like over summer.
Haha yep it looks like it is the same guy from kudla, he did have heaps but it went so fast.
I'm guessing you live out north too?
I think mixing the veggies will work well, let me know how that goes :)
I will be starting the back yard in a couple of months, I will be covering it in mulch then woodchips and letting it sit for a few months so the soil can improve more ready for winter crop. Plus I want to get the front yard in order first :)
Will keep posting about it
I just realized I hadn't commented on this post! I really appreciate you offering your thoughts in this challenge. You are doing a great job creating more resilience for yourself! It is great to hear your thought process about where you are and what you are looking into next. I think it is really beautiful that you are sharing with neighbors and encouraging of them to think about what it takes to grow food :)
This post contained some typos in its mentions that have been corrected in less than a day. Thank you for your quick edit !
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!help.Thanks @checky! It was just a typo
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Community is definitely important. And you are so right.. all of my production depends on town water and we haven't worked out a water source yet ALTHOUGH we could take it from the small lake at bottom of property over the fence.. but we would need a pump.
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It's great to read your take on growing here. I reckon that your skills with animals will hold you in good stead as the future hits us. You are a treasure trove of knowledge in that area and will be able to sell, swap and share animal produce for anything you can't grow.
Yuccas are one of my favourites at this time of year... Just eat the flowers straight off of the spike...no preparation necessar!
It feels like that's most things at the moment!
I'll have to take some photos and see if I'm correct that they are yuccas. I forgot what he called them when he was putting them in. I haven't noticed flowers in them.
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Send me a pic
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