Guys, this one is a long one. I’d grab a cup of something. Give yourself about an hour. + give it a start. You might want to come back to it. Or just browse through looking for something useful specifically for you.
This isn’t about food like you might think it’s going to be about food…I’m not going to be talking about anything related to diet. Rather, I’m going to talk about how our family has been doing food + food planning for the past bunch of years, + where we’re going to be headed in the next few. I’ll dig more into this ‘why’ in the next section, but in brief there’s my holistic view of how our relationship with the growing, production, + processing of what we consume has become completely misaligned with how it *should/could* be – we’re detached from our food sources, + particularly in North America, it’s unsustainable. There’s recognition that the availability of what we’ve been used to buying, at prices we’re used to paying, will be hugely disrupted as early as this summer as a result of the pandemic in which we find ourselves. It’s made me very conscious that the theoretical ‘someday we’ll need to be more food sufficient’ needs to shift immediately to a ‘we’re planning to be food sufficient right now’. The thing with planning now means the results of planning now won’t come to fruition for some time yet…
As I learn, I will continue to share. You know, with this blog/website, I wanted to create a hub where people can find resources to create their version of a holistic life…what does that even mean? A life well lived? A life in alignment? A minimalist, sustainable life? + as I think about anything I’ve created, or wanted to create, it really is, in my mind, in the service of empowering self-sufficiency + creating positive change, mind/body/soul, within your home, in relationship with the earth + our global community. We have a life to live, + a responsibility to live it – to the best of our abilities – in alignment of the wellbeing of all….not just ourselves.
With that said, this post may be a little dry…in that there’ll be a lot of what + why, + resources + tools to help you become a little bit more food self-sufficient. This is all coming through the lens of someone who likes to be organized, gathers information perhaps obsessively, + is a newbie to ideas of urban farming + permaculture, which means the tools might be excessive for your needs, or if you’re experienced in food growing this might not go deep enough for you. I grew up, formatively, in the country. We had a large garden, I picked a lot of beans, learned how to milk a goat, was scared of grabbing eggs from the chickens, rode the horses in the paddock bareback + shoeless, shhh don’t tell me mom…, + saw my parents raze a barn down + rebuild one back up again. In that sense, this is not new to me. In the sense of intentionally creating self-sufficiency in an urban setting, with the knowledge of the art + science that goes into creating a thriving food supply? Not so much. So everything I’m sharing below is information + tools that I’m learning + using right now. It won’t be exhaustive, + as I said, as I learn more I’ll continue sharing that too. Where you know more, or better, please do share! We’re stronger together!
FOOD SECURITY
WHY I’M THINKING ABOUT IT
I touched on this above, but I have wanted to be more food self-sufficient for a long while. It started with wanting to break away from factory farming + large scale agricultural practices. Getting back to community based relationships. We’ve become addicted to food being cheap, excessive in quantity, + readily available. Then this pandemic hit.
First people talked about stocking up; canned foods + emergency preparedness. + that can tide you over for the short term should access to a food supply be completely shut down.
+ then as it settled in that we weren’t going to run out of access to food *yet* it became even more important to connect with local vendors to support those in our community. Honestly, we should be doing this anyways.
+ then I read an article about how farmers might not be able to hire migrant workers because of travel restrictions [which just further highlights how we’ve become accustomed to paying artificially low prices for our foods]. + now more articles are coming out about how the food supply might be disrupted in a large way…
My instinct when I read stuff like that is ‘how can I prepare’ + ‘what was done in the days before everything was easy/cheap/fast/accessible’. Guys, when everyone was buying up all the TP in the world I sure as hell researched how people took care of their nether-regions before TP was a thing. + I bought myself a peri-bottle from well.ca [if you don’t know what a peri-bottle is, it’s a squirt bottle women are given after giving birth – perhaps other surgeries too – that allows you to gently wash all the parts that have been ripped to pieces after giving birth, you don’t swipe that with toilet paper, you know what I mean?…you give it a gentle healing rinse] + it is like a little portable bidet, + you’re welcome! You want to know what people did before TP? Everyone in the family had their own cloth, hung up on a nail in the water closet. + you did your business + were responsible for cleaning up your own *ish. For. Real. TP runs out? There are solutions out there. Ok, I digress. So what was done before we had such access to easy/cheap/fast/accessible food. We got food within our community, or grew it ourselves. So that’s when I started looking up how much food, + what kinds, a family of 3 requires to live on.
HOW I’M PLANNING FOR IT
Ok. Honestly, I don’t really know, hahaha…. That’s not true. I started by googling it. + then making a rough plan of how to get to full food self-sufficiency + what I can realistically do between now + the big picture. There is a resource I found which I included in the next section below. We’re going to go one baby step at a time. A few seeds at a time, learning what works, what doesn’t work, what our soil is good for, + how we have to help it along. I’m learning more about composting + how to do that effectively. We’ve been “composting” for years now, but have we ever actually used the stuff in the bin? No. It sits there + we keep adding to it. Not a good use of a valuable resource! We have rain barrels. Are they hooked up? No. So these are the goals for this year… Hook up the rain barrels. Take advantage of the compost. Plant some seeds.
So. Gardening. We had a “garden” at our last house. I got about one decent year out of it, but the soil was crap. I never took care of it properly, so weeds were *always* out of control. Which made any little seedlings I planted a complete waste of money. Except for the sage bush. That guy earned his keep. When we moved to our current home [ohmygodiloveithere] the previous owners [who are our current next door neighbours] had developed a great garden…they knew their stuff. It was all companion + permaculture planty [see more in the GARDENING / PERMACULTURE section below]. Well, as per our last house, I did not have the patience, nor did I prioritize the time, to take care of it properly. So it became a huge mess.
But THEN we got connected with a guy who does urban farming – basically [information in the resource section below!] – who will be taking care of it for us. He uses it for gardening, sells the produce he grows to local restaurants, the community, + donates some to shelters. + we’ll get a box of assorted produce each week selected from all the gardens he’s working on within our neighbourhood as a trade for allowing him use of our land. This is a thing!
There’s also a great venture called FoodFund which gathers produce from [typically] as local as possible vendors that don’t make the grocery-store-cut. + you can order a weekly box of produce delivered to your door each week. This diverts food which would otherwise be mostly waste. We’re on our 3rd week, + I absolutely love it. It’s slightly more than what we’d pay at the grocery store BUT it’s organic, aligns with production/consumption values, + gets delivered to our door. As I’ll share below, we typically shop at Costco, + I obsessively track every piece of food we buy. My goal now is to be able to find a local vendor [who can deliver, at least for the next while] for as many things as possible.
A note on buying organic. None of the following statements have been 100% fact-checked. So here we go. I always thought buying organic was the best choice. My husband thinks it’s an over-priced bougie choice. He’s not always wrong [eye roll] so I googled it. I read several non-scientific articles, + what I landed on is that organic is good, but knowing your food producer is better. Why? Because while there are restrictions + guidelines on what makes something organic, organic pesticides +/or herbicides don’t have a restriction on how often they’re used. So if a pesticide/herbicide is sprayed on the produce many times, it doesn’t make it safer than the produce being sprayed once or twice by a non-organic pesticide/herbicide. When you can form a relationship with your food producer you can ask questions about what they use + how often. Therefore, organic isn’t always 100% better…. That said, I did hear or read [no I don’t remember] recently that people who eat organic foods have lower rates of cancer. + with this un-fact-checked information, you can make the decision that is best for you. Helpful? No? Ok, let’s continue.
RESOURCES I USE / HAVE FOUND :
SPIN Farming : SPIN stands for s-mall p-lot in-tensive. We got connected with a SPIN Farmer through our community facebook group. His name is James, + he’s super nice. In the fall he came to prep up our garden, + now he’s starting to come back around to get his seedlings planted! I’m so excited to see what will be growing, + to get a better idea about how this all actually works in terms of the produce we might be getting from it.
FOODFUND rescues “imperfect” or surplus produce. Each year, nearly 5 billion pounds of produce goes to waste as it does not meet the cosmetic standards of grocery stores across Canada. But ugly produce is not the only one suffering – its perfect counterparts are shown no mercy either if harvested in surplus. They source, pack and deliver these little guys to your door.
The Local Food and Farm Co-ops network (LFFC) is an incorporated not-for-profit co-operative that specializes in organizing and development support for food and farming co-ops in Ontario. They provide training, online and in-person capacity-building, and coordinate peer-to-peer support among our 75+ member co-ops across the province.
MEAL PLANNING
WHY WE DO IT
I meal plan + track our groceries obsessively because it decreases food waste + saves money. + that’s it.
I feel like I might have a control issue too…but I’m not ready to 100% own that.
WHAT IT’S DONE FOR US
Meal planning has decreased the amount of food waste we create. + it has saved us money.
That’s pretty much it. After the section above, I thought this was going to continue to nightmare-ish lengths. Whew.
HOW I MEAL PLAN :
Plan To Eat has been the key to keeping meal planning in flow. Less food waste + we’ve been saving money on food every month.
YNAB [You Need A Budget] is the budeting app I’ve been using to keep us under budget every month.
To get started with your own worksheets, get a copy of my FOOD planning ebook below. It includes a printable menu planner, grocery list, + set of food inventory worksheets, plus lots more!
GARDENING / PERMACULTURE
COMPANION PLANTING + PERMACULTURE
I’m going to share the basic concepts of each of these, why they’re important, + why I want to incorporate them, but won’t be going into detail on *how*. Partly because I don’t know enough yet, + partly because these topics are so deep + wide on their own it can’t be captured in one part of a one blog post.
Companion Planting
Companion Planting is creating better growing conditions for your plants by planting complementary plants next to each other. For example, tomatoes and basil love each other + provide benefits for each other’s growth! Big bonus, they taste delicious together.
Permaculture
I grabbed this definition from Wiki…”Permaculture is a set of design principles centered on whole systems thinking, simulating, or directly utilizing the patterns + resilient features observed in natural ecosystems.”
Basically, when thinking of your garden, you’re thinking, planning, + implementing each part of your garden in deep relationship with each other.
RESOURCES I USE / HAVE FOUND :
Before you really get into planning your garden, you need to consider a few things…what do you even want to grow? How much space will you really need?
The following PDF downloads are available from theunitygardens.com
This is a composting resource from a fantastic local organization that brings awareness to ecological issues. Composting 101
Here is a quick start guide to determine how many plants you need to feed your fam.
This pdf book is chalk full of information on growing the most epic garden ever! How to Grow More Vegetables* [+ fruits, nuts, berries, grains, + other crops} *then you ever thought possible on less land than you can imagine. By John Jeavons
If possible, look for local, heirloom, +/or organic seed sellers. Here are a few top favourites of mine :
Like most anything, getting good results starts with effective planning. When I started gardening way back, I created a planner for myself, because of course I did. I’ve updated over the years, but it remains fairly simple + it serves our current gardening needs.
To get started with your own worksheets, get a copy of my FOOD planning ebook below. It includes these two printable garden planning worksheets, plus lots more!
FROM SCRATCH
This is going to be the best part! These are some of my favourite recipes that make me feel like a legit homesteader. Just in my head…you know? I’ll add more as I learn + that feel like from-scratch-staples.
A SPIRITUAL NOTE
+ lastly, but not least…
My goal is to consume foods that are whole + healthy, ethically + sustainably grown + produced. Whether animal or plant. I’m not there yet, but am working towards it. Perhaps this is the greatest impetus for everything I’ve written above.
I believe we’re all connected. I believe we’re all responsible for our choices. I believe we’ve become deeply disconnected from what gives us life. Everything is energy. Everything. + our understanding of what is here is still so limited.
I consume meat. To be honest, my goal is to one day raise, know, have a relationship with, + butcher the animal that provides our family with meat.
We are all part of a cycle here on earth.
I feel the same about plant life. We consume plants without much thought to the life-force being given. Trees communicate with each other through their root system. The smell of fresh-cut grass we have come to enjoy is actually a warning signal to plant life around that bad stuff is happening. Plants vibrate at a higher frequency when fellow plant life is being ripped apart – as in put into a blender. Call it empathy. Plant life is connected, it has it’s own intelligence.
We used to not have a comprehension of animal intelligence – humans were the only beings who could claim that privilege. Now we know better. We recognize that animals have thoughts, feelings, intelligence.
+ we’re wakening to the fact that plant life has it’s own intelligence. It won’t be long until we better understand their language.
No matter where we fall in our food-consumption belief, it is important to understand that whatever we consume is giving up its life-force for ours. + in that we should be deeply humbled, honoured, + grateful. Our relationship with food is deeply spiritual…or if it’s not yet, it’s something we can work towards.
[…] I do something like a capsule wardrobe, it’s because I want to consume less. When I order groceries from Food Fund, or local vendors, it’s because I want to keep our impact small. We have one […]