A Challenge: What are you doing to claim food sovereignty for yourself or your community, and why? My Response...
@Homesteaderscoop put out a challenge with hopes of bring some knowledge forward concerning food sovereignty. Find out more at: https://steemit.com/community/@homesteaderscoop/challengewhatareyoudoingtoclaimfoodsovereigntyforyourselforyourcommunityandwhy-64xiaq0q0m
This concept of food sovereignty has guided our way for some time now.
Gardening has been a big part of this for me. I've always had a garden of some sort, whether it was the family backyard garden of my youth or the container garden while living in a camperized bus or an acre of rich garden land on the prairies and on to our present day, multiple garden plots in our forest home. Gardening began to play a bigger part when I began to see more and more degradation of our food system with the depletion of the soils and the numerous chemicals that our foods were becoming laced with.
Also I saw the writing on the wall, when I realized our stores are only stocked with enough food for a few days and they are reliant on regular shipping to get their goods. This upped my efforts to grow my own food so I would have access to good nutritious foods that I knew what went into it. I also began sourcing out more locally sourced foods to cut out the amount of shipping necessary to get our food. This often opened up doors to bartering and building of relationships with our food producers.
Back when I was in my later 20's, we purchased land (back when it was $800.00 per acre) and started building our homestead. Always my first thing was to build up the soil and establish the gardens plus plant our fruit trees. Our acreage bordered the forest crown land with an abundance of wild foods all around us. I dove into studying the wild edibles and medicinal plants, taking herbology courses and building up my resources for being able to treat and feed ourselves and animals with nature's food and medicines.
Although we are not "off grid", we built our place to not be dependent on the power grid if it falters. We have a wide mouth well that we can draw water from, a good wood heater (with a large woodlot) and the ability to be able to close off rooms if it were really necessary to hunk-er-down. Our septic system is gravity feed to a septic lagoon and we have a water collection system for both summer and winter. See our water collection system at: https://steemit.com/ecotrain/@porters/the-maker-challenge-no-3-water-collection-storage-usage-system-my-system
We have coal oil lamps and the oil to go in it plus we do have a small solar system set up on our camperized van which we could bring to the house if needed.
Sad to say, but we have prepared for the internet no longer being available, which it very well could be, with a good library of books and music plus a tight local community.
We have a good supply of grains and seeds, pulses and rice in a storage room that keeps cool and dry.
We know how to cook things from scratch, can and preserve our foods and have a diet that we are happy with and are not reliant on the stores to maintain it.
This past year we took our gardening one step further and began our indoor gardening project.
See all nine parts on this -
Gardening for Food Security Indoor Gardening Project
Part 6 - https://steemit.com/dsnapx/@porters/gye4b7sv
Part 8 - https://steemit.com/dtube/@porters/k4yhd5b7
Part 9 - https://steemit.com/dtube/@porters/5x0x3oz7
We live in an area with a very short outdoor growing season and having an indoor garden is a very valuable asset to us.
Also we follow Martin Armstrong with his computer system (Socrates) that predicts cycles and it is showing a cooling trend and erratic weather patterns plus other cataclysmic events, making it more difficult to be able to grow outside so this nudged us forward to putting the effort in to set up our indoor grow space now.
You can follow Martin Armstrong's blog at: https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/blog/
It's well worth looking into and finding out more about his computer system Socrates and his Solution.
The government had been trying to gain control of his system but Armstrong refused and was actually jailed for a number of years in an attempt to break him. He wants to keep it out of the hands of government and he uses his information to warn people and give solutions of how to thrive in the coming hard times.
I'm very happy we set up our indoor garden for it is providing us with our fresh greens for the winter and also the grow lights have helped me beat the S.A.D. syndrome (Seasonally Affected Disorder) which usually hits me around January. Not this year! I'm happily tending my garden indoors.
I love engaging with folks here so please feel free to leave any comments or questions..
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Your indoor garden really increased your food sovereignity!! I'm always impressed with that, especially when it gets so cold where you are!!
The fact that it does get so cold here is the reason I looked into indoor gardening.
I keep forgetting that this isn't true for many parts of the world, like you in Australia, that can grow outdoors all year long. (I'm sure that comes with it's challenges too!) It was also Martin Armstrong's forecasting of severe, erratic weather patterns and possible catastrophic events that would effect the ability to grow out doors that had me looking more to growing indoors along with the outdoors. I'm all for GARDENING FOR FOOD SECURITY!
Wow, you are really one marvel to me @porters. I am not sure how many people would think to this length, including me. You are so much self sustained and independent for your resources. You are inspiration for many of us.
Thanks for your lovely comments @nainatengra! I've been at this for over 30 years, so lots of time for it to develop. Glad I could be an inspiration to you and I hope others too!
Thanks for sharing porters. Part of why I started gardening was food security concerns years ago. Now more than ever health concerns and what manufacturers are putting in our food. Or poor handling practices is a cause for concern. Growing as much as possible for ourselves is the best way to go.
Hey @stanmr I went over and read your introductory post plus what you commented here and feel you could make a wonderful entry to the Food Sovereignty challenge. You could win some STEEM in it.
Did you check it out at: https://steemit.com/community/@homesteaderscoop/challengewhatareyoudoingtoclaimfoodsovereigntyforyourselforyourcommunityandwhy-64xiaq0q0m
Also i had read in your introductory post that you wish to find a way to make your passion pay. The Homesteaders Coop @homesteaderscoop is a Free marketplace for folks to sell there products and goods and services for STEEM, SBD or USD. Check it out and perhaps it will inspire you to produce some marketable goods.
All the best!
Thank you again @porters for all your support. I will definitely check that stuff out.
Great post. As a newbie, was unaware of the 9-parts of indoor gardening which I look forward to reading. It's good to see you steering people toward Martin Armstrong and his excellent information about sun and orbit induced climate cooling in the coming decade. We're planning to lean toward the cooler plants in our outdoor garden this year with indoor planting fast approaching. Cheers.
Yes, that indoor gardening project started off with an experiment bringing in plants from the garden and I was very happy with the results. We took it upon ourselves to invest in an LED grow light this year which covered a 4 x 4 table. We wanted to get maximum production out of that limited space, we're managing that with rectangle grow boxes and productive plants in them plus I've been doing some stacking of pots on those that came in from outside. We feel this grow has been successful and we are looking to expanding with another grow light.
What area are you gardening in? Sounds like the southern hemisphere if you are talking about the indoor season still approaching. We've been in it since October.
Martin Armstrong has had a big influence on our preparations for the future and I do so encourage folks to look him up for he is providing a tremendous service to society with his Socrates program and the information it is providing.
I'm in NE Oklahoma with average last frost about 15 April. Have a huge outdoor deep mulch garden that's coming up on 3-years old. Started with a 16x28 ft greenhouse soon after we built our place 5-years ago. Didn't expect heat management to be such a big challenge, even in the winter on sunny days. Had my propane heater in the greenhouse fail to light last week on a very cold might and might have lost my tomatoes :-(
We start the things that will stay in the greenhouse early and probably should be doing some planting now using racks inside the house by windows until they get sprouted. The seeds planted for outdoor plant starts is a bit over a month out. Good stuff.
I like being in my greenhouse on rainy days.
Sounds like you've got a good start to your food sovereignty with your gardening. I hear you about heat management! Before putting our sunroom as an addition to our house (with special venting window so it doesn't heat up the house) I played with different ideas and it always came back to - is it cost effective to be running heaters and light was always an issue too. I had a 16 x20 ft greenhouse with an
attached header house. The idea was that I was going to start my seedlings in there but there wasn't good enough light and I had to take them out into the greenhouse area in the day and put them back into the header house at night. Lots of work and it made me look at what I was growing and was it worth it. I decided to go with a simple light stand in our house and not bother heating the header house/greenhouse. The greenhouse just became our covered garden and it did extend the growing season.
We are fortunate to have trees around to supply afternoon shade so heat doesn't seem to be an issue and it is nice to be able to work in the covered garden when it's raining! We have to wait until after June the 7 for our last frost date so I hold off on starting our bedding plants for outside. Would love to see pictures of your garden and greenhouse.
Great post!! I love this. You look so COLD in that one photo. I have just recently started gardening I have not had any success except for growing garlic. life if full of trial and error lol.
Thanks! I was cold that day and very happy to be going inside to tend my indoor garden.
Where abouts are you gardening?
Here's a little handbook I had put together with some good gardening tips for beginners. It was mostly geared for kids but is good for any beginner gardener. It's a flip book found at: https://flipbook.publishing.design/view/9811/2258
Love this post, you are so cute!! Thank you for the vote too. I will reread this and think about the challenge 💜
Incredible @porters! You have gone to great lengths to ensure your sovereignty and I can tell that you are so appreciate of your food and being able to grow it. Thanks for adding all this value to the blockchain and sharing what you are doing and what you have learned. We have a lot to learn from you!
Yes, when I start writing it down there has been a lot I have been doing over the many years. I am happy to have the opportunity to share with others and keep that knowledge alive!
Thanks for this great initiative! It should bringing out some good bits of knowledge, bringing us closer to food sovereignty for everyone.
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