Spring is certainly on its way and with it, comes planting time and the ever-reliable gasoline price increases that always accompany the “summer driving season”. This year, we also have the ongoing mess in Libya where the good Colonel can’t seem to take a hint, and although we in the US get very little of our oil from Libya (something around 9% I’ve read), you can bet Big Oil is gonna milk this for all it’s worth. I have no doubt they’re also going to try and make up for last summer when the price – for the only time I can remember – actually fell slightly, probably because they didn’t want to be seen as gouging us in the midst of the oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico.
On February 20, I paid $3.399/gallon for regular unleaded and on March 4, it cost me $3.619. That’s a 22 cent increase in 12 days! Thing is, this sort of oil/gasoline price volatility is likely to be an on-again off-again norm for the coming decades as peak oil begins to be felt in addition to all the other factors and excuses that are used to manipulate the price of gas.
Beyond wringing our hands and complaining, what do we do? How do we cope?
Well, after adopting conservative driving techniques, here’s the biggie (stop me if you’ve heard this before!): grow your own food. Start a garden. Even a tiny one. Get your feet wet now and learn how to do this.
Our current industrial agriculture system is based on oil. According to Michael Pollen, it now takes ten calories of energy (oil) to grow one calorie of food, an unsustainable system if ever there was one.
You can bet that as oil prices rise for whatever reason, the price of food is going to go through the roof. Of course we will see price increases on many things but food is among the most critical because our cupboards and fridges must be constantly replenished.
Everyone has to eat, several times a day, day in and day out. That means increased oil prices hit us not only in our gas tank but in our pantries as well. The way around this is, to a great extent, to grow at least some of your own food. And, if you live in North America, the timing is perfect.
First things first. The snow may still be flying outside, but seed-starting season is upon us!
The reason I start a lot of my own seeds is because there’s much more variety available from the various seed houses. For example, this year I’m growing some very interesting tomato varieties including Brandywine, Debarao, Cherokee Purple and Japanese Black Trifele. You’ll never see these at your local Wally-World, Lowe’s or Home Depot garden center!
Johnny’s Selected Seeds has a nifty seed-starting date chart on their website. You tell it your last spring frost date and it tells you the dates for starting and setting out a lot of common vegetables and flowers. You can find your last frost date by entering your zipcode on the Plant Maps website (works for gardeners in the UK and Canada too!). I’m in USDA Zone 4b so my last frost date is May 20.
Different plants have different start dates depending on how long they take to germinate and get to transplanting size. Slowest of the things I want to grow is parsley, so I started a nine-pack of pop-out planting “cells” today.
I actually have quite a collection of yogurt cups and ricotta cheese containers that I use for larger plants like tomatoes and such but I want to start a whole lot of things this year and I have limited room under my one 4′ plant light. So I spent $9 on a Jiffy seed starter “greenhouse” (see top photo) consisting of trays, several connected 9-packs of cells, plant labels and some clear plastic covers to keep the soil moist while the seeds are germinating. All told, one kit will start over 200 plants. Not a bad deal and if I’m careful, hopefully I can reuse them next year.
I filled one 9-pack with potting soil, watered, and let it drain well – twice – until the soil was good and damp. On this particular seed packet (leaf parsley, ‘Forest Green’), there’s a notation that germination tests weren’t quite up to standard; the seed company compensates for this by including extra seed. To play it safe, I planted a few extra in each cell (5 or 6 total).
The rule of thumb is to cover seeds to the same depth as the seeds’ thickness. As you can see, parsley seeds are tiny, so I covered them with just a thin layer of potting soil.
The flat was placed in one of the trays to catch leaks and the clear plastic cap sits on top.
For now, I’ve got it sitting in front of a south facing window; once the baby parsleys are up I will put them under my plant light.
Having said all that, if you’re a beginner gardener, I do not necessarily recommend starting your own seeds, at least for the first couple of years. Wait until planting time in your area and then go ahead and buy some seedlings at your local garden center. If you can find someone selling “starts” at a farmer’s market you may find some nice heirloom varieties, but otherwise you’ll have to make do with a few standard hybrids, like ‘Early Girl’ tomatoes and ‘Marketmore’ cukes. But that’s okay. They’ll taste fine and you’ll have the instant gratification of taking some plants home, popping them in your beds and voila! A garden!
The only real drawback to ordering seeds is that it can get expensive. At $2.95 a packet, a seed order can add up fast especially if you have adventurous taste buds! Because of this, I plan to start saving seeds of the heirloom or open-pollinated varieties, which “breed true” (unlike hybrids). Once I’ve mastered seed-saving and some simple preservation techniques (so far, I’m good at freezing), my veggies become virtually inflation-proof.
We live on the edge of interesting times. We’ve had our fling but the party’s over. Time to get back to real-world useful skills that will stand us in good stead and smooth the road ahead. And there’s no better place to start than in the garden!
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