Man…sat at Gold Standard this morning and watched the election drama go down. The sheer number of Muhammad supporters wondering around the neighborhood — I passed multiple vans — as well as the collection of folks outside the polls was impressive. And sad. So frickin’ sad.

I can only hope that each of these individuals has been politically active BEFORE today, that this new “activism” has not been activated by money alone. It’s a smart political move — take on incumbents in elections that don’t necessarily see a big turnout — but it’s revolting to think that this infusion of money will actually work.

What’s sad is that the money spent supporting Muhammad would buy the Philadelphia Reads book for every high school student in West Philadelphia. And if you were to start adding up the rest of the money spent across the state…

I’d always thought of myself as a hack gardener because I didn’t plant from seeds. I’d usually buy a bunch of plants at the PIC plant sale and/or the various big box stores. Sometimes they’d do well and sometimes not so much…

I thought about starting plants indoors but I couldn’t find anyone who had a lot of success with this process or at least anyone who didn’t have a full (read:expensive) set up. I’m sure it’s possible.

Today we went out to plant. I dutifully looked in my square foot garden book and felt like I did a pretty good job helping the kids sink the pole bean seeds 1″ deep and 2″ apart. We planted near a trellis that I’d already mounted. Easy when the seeds are big (the Kentucky Wonder Pole and the Climbing French “pole beans”) but when we went out front to plant the basil seeds…a different story. How are you supposed to “plant” these? We made two long furrows about 1/4″ deep, tried to sprinkle the seeds in, and then covered with some compost mixed with dirt. (Picture below). We put the chicken wire on to keep the cat away.

I guess when you get 250 seeds for $1.75, you hope that you get ten good plants and you’re still waaaayy ahead of a trip to Lowe’s.

Anyway, April 20th: pole beans planted, two rows of basil planted.

Coda: We had an awesome architect come to school to talk about food, gardening, and building design. His major point: we can recognize almost any brand name, millions of different structures, but usually have no idea what a particular plant looks like. I realized that if I were confronted by twelve seeds I’d have no chance on most of them; who knew that Basil seeds would be so frickin’ tiny. And I haven’t even opened the carrot packet yet which is scary ’cause I’ve heard those are even smaller.

Re-reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma with my students and got to thinking: yeah, I can try and eat real food, not food-like substances. But I thought about another approach that might be helpful:

Don’t bring anything contained in plastic into your house.

For us, this would mean the following:

we would have to buy our meat at a butcher so it would come wrapped in paper. Not easy but between Whole Wallet and Wegmans, we could probably do it.

we would have to buy our bread at a bakery. We have two terrific bakeries within a mile of our house — Four Worlds and Metropolitan — so that’s within range. Of course, we’d have to convince our kids to eat bread with “things in it” but again, possible.

fruits and vegetables are probably the easiest and the no plastic prohibition would encourage this because these can be bought loose. We love orange juice but I’m betting I could find enough juice oranges to make this work because orange juice is expensive. Or we could just buy orange juice in a glass container.

pasta — harder. Almost all the pasta we buy comes in a box with a plastic sleeve. I have a pasta machine but I am not making pasta on a regular basis. Have to check the packaging next time I’m in the store — does at least one pasta company trust that people know the difference between vermicelli and spaghetti enough to have all cardboard packaging — or see if there’s a place to buy dry pasta (I don’t think our local coop has enough dry pasta to pull this off) We could buy rice in big sacks — do those sacks have a big of plastic in them — so that’s within range.

Then we’re left with all the snack foods — pretzels, dried bagel chips, chips, granola bars — which we could certainly, certainly live without. Some, like granola bars and bagel chips, I could make with enough free time. And none of these foods are necessary.

Not only would this approach help with eating, it would address our trash each week. Even after recycling and composting, we still have a single garbage can that we manage to fill up each week. Some of that is cat litter, some of it is wasted food that I can’t compost, but nearly all of it is non-recyclable plastic.

Just an idea that I’m sure someone else had first.

“Let me underscore the obvious here: Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings. Following complex story lines stretches our brains beyond the 140 characters of sound-bite thinking, and staying within the world of a novel gives us the ability to be quiet and alone, two skills that are disappearing faster than the polar icecaps.”

Here.

“Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.”

Mark Twain, too lazy/tired to look for the original source.

I went to Greensgrow which was every bit as awesome as its reputation. I’m trying to grow as many different kinds of basil as I can in the front yard — in the house where pesto is an automatic in at dinner time, basil is king — and I picked up two plants from them. Called Valentino Basil, it looks a bit more crinkly than Genovese but not quite as wild as the Basil Lettuce Leaf I’ve ordered from Seed Savers. Once I’ve got those plants going, I’m going to try and get a plant from each of the big box stores to see how they all compare. As I find other nurseries, I’ll add them to the mix. With about 45 square feet, I’ve got plenty of room for many, many plants.

Unfortunately, I did see a cat doing some business in my fresh soil. I’m going to try chicken-wire on top of the dirt, which supposedly keeps the cats away.

And I got a bunch of lettuces that had already been started (picture in the raised bed below). I got two “Read Sail”, two green leaf, and one funkily named green leaf that I’ll record tomorrow. I like the idea of having lettuce that you can pick regularly and eat right away. I like that the seed packets all say “sow continuously.”

One worry: my soil, which was supposed to be a mix of mushroom soil and top soil, was crusty this evening. I know that we’ve had no rain but still, I though the mix would provide enough “stuff” to keep the soil from drying this way. I need to get busy with my compost; I feel as though last year’s pile is good for flowers but that the new bin, where I’ve been very careful about what’s gone into it, won’t be ready for awhile. May have to buy some compost…

Flowers: I’m going to try and grow a range of sunflowers in the big pots in the back but I also picked up some PANSIES — SUPREME clear blue sky and SUPREME yellow — for the pots up front. Planted them very close together with the thought that I would have to regularly add compost to keep them healthy.
We’ll see if they survive Easter Weekend without being stolen.

Last thing: got some great deals at the Re-store on some gardening stuff. Two tall trellises I want to use for beans and cukes for $4 each!

I have an awesome neighbor. He’s done many things, from serving in the navy to playing sax in a funk band to developing an inexpensive way to install a solar array on Philadelphia area homes. And sometime in the next few years, we’ll invest the sweat equity and put the panels on our roof.

In the meantime, we switched over to The Energy Coop for our electricity. We picked the all renewable plan which will mean that we’ll pay between eight and fifteen more dollars each month but that all of our energy will be produced through renewable sources (they have a cool graph here) as opposed to PECO where almost 50% of the energy is generated by coal.

When I called with questions, I was struck by how many of my questions were political in nature. The nuts and bolts aren’t that complicated — they take over the generation and transmission charge while PECO continues to be bill for distribution — but I wanted to know why more people wouldn’t make this switch. For $100-150 a year more, you could support an organization that’s trying to build an alternative infrastructure and one whose energy source has a much, much smaller environmental footprint. In terms of my great neighbor, doesn’t it make more sense to support an organization that’s affecting change across PA as opposed to financing and putting together my own power system, one that will really only serve me? What responsibility does a community have to each other, i.e., why couldn’t blocks organize around this issue? Why is the only reason most folks switch because of cost? What kind of campaign could get families and companies to think about these issues?

Man…

what’s best?

Living in a city with a far-sighted water department?
Attending a well-organized, informative session about how to use rain barrels?
Seeing 70+ of your fellow citizens show up in a church to attend such a session?

Yeah Philly…

Built the water barrel myself ($30 for a food grade barrel (found a better source since) plus about $11 in plumbing materials). Going to string chicken wire over the PVC and try and grow the three sisters here…

Mikhail Khodorkovsky:

To cut a deal with one’s conscience — to lie, keep quiet, “not notice,” hiding behind the claim that it’s “for my family.” To convince oneself that “such are the times,” or that “everyone does it.” Who are we really dealing with? How do we find out that the other party — the conscience — refuses to deal? When we find ourselves face to face with disaster? Or later, when we are tallying up our life and become painfully aware that there’s no more dodging the raindrops, that there remain only memories? But by then you can’t change anything

Full article here.