Tag: Sustainability

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Environment Kitchen Garden

Cooking in the Climate Crisis

Shaved turnip, arugula and bok choy salad.

Ideas about how to cook are ubiquitous. Everyone — family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, chefs, dish washers, dieticians and scientists — has something to say about it. Almost everyone cooks. Talk about cooking can be devilishly engaging. Are there things we can do in our kitchen to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis?

It’s not clear how climate change impacts cooking once we get in the kitchen. We should minimize the use of water, electricity and natural gas while cooking. Many are and everyone should be doing so. Maybe that’s the point. Cooking is so common it’s hard to distinguish one process from another when it come to mitigating the effects of the climate crisis.

We recently lived through a rise in manufacture and consumption of pre-cooked and processed meals and ingredients, increased the amount of food grown closer to home, and changed consumer behavior due to national health scares originating in large farm fields in California, Arizona and Florida. Our collective actions to mitigate the effects of climate change, whether in the kitchen or elsewhere, matter in a time of hegemony of fossil fuels culture. For most, spending time cooking is when we nourish ourselves and practice culture that helps us deal with the complexities of a turbulent world. Cooking helps us focus on what we can control.

Inputs

Inputs set the stage for cooking. The focus is often on where ingredients originate and their environmental cost. That remains important yet I also refer to the framing of our lives in society, including land use, construction practices, kitchen configuration, water sourcing, energy sourcing, and education. All of these are inputs to cooking as they are to how we live our lives.

I’ve written about the importance of sourcing as much food as we can locally. My advice is get to know the face of the farmer where possible, and read the ingredient and nutrition labels on anything else.

If one has space, time and the ability, grow some of your own food. Not only can it taste better, time spent in a garden is enough exercise to avoid a trip to the gym or grocery store. Over our years in Big Grove I’ve developed a kitchen garden where what we eat and cook has become synchronous with seasonally available foods.

A cook includes ingredients grown or made a long distance from home where they offer something unique. Nutmeg and black pepper are examples of spices that serve a vital purpose but are not available locally. When the choice is learn to live without them or accept them for what they are, cooks will choose them as long as they are available. I don’t question that impulse.

Assembling and preparing ingredients on a counter t0 mix, saute, fry, steam, grill or bake them into a meal is fundamental. How much water, electricity and natural gas we use is part of background noise: important but seldom the focus of attention except when we configure our kitchen. Seeking energy efficient appliances and a faucet aerator are basic. Once a kitchen is configured few additional changes seem likely. Many of us don’t have the opportunity to configure a kitchen, especially when living in an apartment.

Simple practices like selection of cookware that retains heat, avoiding long preheating of the oven, keeping the oven door mostly closed while baking, and washing vegetables in a bowl instead of under running water have impacts.

A significant aspect of climate-friendly cooking is buying ingredients in a way that avoids food waste. Have a meal plan and buy only what’s needed for it. Plan to use up what’s in the ice box before it goes rotten when planning meals. These practices should be taught in the K-12 school system.

Our household eschews meat and meat products and has since we married in 1982. I’m an omnivore (just barely) and don’t understand the aversion to going meatless. Production of meat contributes to global warming and even if it is only one “meatless Monday” per week, reduction of meat consumption is basic enough that every household can do something.

Outputs

Cooking in our household is an irregular attempt to make something from ingredients that arrive unevenly over time. Cooking is about output, mostly what we serve for meals from our efforts. It is also about how we use what’s generated from the kitchen, including food waste, food storage and cooking by-products like carrot peels and pasta water.

I am a fan of Tamar Adler’s An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace. Shortly after I read the book in 2011 I spent time generating the next meal from the previous one as she suggests. Adler presents an example of how cooking can be an efficient process that produces delicious meals. While her book is not about climate change, by being an efficient cook less resources are required and it can be better for the climate as well as our pocketbooks… and taste buds.

Our refuse company picks up weekly but we seldom put both containers at the end of the driveway. We could do better in reducing waste but in the kitchen every scrap leftover from inputs and meal production is put to use. We save leftovers for following meals. When there is excess produce we freeze or can it. Because we have a kitchen garden there is never enough compost so organic material goes into a stainless steel bucket, then out to a household waste composter near the garden. Using the results of kitchen production has become a part of a life that would seem weird if we didn’t do it.

Conclusion

The climate crisis is real, it is happening now, and the potential for global warming to harm us and our society is ever present. Cooking is ubiquitous, and determining ways to cook efficiently and with a smaller carbon footprint is as important as many things we do to mitigate the effects of climate change. It is not everything. It is something.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

June 1 was a Garden Day

Experimental row tillage to minimize damage to soil structure.

It was finally a day to spend outside in the yard and garden.

I planted Kentucky Wonder Bush beans (Seed Savers Exchange, 65 days) and transferred beets, arugula, lettuce and parsley into a single row next to the summer squash planted the previous day.

The garden plots have not dried out as well as I’d like. The urgency to get things in the ground had me doing the best I could to dig the semi-muddy soil and move seedlings and plant seeds in garden rows.

I’m using a technique I call “row tillage,” in which I dig more narrow rows to plant. I turn the soil with a spade, break it up with a hoe and then break it down further with a garden rake. Because the soil was still muddy, it didn’t break down as easily as I hoped but it got the job done. Hopefully soil structure is less damaged than if I were to dig up and rototill the entire plot. Because I mulch, there is no concern about weeds by leaving part of the plot untilled. If I had a mechanical tiller, I’d use it in the narrow rows. I may get one as I age or if garden tool-wielding bothers my shoulders or back. The technique worked last year with tomatoes, so I plan to use it more this year.

Culled hot pepper seedlings.

Culling hot pepper plants to pick the best starts is important. This year I plan rows with six ancho and six guajillo chili peppers. Seeds from Johnny’s Selected Seeds germinated well so there are extras. The rest — cayenne, jalapeno, Bangkok, Serrano, Red Flame and Red Rocket — will be planted two of each in a big bed. Ancho and guajillo are an experiment in Mexican cuisine. I use jalapeno and Serrano fresh and dry the rest. If the seasons proceeds well there should be plenty of them all.

Harvest was more turnips, parsley, beet leaves, and lettuce. I’m ready to spend another day and the forecast is clear skies. After a bit of desk work, I’m ready to make June 2 a gardening day as well.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Thursday Between Storms

Onion Starts in Containers

The morning was brilliant. Not only the sun, but life all around us as I worked in the garden on what has become a rare sunny morning this season. The sky is now clouding up with scattered thunderstorms forecast this afternoon. We are in between storms.

I direct-planted Early Scarlet Globe Radishes from Ferry-Morse, 25 days. I also planted the last of the onion starts from the farm for scallions.

The ground is saturated. I took down the chicken-wire fence around the early spring plantings and water was evident near the surface — under the grass in the walkway around it. It felt squishy.

Footprint between turnips and carrots.

The plot urgently needed weeding. I obliged, filling my bushel basket with weeds several times. I harvested the last of the first radishes, turnips, arugula and four kinds of lettuce. Even with competition the original plantings are looking great: beets, turnips, sugar snap peas, lettuce, arugula and carrots. While ground moisture made it easier to weed, by walking on it I added to compression that already existed. The plants look robust but I’m not sure how the excess ground moisture will impact yield.

In the kitchen I’m planning some kind of turnip-arugula dish with dinner. A classic is shaved turnips with arugula tossed in a dressing of homemade cider vinegar, olive oil, honey, salt and pepper. I have plenty of turnips, but only two cups of arugula. (I had forgotten I planted arugula). The other option is to braise the turnips in butter then toss them with the arugula and maybe some other kind of cooking greens. Seems the dish would need garlic. Maybe I could make a dressing with the cooking remains, minced garlic and some cider vinegar. Or maybe I could toss the whole works with some of the lettuce harvested today. While there’s no certainty, there are possibilities. This is how a kitchen garden works.

Turnips

I’m not giving up on the garden. I considered mud planting the celery then thought the better of it. The ground is just too wet. So I wait.

It is surprising how just a few hours in the garden finds work for idle hands, clearing the fog of storm-related stress away. I’m not sure when the weather pattern began but is has been weird since the beginning of January. I expect we are only seeing the beginning of the weirdness. That is no reason to stop living.

I planted reserved seedlings of Blue Wind broccoli where others had failed. The plot is under the locust tree and one corner of it may be a problem for anything to grow. We should get some broccoli, and if the slow-starting seedlings mature, it will be in progression. We love fresh broccoli.

I find myself referring to these garden posts frequently to review when something was planted. There is value in trying to remember what I did on Thursday morning. There is hope of a delicious dinner made partly by the work of my hands. That’s why I am a gardener.

Categories
Home Life

Storm at Night

Fallen apples after a severe storm Sept. 20, 2013.

A thunderstorm with potential to create a tornado arrived about 8:45 p.m. last night. As the front of the cell moved over our house, we went to the lower level and waited in a safe corner, staying tuned to reports from news outlets. The National Weather Service precisely described our location in one of its tornado warnings.

The early warning system and technology supporting it are pretty amazing.

There was no tornado or straight line winds I could see or hear, although when the sun rises I’ll inspect the property for damage. The forecast is for scattered and isolated thunderstorms beginning around 2 p.m. today. We’ve seen worse storms than last night in recent years.

Wednesday I went to the warehouse club to fill a new eyeglasses prescription. On the way I stopped at a hair salon for a trim. Stylist conversation was about spring planting and how far behind many farmers are. We shared observations that fields have standing water and many farmers haven’t planted. One more manifestation of community talk about excessive rain’s impact our lives.

Farmers are giving up on corn, as it is getting too late to plant. They’ll switch to soybeans if they can get in the fields. From where we are today, they need a solid week of drying before running planters in fields. Estimates are 31 million planned corn acres remain to be planted, a few days work with modern agricultural technology. Because of wet fields with forecasts for more rain, it seems unlikely many will make it before the mid-June planting deadline to get crop insurance. 2019 looks to be a year farmers remain viable through insurance payments, federal subsidies and smart planning. Getting into wet fields not only poses risks of reduced yield for a current crop, resulting soil compaction would affect next year’s planting. So we wait.

I ordered my eyeglasses, fueled my vehicle and picked up groceries. The garden was muddy so I focused on inside work, still waiting for the weather to break. Last night’s thunderstorm indicated Mother Nature is not ready for that.

Categories
Environment

Climate Reality: It’s a Crisis

Scarlet Kale in My Garden

On Feb. 19 I submitted a vacation request for today and tomorrow at the home, farm and auto supply store so I could finish planting the garden if I hadn’t already.

Paid vacation is one of several perquisites of working for a mid-sized retail company. Such perks are a reason I linger there, even though I’d rather spend more time at home in my garden and kitchen.

As we now know, planting is behind during what may become the wettest Iowa spring in recorded history. People aren’t freaking out yet. Many I know, including all the farmers, are on edge. A lot is at stake when one’s livelihood is built around planting and growing foodstuffs. Non-farming people feel the oppressive weather as well. The continuing rain is not normal for east-central Iowa. I’m not sure my garden will get planted the way I expected in February when I submitted my vacation request.

Yesterday at Kate’s farm a thunderstorm rolled in and we moved the seeding operation into the barn. One doesn’t want to be inside a metal-framed greenhouse during a lightning strike. At home I left my trays of seedlings outside when I went to work and they survived the storm in good shape. I moved them into the garage as rain started again. There have been a lot of thunderstorms locally, which when combined with the recent polar vortex, heavy snowfall, rapid snow melt and wild temperature swings, indicate this isn’t a one-off weather event.

Around 1850, physicist John Tyndall discovered carbon dioxide traps heat in our atmosphere, producing the greenhouse effect, which enables all of creation as we know it to live on Earth. This and other scientific facts about physics, chemistry and biology are the foundation of analytical models that predict future behavior of the climate and its consequences for humans. As Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist and professor of political science at Texas Tech University, posted yesterday in social media, “climate models are (not) some type of statistical random number generator.” The science of the climate crisis is the same science that explains why airplanes fly and stoves heat food. It’s science.

Consider the displeasure with which the administration greeted the Fourth U.S. National Climate Assessment which predicted dire consequences for sentient beings in coming years if greenhouse gas emissions continue the way they have been going. The president’s advisors now seek to change how the assessment is done, arbitrarily shortening the window of concern to a near horizon of 20 years. I’ve never seen an ostrich stick its head in the sand, but this is what it would look like. There is no scientific reason to shorten the horizon for considering the effects of the climate crisis in climate models.

I didn’t know what to expect in 2013 when I attended Al Gore’s training to join the Climate Reality Leadership Corps in Chicago. Among the benefits was by understanding the basic science of global warming it became easier to cope with the crisis unfolding in front of us now.

The reality is climate change is real if we have the education and awareness to understand what we are seeing. It is not only about science. As Carlos Castaneda suggested when a reporter questioned him about discrepancies in his personal history, “To ask me to verify my life by giving you my statistics … is like using science to validate sorcery.” So it is with our politics. Scientific facts do not address the politicization of science to serve interests that are indefensible in light of our commonality.

Mother Nature has been the victim of humans living on Earth, of that there is no question. Brutalized and violated, who can mend her broken body? I don’t know if it’s possible, there is no Denis Mukwege for her unless it can be all of us together. Who am I kidding?

The sun is rising after the latest thunderstorm moved on toward the Great Lakes. I’ll put seedlings outside again and hope for a break in the weather long enough to work the soil. While farmers need a good week of dry weather to get crops in the ground, I can make do with less.

I feel good about today but then I am human. Most of us can’t see but six inches beyond our nose, try though we might. To sustain our lives we must do a better job of living now while working toward a better future — despite the setbacks of our politics. What choice do we have?

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Gardening in a Wet Spring

Western Sky at Sunrise – Sundog Farm

Whether or not we get a garden in this year the stakes are not high.

Much as I enjoy produce resulting from my labor, I could get along without it a for a year, or two, if I had to. We are part of a strong food ecology and unlikely to go hungry or want for fresh vegetables.

Eventually the ground will dry enough for planting and what has become a dozen trays of waiting seedlings will find a home. There have already been some successes: the kale looks great, radishes have been good, and the sugar snap peas will produce an abundance. I’ll do what I can, when I can, reflecting the position of most gardeners in my area.

The marker for end of spring is moving my vehicle back inside the garage. We are weeks away from that.

On Sunday I planted what will be the last tray of seedlings at the greenhouse. My work there wraps up at the end of June and already I am on every other week duties. Where did the first five months of 2019 go?

I planted,

Cilantro, Ferry — Morse, 45-75 days.
Imperial Broccoli, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 71 days.
Genovese Basil, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 68 days.

The Blue Wind broccoli planted earlier has been a disappointment with less than half of the seedlings planted now growing well. Blue Wind plays a role in larger operations as an early broccoli. We’ll see what it produces, but unless the heads are spectacular, it will be the last of this experiment. Late planting of Imperial will better serve our needs.

In other failures, tomatillos have done little. I may get one plant from the starts. Heirloom tomato starts were iffy, with a couple producing only one or two plants. Rosemary germinated, but growth hasn’t taken off. These failures combined with late, iffy planting take a toll. In the end it’s part of being a gardener.

I pulled apart last year’s tomato patch and mowed it flat. The plan is for cucumbers, peppers, squash, eggplant and sundry crops to go in there. The soil isn’t turned yet and won’t be until I get the previous plot planted.

While I’m struggling to get a garden in, larger scale conventional farmers are having a time of it. Spring rain has gone on so long some are debating whether to put in a crop at all. I posted a link to a story about the issue by Thomas Geyer in the Quad-City Times. My post made over 3,500 impressions on Twitter. Find the article here.

People who rely on their farms for a living have had a struggle of a spring. My friend Carmen at Sundog Farm wrote the following to her CSA members:

As I’m sure you’ve noticed there have not been very many windows of sunshine in between rainstorms over the past month and half, so we’ve been seizing every opportunity when its dry enough to get in the field to plant. Despite the limited opportunities and that planting sometime ends up looking more like wallowing in the mud, we’ve actually been pretty happy with our progress! We’ve also been grateful to have hoop houses where we’ve been producing most of the spring crops, and where we can plant even when it’s wet outside. We are a little behind in getting plants in the ground, but so far we are pretty close to where we want to be and hoping for the best!

Some seasons hoping for the best is what is possible.

Categories
Kitchen Garden Living in Society Social Commentary Writing

On a Holiday Weekend

Lake Macbride Trail May 24, 2019

A brilliant, partly-cloudy sky hung over the landscape as I made my way east on Interstate 80.

Rain broke long enough to allow a trip to Davenport to visit Mom and a friend I met in grade school.

Mother insisted on making coffee and it was the best I’ve had in a while. It took her longer than it would have me, but I stood with her and helped as best I could. At age 89 she wanted to do it so who was I to object?

She’s joined the cohort of octogenarians who dread the thought of going into a nursing home when staying at home no longer works. This dread is almost universal among Americans and with good reason. Almost everyone I know who had experiences with a relative checking into a nursing home has a horror story or two about neglect and mistreatment.

I believe the problem with nursing homes is, like with other modern social phenomena, mostly because of the decline in K-12 education, the rise in private and home schooling, and the dominance of FOX News and right-wing radio among people who continue to be radio listeners or view television broadcasts and cable. People have been dumbed down and will swallow almost anything they hear repeated often enough.

Nursing homes don’t have to be as bad as they are, but education and social learning haven’t prepared us as well as they could for getting help with aging relatives. Most people can’t afford an in-home nurse when someone requires 24/7 attention. A nursing home has become the best opportunity to enable a loved one to live their final time on Earth with dignity. Indignities regularly imposed on residents become exceptionally objectionable because of this.

I met my friend for lunch at an Italian-style restaurant. Italian restaurants usually have fresh salad offerings and this one was no exception. They offered some “Chicago-style” dishes which apparently are gaining popularity in my home town. Like with Mother, my friend and I had an engaging visit.

I got sleepy and stopped at the rest area halfway home to walk around. A great thing about Iowa rest areas is they have clean rest rooms and drinking fountains with free, chilled, filtered water. Refreshed, I made it home okay, passing presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard’s advertising billboard outside Iowa City. One may try to get away from it, but politics never takes a holiday.

At home, I mowed the lawn as best I could, breaking a sweat. The ambient temperature was moderate and the sky remained bright. As I mowed around the garden, the grove of fruit trees, and lilacs, I was reminded of how much yard work remains to be done to get the property in suitable shape. My solace can be found in the Meriam Bellina song,

One day at a time sweet Jesus
That’s all I’m asking from you
Just give me the strength
To do everyday what I have to do.

Yesterday’s gone sweet Jesus
And tomorrow may never be mine
Lord help me today, show me the way
One day at a time.

I need to make another pass to pick up the grass clippings for the garden.

The garden patch has standing water in divots dug last week. When I mowed near the ditch the sound of running water informed me it hadn’t dried out and might not this year. Gardeners on social media are getting their vegetables planted, and this is the latest start they can remember. The wet spring has been problematic, although all is not lost… yet.

Soon corn farmers will have to turn to beans if the ground doesn’t dry out enough for planting. With China no longer wanting corn and soybeans because of U.S. tariffs, the prospect of plummeting soybean prices is real, and farmers will take it on the chin… again.

All in all Saturday was a positive day in a turbulent world. Hopefully I’ll get some garden time in when I return from the farm this afternoon.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Too Much Spring Rain

Seedlings Waiting for Dry Soil

On a glorious spring Monday I began spading the next garden plot. The soil was too wet to work so I stopped after four feet.

Excessive spring rain not only affects gardeners, farmers are feeling it too. Vegetable growers were either “mud-planting” or not planting at all. Less than half the anticipated corn crop was planted by May 12, according to Iowa Public Radio. It’s only the fifth time in the last 40 years that has happened.

I planted spring onions, Daikon radishes (KN-BRAVO, 49 days) and Rudolf round (24 days) and D’Avignon (21 days) radishes in three in-ground containers.

The apple blooms continue, although when the wind blows it is a snowstorm of petals creating drifts under the trees. This year has been one of the longer blooms I remember. There are so many blossoms it wouldn’t be bad if some of them didn’t pollinate, sparing me the chore of thinning the buds once they form. The good news is after the long growing season, there should be apples.

After my soil blocking shift Farmer Kate have me a guided tour of her farm. I took photos, which can be found on my Instagram account here. She farms about nine acres in large plots. A lot of it is planted and what isn’t remains in cover crops until its time. Although I’ve worked at Wild Woods Farm for a couple of years, this was the first time I saw the entire acreage.

I started a tray of seeds that didn’t germinate well at the greenhouse. Yellow squash and tomatillo seeds did not germinate at all at the greenhouse. The squash looked a bit funny when I planted them, so I’m trying again. I also used up the arugula seeds, and planted a few blocks of okra and pumpkin as an experiment. Like many things in gardening, we experiment and watch the results.

I’m ready for the second wave of planting as soon as the ground dries. Then it will be a mad dash to get everything in. Even though rain holds us back, the season’s not hardly begun so there’s hope of a bountiful year in the garden.

Categories
Environment Kitchen Garden

Gardening the Climate Crisis

Garden Soil Turned over with a Spade

Gardening is one of the most popular activities on the planet. Whether one lives in an apartment, in a single-family home, or on a farm, local food and flower production can be satisfying on multiple levels. A garden can be a source of nourishment, beauty, exercise, learning, and personal satisfaction.  Gardening helps us to be sociable because almost everyone grows something or appreciates those who do.

Gardening is also a way of mitigating the effects of the climate crisis.

The Climate Reality Project posted a list of things gardeners can do to act on climate. They are easy to incorporate into a garden’s daily work. Here’s my take on their list.

Reduce or eliminate synthetic fertilizers

A few years ago I began using composted chicken manure to supplement compost from my bins. The resulting vegetables were dramatically better. This is the kind of fertilizer my local food farmer friends use and it is acceptable for certified organic crop production.

We don’t ask a lot of questions about where the chicken manure originates, and maybe we should, but Iowa ranks first in the United States for egg production with 57.5 million laying hens according to the Iowa Poultry Association. With an 18.2:1 chicken to human ratio, chicken manure is an abundant resource.

There are plenty of reasons to be wary of synthetic fertilizers, according to the Climate Reality Project. Chemical runoff from haphazardly applied fertilizer can drain into streams and lakes, making its way to our water supplies. They can disrupt naturally occurring soil ecosystems, and are a temporary solution to a long-term solvable problem.

When it comes to the climate crisis, fertilizer manufacturing is the issue.

“Four to six tons of carbon are typically emitted into the atmosphere per ton of nitrogen manufactured,” according to Dr. David Wolfe, professor of plant and soil ecology in the School of Integrative Plant Science at Cornell University.

Gardeners should be more conservative about nitrogen use in the garden. Using composted chicken manure to improve soil nitrogen levels can produce great results and avoid the greenhouse gas emissions of synthetic fertilizers.

Plant Trees and other perennials

When we built our home in 1993 there were two volunteer trees on our lot, a mulberry which remains in the northeast corner, and another that died and was replaced with a blue spruce grown from a seven inch seedling. In all I planted 17 of 18 trees here, of which 15 remain. We also have three patches of mature lilac bushes.

Atmospheric CO2 Levels

The benefit of planting trees is they remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it. Because of their long life and size, they store more carbon than other plants. Scientific data shows the impact of trees on our atmosphere. The NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory at Mauna Loa, Hawaii measures carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Last Saturday, the level of atmospheric CO2 rose to 415.25 parts per million, higher than it has been since humans evolved. Click on the chart of monthly CO2 levels and you can see the impact of deciduous trees. While the overall level continues to rise, as the world greens up in spring, CO2 levels predictably, consistently fall. When leaves fall from the trees, CO2 levels rise again. The thing about planting trees is do it once and the focus can turn to other things.

Trees offer cool shade in the summer and protection from winter winds, so a well-placed tree can reduce emissions and energy bills associated with heating and cooling a home. Fruit trees provide an added bonus for gardeners.

Reduce water use

Science explains that the warmer temperatures associated with the climate crisis increase the rate of water evaporation into the atmosphere, drying out some areas and then falling as excess precipitation in others. This can lead to a cycle of water misuse in ever-drier areas, and plant diseases in regions where average annual precipitation is on the rise. In Iowa we have seen all of that, with the record drought of 2012, and severe flooding that got within 100 yards of our home in 2008.

Lawn and garden watering is estimated to account for 30 percent of all residential water use in the U.S., according to the EPA, and that number “can be much higher in drier parts of the country and in more water-intensive landscapes.” And as much as 50 percent of it is lost to evaporation, wind, or runoff. Water conservation is everyone’s business. I’m not sure why anyone would water a lawn, except maybe a golf course. I don’t play golf. It is better to let a lawn survive in varying temperatures and moisture levels. Thus far in Iowa that’s been possible.

I don’t use an irrigation system or sprinkler in my garden. To ensure adequate moisture to sustain plants in seven plots, I use grass clippings as mulch. Often there are not enough clippings so I’ve been experimenting with plastic sheeting for peppers, cucumbers and broccoli. I have successfully re-used the plastic for multiple years. I use a garden hose to water at the base of the plants and do so sparingly.

“Less frequent, deep watering also encourages deeper root growth to areas where the soil stays moist longer,” according to the Cornell Cooperative Extension. “If supplemental water is determined to be necessary at a specific time and location, be sure to use no more than is needed and minimize your use of potable water.”

Focus on soil health

I have gardened non-stop since we moved into a rented duplex after our 1982 marriage. I have gotten better at gardening, but the biggest improvements came after we ceased being renters and bought our own homes, first in Lake County, Indiana, and then in Johnson County, Iowa. Owning our home enabled me to better consider soil health and long-term investing in it.

When we moved here the living layer of top soil had been removed and sold by the developer, leaving a hard, heavy surface devoid of earthworms and other visible life forms. Gardening, by its nature, must address soil health because if there is no life in the soil, fruit and vegetables won’t grow as well. This is the lesson of row crop agriculture where the best soil has eroded and what remains is supplemented with synthetic fertilizers and other inputs to create an artificial environment for plant growth and pest control.

The story of climate change’s impact on soil health is mostly about changing precipitation patterns, according to the Climate Reality Project.

Extreme downpours can lead to runoff and erosion, stripping healthy soil of key nutrients needed to sustain agriculture. On the other end of the spectrum, frequent droughts can kill off the vital living soil ecosystems necessary to grow healthy crops – and of course, plants can’t grow without water either.

What a gardener wants is soil rich in microorganisms that will sustain plant life through drought and heavy rains. After years of work composting and working our garden plots we can see plenty of earthworms. They are the most visible aspect of a rich miniature biome that sequesters carbon and stores water to make irrigation less needed. Healthy soil helps a garden survive short-term drought and heavy rains by sustaining moisture in the ground near plant roots.

Not many gardeners I know use cover crops, but that is an option to increase soil health. Like most, I add compost in the spring before tillage until the bins are empty.

Reduce tillage

Over the years my relationship with gasoline powered tillers has been inconsistent. A low- or no-till approach to gardening can plays a big role in building the soil organic matter. The reason is simple, when you rototill the ground, you break up the soil ecosystem.

“At its most basic, no-till gardening is the practice of growing produce without disturbing the soil through tillage or plowing,” according to the Climate Reality Project. “In addition to locking up more carbon in the soil, this approach dramatically cuts back on fossil-fuel use in gardening. After all, gasoline-powered garden tools are emitters of CO2.”

The best way to say it is I’m in transition regarding tillage. I have always turned over all the soil in a plot with a spade. What varied over time was whether or not I used a tiller. Sometimes a rented or borrowed a large rototiller to do everything at once, sometimes I used a smaller sized tiller inherited from our father-in-law’s estate, and now I break up the soil with a hoe and rake. I’ve been changing my way of thinking.

Last year I made a tomato plot but instead of turning the entire plot over and breaking the clods of soil down with a hoe and rake, I made two-foot lanes for the tomatoes. The production was excellent. Not tilling the entire plot leaves some of the soil structure in place and in the long term, that’s better for soil health.

This is an ongoing experiment, but the obvious conclusion is less tillage is better.

Opt for hand tools

My main garden tools are shovels, a hoe, rakes, a post driver, and a bucket of hand tools. Eliminating use of a rototiller was an important step in reducing emissions and using the spade, hoe and garden rake to break up the soil provides exercise. I also plant crops in four waves: early (kale, broccoli, peas, carrots, beets, radishes), succession planting (spinach, onions, leeks, herbs, beans and celery), tomatoes, and late (cucumbers, zucchini, squash, eggplant and peppers). Spreading planting over weeks helps make the physical labor of using hand tools more tolerable.

With a large garden and yard it proved difficult to make the battery-powered trimmer work: I kept running out of charge. When it broke, I got a new gasoline-powered trimmer. I also use my gasoline-powered mower and a chain saw. I used less than five gallons of gasoline between the lawn mower, chain saw and trimmer this year. Not perfect, but consistent with a practice to reduce the amount of garden emissions.

Part of my strategy of lawn maintenance is to avoid the use of chemicals completely and mow less often, maybe once every three or four weeks. The benefit of this practice is the lawn becomes a habitat for local flora and fauna. The downside is I don’t get enough grass clippings in a season for mulch. After years of the practice, the neighbors haven’t complained.

Conclusion

The climate crisis is real, it is now, and we have to do something about it. The lesson I learned from being a member of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps is there are many way to contribute to solutions in our daily lives. Among the things we do in a day, mitigating the effects of climate change must be one of them. We are all in this together and even a gardener can do something to help.

~ To learn more about the Climate Reality Project, visit climaterealityproject.org.

Categories
Writing

Memory of South Georgia

Spanish Moss on a Tree in Thomasville, Georgia Photo Credit – Wikimedia Commons

My memory of South Georgia is specific. I don’t know if it’s real.

As a child, our family drove from Iowa to visit Tallahassee, Florida, the place Father lived after re-uniting with his father after Grandfather’s release from prison. For the record, Grandfather’s conviction for draft evasion was a misunderstanding. He hadn’t meant to be a draft dodger during World War II, according to his late, youngest son Eugene. Dad graduated from Leon High School, then enlisted with his brother Don in the U.S. Army.

That trip was to visit relatives in Wise County, Virginia, according to a recent conversation with Mother. The Tallahassee stop was a side trip. I don’t recall whether the memory occurred southbound or northbound, maybe both.

The memory is of riding in the back seat of the family automobile as Father drove on two-lane Highway 319 where Spanish Moss hung from oak trees with branches extending over the road. Mother was in the passenger seat, I was in back with my brother and sister. Except for Dad, we had never seen Spanish moss before. We did not have that in Iowa. We visited the plantation where Father stayed, Leon High School, and maybe stayed over in a motel, I can’t remember. These events and the long trip at slow speed through the Spanish moss-hung oak trees rolled into one over time, It was almost 60 years ago.

In 1997 I had a three-month work assignment near Ochlocknee, Georgia. My project was located at the largest employer in the county, which was and is involved in mining and processing minerals for a variety of consumer applications. No local ever complained to me about the mines. The rest of the economy was agricultural: peanuts, cotton and pecans.

Because Tallahassee was the closest airport, I flew home from there every other week, driving the same road I had as a child, replete with oak trees hung with Spanish moss. I lived there long enough to recognize other flora and fauna. In particular, pine forests and pecan plantations. The road seemed the same as my childhood memory. I made this regular trip between Ochlocknee and Tallahassee for most of my stay.

The memory sparked an interest in Janisse Ray’s memoir, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood. I wrote the following brief review in the Spring edition of the Prairie Progressive:

Other than authors of country music, few write about the pine forests of South Georgia. Janisse Ray’s memoir, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, is important for the sense of place it creates. She grew up in a junkyard with ever-present extreme poverty, mental illness, and fundamentalist Christianity. Her story is one of growing self-awareness and hope in a land where both were in short supply.

While Ray is ten years younger, we share cultural references. Perhaps the most significant is the sense of loss she describes for Long Leaf Pine forests and their ecology. I feel much the same living in a state where what was here — tallgrass prairie — has been replaced by fenced parcels where farmers grow crops and raise livestock. Her experience in Georgia informs my life in Big Grove.

Ray mentions Thomasville, Georgia a couple of times in the book. I stayed in Thomasville while working at the mine. There was little daylight between work and rest so my life then was very specific.

The biggest excitement during my stay was when an inspector found a boll weevil in a trap during the season. Boll weevil traps were part of an early warning system to prevent damage to the important cotton crop. One of the plant workers at the mine had a government contract to inspect boll weevil traps. When he found one it made news all round the county.

The first boll weevil appeared in Thomasville in 1915. The insect did its part to bring down the antebellum economy where cotton was a global mainstay. Boll weevils had supposedly been eradicated by chemicals by 1990, but weren’t.

Ochlocknee, Georgia was a poor place where cattle casually roamed Main Street and a Model T Ford sat up on blocks in someone’s yard. I went to the auction house one night, but had no way to transport anything home. I listened to the bidding and tried to keep my hands down. Lunch at the Depot Restaurant was a meat and two sides with iced tea. A diner could pay extra and get a third side. The restaurant has since closed. When I encountered locals outside the job site, the conversation was a mix of complaining, gossiping and harshness. The place and its people defined hard-scrabble.

I had few friends in south Georgia. After working a 13-hour day at the plant, I made dinner at a hotel and watched cable television including a fledgling channel called Food TV. The name later changed to Food Network. I attribute my interest in food and cooking to those nights alone in Thomasville. My involvement in the local food movement has its origins in the contrast between that uninviting place in South Georgia and my nightly food escape. We didn’t have Food TV in Iowa at the time. Like Spanish moss, it seemed exotic.

The main memory, of driving through Spanish moss hanging from branches over the highway, is essential. It is an unchanging remembrance of something seen as a child in a way that shaped me. It has no time or place and some days I don’t know if it’s real. It is the human condition to believe it is real, and eternal. So I do.