http://www.helpguide.org/life/organic_foods_pesticides_gmo.htm

BACK TO GROWING YOUR OWN FOOD:

The Future is Abundant A great page about the philosophy and science of growing your own food in a sustainable fashion.

 Here's what can be done by a dedicated and hardworking family. 1/10 of an acre in the middle of the city.

"Let's face it. Our world is in deep, deep trouble and we are the "troublemakers." We have to make real, difficult changes yesterday. Despite the obvious benefits, we are not going to recycle, compost, or talk our way out of this.

Our leaders, being politicians, are not leaders at all but are bound to be followers, who just won't be there for us in a crisis. So, it's up to me and you to make the choice of becoming responsible stewards of the earth."

<-------This back yard produced the following crops only 6 years after it was mere dirt, concrete and grass. On 1/10 acre = 4,360 square feet. Yields in pounds from May 7 to November 11, 2001 Peas 70 (lbs) Strawberries 19 Squash Summer Corn(ears ) 313 Beans 157 Mixed Berries 21 -yellow 21 Tomatoes 533 Peppers 145 Cucumbers 48 -green 49 Onions 57 Peaches 505 Plums 33 Squash Winter- Salad Mix 92 Figs 16 Pumpkins 60 spaghetti 94 Sunchokes 24 More information on this garden, see UPDATE: as of 12/31/03 this garden produced a total of 6,000 lbs of food in one year on 1/10 th of an acre--and remember the fruit trees haven't matured yet! Newer article: About this urban farm from the L.A. Times. January 25, 2007 July 2006-"Three Tons of Produce" San Francisco Chronicle article: November 2008 tally:

"Agriculture is a destructive system."

What are the strategies by which we don't need agriculture? Agriculture is a destructive system. Well, we need a lot more gardeners. Gardeners are the most productive, most hands-on sort of agriculturists. They always have been. There never has been any debate about it. When you make a farm big, you just accept a suddenly lower productivity and yield, but less people get it. That is why it is economically "efficient." When you talk about efficient farming of this order, you are talking about dollars. When you reduce the size of the owned landscape, providing you don't reduce the lots to less than a quarter of an acre, the agricultural productivity goes up. You get a lot of arguments to the effect that breaking up large farms into five acre blocks is uneconomic. Five acre blocks are. One to one-quarter acre blocks are not. They are highly productive.

Now gardeners. How many gardeners are there in the United States? Fifty-three percent of households now garden. They garden only 600 square feet on the average. They make something like $1.50 a square foot. These household gardens are producing 18% of the food in the United States, at a value almost equivalent to total agriculture."

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Achieving Food Independence on the Modern Homestead A well-written and concise series of steps that one can take to become an independent producer of their own food. Harvey and Ellen Ussery, 2005-2007

Introduction to Permaculture http://www.permacultureactivist.net/intro/PcIntro.htm

"My own sense of homeland security is enhanced...when I know there is prime farmland not far from my home that provides me with healthy food. I feel more secure knowing that I possess enought rudimentary gardening and food skills to grow and process some of my own food and, even more reassuringly, there are still many nearby farmers who have the training and experience to operate commercial agricultural operations." Mark Winne

 

Catching rainwater from your roof and becoming water self-sufficient.

Adventures in Urban Sustainability - Happy Earth. A beautiful alternate universe in New Zealand.

Learn about the informal economy "In England, you find people in the villages who have got fed up with the rat race and have started to farm their gardens and take part-time jobs... ." You think that it's not happening in America? At what point does one give up searching for a "Job", the opportunity to pay taxes, to commute, to do grunge work with no future? Many have given up. The Informal Economy is their salvation...

How to Cook your food with a $4.00 windshield shade

Why growing your own organic food is the best and most liberating action you can take for the future of our republic, the health of the real economy and as a means of hurting the really bad guys.

Did your grandparents ever give you seeds from the old country or the homestead? They might be the last of their kind on earth. How to save them for the future: Naturalizing heirlooms to reseed themselves

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Seed Savers Exchange : an organization that saves and sells heirloom seeds and allows people who save their own to distribute them. There is has been a controversial firing of the originator of Seed Savers Exchange, Kent Wheatley, by the new board of directors. We no longer recommend them. Please find local organizations that do seed saving in your area. We recommend this seed saving group that can send you a kit to establish your own seed saving library in your home town.

http://www.richmondgrows.org/index.html

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Yet another reason to save your own heirloom seed from the Wall Street Journal:
"Indeed, Monsanto has already agreed to apply its biggest biotechnology breakthrough to Romo seeds. Scientists from Mr. Romo's company, Empresas La Moderna SA, have placed in a lettuce a gene that gives it immunity to Roundup, a Monsanto herbicide designed to kill any [new] green vegetation. Now, 40% of all vegetables sold in the U.S. supermarkets derive from Mr. Romo's seeds. Fill your plate at the salad bar of a U.S. restaurant chain, and probably half of what you eat started life as a Romo seed." (and was probably drenched in roundup pesticide).

United States Department of Agriculture site with lots of information and bibliographies on Heirloom Vegetables.

But...there is a threat on the horizon to people that want to grow their own food:

And now... Here's how corporate American agribusiness is going to make it illegal to trade seeds of any kind, or even grow native plants on your own land : Think we're kidding? Welcome to the nightmare world of the "approved plant list". http://www.geocities.com/nowhitelist/index.html STOP THE WHITE LIST!

Organic gardening a savior for Cubans starving under failed central planning

A fabulous eclectic page full of links about small scale, community and biointensive agriculture.

From In-Context magazine.

 Why food prices are climbing and how you can protect your community and family from this threat.

This is how much an average American family of 4 eats a year: (Yes, it's the same picture you saw before.)

How will they survive if the "just in time" 3 days from- farm- to- table supply lines of food are interrupted by Natural or man-made disaster?

 EATING FOSSIL FUELS The definitive short article on cheap petroleum = cheap food.

More resources for learning how to grow your own food:

Books about gardening and ecology online. Download them. Free, that's a good price for invaluable knowledge.

http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/01aglibwelcome.html

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Are you discarding edible parts of vegetables and not knowing it?

Secondary Edible Parts of Vegetables

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/newsletters/vpmnews/apr02/art4apr.html

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A phenominal history of agriculture from Purdue University INTERGARDEN an incredibly through and well constructed set of links to

PERMACULTURE & REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE sites.

Gardenweb Forums A place to learn from others. Enormous number ot topics and regional subjects. Unfortunately this is loaded with ads and ads served from outside advertisers and so it's quite slow to load.

U.S.D.A. general site about vegetable gardens

Long (but useful) explanations of all factors involved for the uninitiated.

Fatal Harvest; the tragedy of Industrial Agriculture

"We know that the massive use of synthetic fertilizers to create artficial fertility has had a cascade of adverse effects on natural soil fertility and the entire soil system. Fertilizer application begins the destruction of soil biodversity by diminishing the role of nitrogen-fixing bacteria and amplifying the role of everything that feeds on nitrogen. These feeders than speed up the decomposition of organic matter and humus. As organic matter decreases, the physical structure of soil changes. With less pore space and loss of their sponge-like qualities , soils are less efficient at retaining moisture and air. More irrigation is needed. Water leaches through the soils, draining away nutrients that no longer have an effective substrate on which to cling. With less available oxygen,the growth of soil microbiology slows, and the intricate ecosystem of biological exchanges breaks down. Acidity rises and further breaks down organic matter. As soil microbes decrease in volume and diversity, they are less able to physically hold soils together in groups called aggregates. Water begins to erode these soils away. Less topsoil means less volume and biodiversity to buffer these changes. More soils wash away. Meanwhile, all these events have a cumulative effect of reducing the amount of nutrients available to plants. Industrial farmers address these observed deficiencies by adding more fertilizer. Such a scenario is known as a negative feedback loop; a more blunt comparison is substance abuse." Link: Fatal Harvest: the Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture Read table of contents and more excerpts at this website.

Lovely study from Denmark:

In Denmark, during World War II, due to a food crisis, many domestic animals were slaughtered and their grain rations fed to humans. Consumption of white bread was stopped, and replaced by a bread made from a wholemeal of 67% rye, 21% oats, and 12% bran, called Kleiebrot. Consequently, the death rate fell to the lowest level ever registered in Europe. There were significant declines in the incidence of high blood pressure, heart disease, kidney problems, diabetes, and cancer, and there were no cases of digestive troubles (Marine & Van Allen, 1972; Day, 1966).

Misc stuff:

WHY FRUIT TREES ARE GRAFTED

Magnificent online course about grafting Yes, you can get a peach to grow on a plum tree.

PLANT PROPAGATION Magnificent online course from Ohio State University.

Gardening as an anarchist plot. A brilliant site with all manner of practical hands-on things.

 

Avant-Gardening , a New Mexico Organic garden site with an interesting design philosophy

 

 Huge page of resources having to do with homesteading, food storage, tools etc. The Walton Feed Pages

 

 

Yet more reasons to avoid factory food:

Hidden agenda in food irradiation? Section on food irradiation is 1/2 down the article.

It is true that if a food irradiation industry can be created, it will soon sop up all available cesium-137, and thus create a demand for more. This would require the government to start releasing the cesium which would become the responsibility of states, thus relieving the federal government of an enormous radwaste problem. processing nuclear waste as a food treatment, instead of burying it in the ground somewhere...

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