Another very good article. For us it is not a matter of what we purchase it is a matter of what grows here that gives us good health. For example walnuts are weeds here and grow everywhere. The weather has been very hot and dry and carrots just do not grow but cucumbers are doing well. My sunflowers which I grow for pressing sunflower oil are very slow this year due to the drought but the corn is doing very well.
It is too hot to use my horses in the field so I use a tractor running on sunflower oil as diesel.
It is just about time to harvest the spelt. rye, oats and camelina but the drought may be ending so I may have difficulty combining the various crops which are already weakened by the lack of rain.
The wild raspberries are shriveled by the lack of rain.
It is not what you purchase it is what you can grow to feed yourself. -mat
Good advice! I remember you saying a year or two ago that without cooler nights your horses could not "recharge" and continue to work day after day. That was an eye-opener for me. Something I had never even considered. I have one walnut tree I planted from a neighbor's volunteer that did not do well out in the cherry orchard. I replanted it out in the field in full sun and it is doing much better. All the best.
"In the field, apart from soy beans, there has been very little seed breeding efforts in pulses compared to grains which means that under most conditions it is simply more profitable to grow, wheat, rice or maize than pulses."
True enough. Here is a tip for small-scale growers and gardeners for doing their own seed breeding with beans, both dry and green. Plant your rows 2.5 feet (75 centimeters) apart or even closer. This allows the beans to hybridize. Even though beans are in-breeders, they will cross if close enough. I used to have my bean rows 3 feet apart but then switched to a closer spacing and I quickly noticed the difference in my dried beans. Another aspect is that the landrace will go back and forth to the parent varieties over the years. If you want a pure variety, just punch out the spacing to 3 feet (90 centimeters) again.
"Even if the consumer is not in command, markets certainly are very important in shaping food consumption."
The slavery to the markets goes away quickly if you are only growing for your own household. Will Bonsall quickly realized in the early 1970s that a better solution is to not grow for market. I realized this myself in about 2010. Or as Eliot Coleman once said, "Most of the young people I train try market gardening for a year or two until they realize there is no money in it. Then they get a job in construction."
Thanks Walter, I must admit that I have previously not spent much practical time and work on own seed production, but lately my attention to this has started. For dry beans, there are no really good local varieties available here. After some search and trials I have chosen Gaucho, a Canadian bean. Now I am on the third year of taking seeds from them and I see already some black ones that were not present in the original lot.
Good show! I buy beans from the store, like Haricot Rouge or Lingot Blanc here in France. Then I replant them year after year. The Haricot Rouge and Lingot maintain their color over the years, unlike some of my heritage varieties like Jacobs Cattle, Bird Egg, etc. They cross readily. I have also bought beans in local markets when I take a trip to Portugal or Spain. I cannot tell if the Rouge and Lingot are modifying at the genetic level since I select on the phenotype. This year my kidney beans failed so I planted a second crop of Feijao Encarnado, which are just kidney beans from Portugal. These worked. I assume it was our late spring and then an early canicule (heat wave). I also am dry farming some of my beans across the street where there is an underground spring supplying subsurface moisture. This is where the kidneys failed. I know there is an underground watercourse because I can track it in the winter. I may put a pounded well and a hand pump here in the future. Just like the Eqyptians, I could pump into a trough that would lead out to the garden plots.
Where I live, in the Upper South (Tennessee), traditionally it was greens (primarily turnip greens), field peas and butter beans that provided the basis for most meals. Typically cooked with pork, with a side of cornbread, you had the calories you needed for a hard day of work. That dinner plate existed for all the reasons you highlight. Those crops grow well in this climate. And, as Walter says in his comment, "The slavery to the markets goes away quickly if you are only growing for your own household."
Good stuff. The Eat-Lancet diet (among others) is such powerful sustainability imaginary, and yet, what does it imply for production and land politics? There is too much focus on the ideal menu.
I'm glad I came across this. I feel that the aim is to make us all feel ashamed and guilty. Not that it works but it does a little. Like when an obviously educated middle class person admits they LOVE mashed potato and/or chips but with a slightly apologetic smile,or when a rotund couple state they eat 'junk food' every day because they can't afford healthy food. Because they've been taught to think of Healthy Food as perishable organic grown vegetables that you have to buy from an expensive Farm Shop and that go off the day after youve got them home. Which is not bad,it shows they are live things but inconvenient if your money is limited. But more and more people now UNDERSTAND that veg flash frozen in the field seconds after harvesting is actually better than those dried up pea pods in the grocers shop that been there for days. And tinned veg is good too. I buy a big can of pomace olive oil from one of our local Turkish shops and it lasts me at least six weeks. But I use lard too. Lard cooks the crispiest fried potatoes (full of vitamin C). I'm in UK but this food faddie idea is all over us too. I think most people take it with a pinch of salt!,but I get how young Mums would worry.
Another very good article. For us it is not a matter of what we purchase it is a matter of what grows here that gives us good health. For example walnuts are weeds here and grow everywhere. The weather has been very hot and dry and carrots just do not grow but cucumbers are doing well. My sunflowers which I grow for pressing sunflower oil are very slow this year due to the drought but the corn is doing very well.
It is too hot to use my horses in the field so I use a tractor running on sunflower oil as diesel.
It is just about time to harvest the spelt. rye, oats and camelina but the drought may be ending so I may have difficulty combining the various crops which are already weakened by the lack of rain.
The wild raspberries are shriveled by the lack of rain.
It is not what you purchase it is what you can grow to feed yourself. -mat
Good advice! I remember you saying a year or two ago that without cooler nights your horses could not "recharge" and continue to work day after day. That was an eye-opener for me. Something I had never even considered. I have one walnut tree I planted from a neighbor's volunteer that did not do well out in the cherry orchard. I replanted it out in the field in full sun and it is doing much better. All the best.
Good article Gunnar. A couple of comments.
"In the field, apart from soy beans, there has been very little seed breeding efforts in pulses compared to grains which means that under most conditions it is simply more profitable to grow, wheat, rice or maize than pulses."
True enough. Here is a tip for small-scale growers and gardeners for doing their own seed breeding with beans, both dry and green. Plant your rows 2.5 feet (75 centimeters) apart or even closer. This allows the beans to hybridize. Even though beans are in-breeders, they will cross if close enough. I used to have my bean rows 3 feet apart but then switched to a closer spacing and I quickly noticed the difference in my dried beans. Another aspect is that the landrace will go back and forth to the parent varieties over the years. If you want a pure variety, just punch out the spacing to 3 feet (90 centimeters) again.
"Even if the consumer is not in command, markets certainly are very important in shaping food consumption."
The slavery to the markets goes away quickly if you are only growing for your own household. Will Bonsall quickly realized in the early 1970s that a better solution is to not grow for market. I realized this myself in about 2010. Or as Eliot Coleman once said, "Most of the young people I train try market gardening for a year or two until they realize there is no money in it. Then they get a job in construction."
Thanks Walter, I must admit that I have previously not spent much practical time and work on own seed production, but lately my attention to this has started. For dry beans, there are no really good local varieties available here. After some search and trials I have chosen Gaucho, a Canadian bean. Now I am on the third year of taking seeds from them and I see already some black ones that were not present in the original lot.
Good show! I buy beans from the store, like Haricot Rouge or Lingot Blanc here in France. Then I replant them year after year. The Haricot Rouge and Lingot maintain their color over the years, unlike some of my heritage varieties like Jacobs Cattle, Bird Egg, etc. They cross readily. I have also bought beans in local markets when I take a trip to Portugal or Spain. I cannot tell if the Rouge and Lingot are modifying at the genetic level since I select on the phenotype. This year my kidney beans failed so I planted a second crop of Feijao Encarnado, which are just kidney beans from Portugal. These worked. I assume it was our late spring and then an early canicule (heat wave). I also am dry farming some of my beans across the street where there is an underground spring supplying subsurface moisture. This is where the kidneys failed. I know there is an underground watercourse because I can track it in the winter. I may put a pounded well and a hand pump here in the future. Just like the Eqyptians, I could pump into a trough that would lead out to the garden plots.
Bonsall is an inspiration, his book was an eye opener for me.
Where I live, in the Upper South (Tennessee), traditionally it was greens (primarily turnip greens), field peas and butter beans that provided the basis for most meals. Typically cooked with pork, with a side of cornbread, you had the calories you needed for a hard day of work. That dinner plate existed for all the reasons you highlight. Those crops grow well in this climate. And, as Walter says in his comment, "The slavery to the markets goes away quickly if you are only growing for your own household."
Good stuff. The Eat-Lancet diet (among others) is such powerful sustainability imaginary, and yet, what does it imply for production and land politics? There is too much focus on the ideal menu.
I'm glad I came across this. I feel that the aim is to make us all feel ashamed and guilty. Not that it works but it does a little. Like when an obviously educated middle class person admits they LOVE mashed potato and/or chips but with a slightly apologetic smile,or when a rotund couple state they eat 'junk food' every day because they can't afford healthy food. Because they've been taught to think of Healthy Food as perishable organic grown vegetables that you have to buy from an expensive Farm Shop and that go off the day after youve got them home. Which is not bad,it shows they are live things but inconvenient if your money is limited. But more and more people now UNDERSTAND that veg flash frozen in the field seconds after harvesting is actually better than those dried up pea pods in the grocers shop that been there for days. And tinned veg is good too. I buy a big can of pomace olive oil from one of our local Turkish shops and it lasts me at least six weeks. But I use lard too. Lard cooks the crispiest fried potatoes (full of vitamin C). I'm in UK but this food faddie idea is all over us too. I think most people take it with a pinch of salt!,but I get how young Mums would worry.