Food
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Growing Food
A home garden can be a great source of food, as can a permaculture garden built surreptitiously into a yard. There are a different easy and sustainable ways for pest control.
Here's an easy way to get started: How to build a square foot garden.
Landraces
A landrace is a foodcrop with lots of genetic diversity which tends to produce stable yields under marginal growing conditions. Landrace crops are adaptively selected for resilience in tough conditions. The arrival of new pests, new diseases, or changes in cultural practices or in the environment may harm some individuals in a landrace population, but with so much diversity many plants are likely to do well under the changing conditions.
Aquaponics
Aquaponics is a system which combines hydroponics with aquaculture, allowing the production of both fish and plants in a fairly small area and at high yields.
Food Forests
A Food Forest is a form of permaculture gardening based on land management that increases yields through symbiosis (mycelia, bees, etc.), companion planting - mixing trees (fruit, nuts, etc.), bushes, shrubs, herbs, vines, vegetables and edible flowering plants - and vertical layering (e.g. canopy level fruit trees covering ground-level shade vegetables) as in a forest.
Buying Food
Finding a Local Farmer
- US & Canada: Local Harvest is a great resource for finding nearby farmers.
- The 30 mile meal initiative is an example of the growing desire to purchase locally grown food, in this case within a 30 mile radius of Athens Ohio. Here is a video about this seminal project.
Setting Up a Food-Buying Club
- Software for food buying clubs - http://www.buyingclubsoftware.com
Landsharing and Subscription Farming
- Landshare - "connecting growers to people with land to share" (iPhone app)
Community Supported Agriculture
- Purchasing membership in a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) club is similar to buying a farmers market in a box. For a monthly or seasonal fee paid directly to a local farm, you'll receive a weekly portion of fresh organic produce. Besides fruit and vegetables, some CSAs offer grass-fed meats, organic poultry and dairy products, as well as a host of other organic, local food items from honey to jams. Read the full CSA page here.
Seed and Plant Swaps
- How to organize a seed and plant swap - http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/How-To-Organize-A-Community-Plant-And-Seed-Swap.aspx
- Seed Lending Libraries increase access to locally adapted crop varieties.
Cooperatives
- In some places membership in cooperatives provides a discount and community around healthy food.
Cooking Food
Outdoor Cooking
- A Trangia Spirit Alcohol Stove is the most versatile and user friendly alcohol burner on the market.
- The BioLite stove will turn burning twigs into electricity to power your cellphone or an LED light.
- A Rocket Stove will give superior performance with a variety of fuels. There are plans online as well as pre-fab stoves available.
Healthy Seasonings
- Salt helps season food and may provide iodine if you choose a brand such as Morton Salt with iodine. Lack of iodine results in developmental delays and other health problems. Iodine is necessary for good health but not readily available so be sure to include some iodized salt in your diet.
Camping and Freeze Dried Food
Storing Food
- Root Cellar
- Zeer Pot non-mechanical refrigerator
>>For Shlok to move<< Spiral Pump
